AHC: personal union between Britain and Prussia

The challenge is to a create an enduring personal union between Prussia and Britain after 1701. I'm talking about close ties here: both countries need to feel like their monarch is the same guy and military, economic and cultural ties as enduring and signifigant as those between England and Scotland.

Also acceptable would be a union between Brandenburg-Prussia and England before 1701.
 
Kill off George II's kids, probably through some combination of childhood illnesses and battle deaths.

If George II has no heirs of his body, the line of succession would then pass to his sister, Sophia, Queen in Prussia (who predeceased George IOTL), then to her son Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.
 
Now make it stick. . . good luck.

Why would Parliament accept this when Hannover, which is considerably less likely to drag Britain off into wars than a Prussian monarch, was unwelcome?

I think that's one of the most serious stumbling blocks. Get through that and you can work on friendship between the two places, but if you don't get it, Parliament is going to deliberately frustrate things.
 
Now make it stick. . . good luck.

Why would Parliament accept this when Hannover, which is considerably less likely to drag Britain off into wars than a Prussian monarch, was unwelcome?

I think that's one of the most serious stumbling blocks. Get through that and you can work on friendship between the two places, but if you don't get it, Parliament is going to deliberately frustrate things.

Perhaps through a moderating British influence? Frederick the Great did a great deal of dragging Britain into wars without the help of a personal union.
 
Perhaps through a moderating British influence? Frederick the Great did a great deal of dragging Britain into wars without the help of a personal union.

Frederick the Great hardly dragged Britain into wars, Britain used him to keep France occupied and then practically abandoned him. There's a reason why Prussia was hostile to Britain during the American Revolutionary War.
 
Frederick the Great hardly dragged Britain into wars, Britain used him to keep France occupied and then practically abandoned him. There's a reason why Prussia was hostile to Britain during the American Revolutionary War.

Well, at least they paid him.:p
 
Kill off George II's kids, probably through some combination of childhood illnesses and battle deaths.

If George II has no heirs of his body, the line of succession would then pass to his sister, Sophia, Queen in Prussia (who predeceased George IOTL), then to her son Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.


Or kill off George II himself. He fought at the Battle of Oudenarde in 1708. Had he been killed, his only child would have been Prince Frederick, then about a year old. If Fred accompanies his grandfather to England in 1714 (OTL he didn't but he wasn't the immediate heir, as he is TTL) he may catch some illness, or suffer some accident, which OTL he didn't. That leaves George I's daughter Sophia, the Queen of Prussia, as heiress to the throne. After her dath (OTL 1757) we get the personal union.
 
Now make it stick. . . good luck.

Why would Parliament accept this when Hannover, which is considerably less likely to drag Britain off into wars than a Prussian monarch, was unwelcome?

I think that's one of the most serious stumbling blocks. Get through that and you can work on friendship between the two places, but if you don't get it, Parliament is going to deliberately frustrate things.


Trouble is, what's the alternative? The Act of Settlement vests the succession in Electress Sophia an the heirs of her body. After the Hanoverians, that means the Hohenzollerns, and after them no one.

George I won't be willing for his daughter to be disinherited, and the Whigs can't afford a fight over the issue, as any serious disunity is apt to lead to a Jacobite restoration. What they may try to do is vest the succession in one of FtG's younger brothers, though if he is childless as OTL even that only puts off the evil day. My guess is they "hold their noses" and accerpt the personal union. After all, at least Prussia is big enough to be useful partner, rather than a liability as Hanover was.
 
Last edited:
Or kill off George II himself. He fought at the Battle of Oudenarde in 1708. Had he been killed, his only child would have been Prince Frederick, then about a year old. If Fred accompanies his grandfather to England in 1714 (OTL he didn't but he wasn't the immediate heir, as he is TTL) he may catch some illness, or suffer some accident, which OTL he didn't. That leaves George I's daughter Sophia, the Queen of Prussia, as heiress to the throne. After her dath (OTL 1757) we get the personal union.

Amazing! That's a great POD. It might assume a bit, but it gets what's wanted quite quickly. Probably wicked butterflies though. I don't know much about Britain relationship to Hanover, and obviously Prussia would be more important than Hanover... Still not as important as Britain though I suppose. So the King stays in London probably and rules through a proxy? Would a Beelin based king be able to control Britain?

As regards military matters, the English now have a powerful forward base in Northern Europe and the Prussians now have a powerful navy.

Ohh another thought; would this make oppressed Prussians more likely to emigrate overseas? Would we see an even larger prescense of Germans in North America?
 
Kill off George II's kids, probably through some combination of childhood illnesses and battle deaths.

If George II has no heirs of his body, the line of succession would then pass to his sister, Sophia, Queen in Prussia (who predeceased George IOTL), then to her son Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.

Bugger! I could have used that in my time line! Oh well - to far on with the rewrite to change things now.
 
I think this challenge is based on a mistake : the idea that Britain would be stronger if it were united with Prussia.

If there had been such a union, I think Prussia might not havé developed its characteristics of a military state which made its strength.

Like Hanover, Prussia would have been more a liability than an asset for Britain because it would have forced Britain to fight on land in Europe as well as on the seas to protect the british islands.

If so, then you have all catholic Europe united against Britain-Prussia : France, Spain, Austria.

And you can add Sweden.
 
I think this challenge is based on a mistake : the idea that Britain would be stronger if it were united with Prussia.

If there had been such a union, I think Prussia might not havé developed its characteristics of a military state which made its strength.

The drastic upsizing of the Prussian army already happened under Frederick William I. (often called the Soldatenkönig - Soldier-King) who reigned from 1713 until 1740. As Frederick the Great was also quite fond of the army I think that there still would be a rather large army.
 
Yes. But what if the union happens before 1713 ?

And what if this upsizing is due to Prussia staying on its own ?

What I meant is that 1+1 is going to give less than 2.

You can have a very efficient white shark. You can have an efficient wolf.

But will you manage to crossbreed the shark and the wolf ? I doubt of it.
 
Top