How about having two very Liberal republics both in France and the recently unified Germany after 1848 which are forced to ally due to the Russian and Austrian hatred?
AHC/WI: Allemagne, mon amour!
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1848 was a mirage on germany, prussian would have crushed when they wanted and did in OTL, only in france 48 was sucessful and nappy iii cop outed it out anyway. Plus A republican france would still have imperial delusion as OTL.
Well, wouldn't getting rid of these illusions be a nice POD?
Actually, I'm not 100% sure about the absolute dedication to these illusions because they somehow managed to get together with the unwillingness to pay for a big army. But let's say that starting from the post-Napoleonic times the subsequent French governments (monarchies, republic, empire, does not really matter) are completely dedicated to the colonial expansion and resulting (peaceful but armed) competition with the Brits. Combining this program with the irrelevant affairs like helping Italians against Austria, getting into war with Russia, getting involved in Mexico is not working so they are butterflied off and the national obsession is getting more land in Africa and Indo-China plus the looting activities in China along the OTL lines (in alliance with Britain). "France to the French and Germany to the Germans!" and the imperial ambitions are satisfied with having a huge colonial empire. France tries to grab as much of Africa as possible before the competition kicks in. When Ismail Pasha becomes Wāli of Egypt and Sudan in 1863 and starts making noises about the Suez Canal, France (instead of the OTL arbitration by Little Nappy) invades and either forces Ismail to give away the ownership or installs its puppet as a new ruler. The national agenda is to control all Mediterranean African coast and from that base expand Southwards. Add to this the efforts needed for colonization of Indo-China and France simply does not have resources for looking toward the Rhine. Within that schema the good relations with Prussia and then Germany became logical: while Austria may be some kind of an obstacle on the Med (small but nonetheless) , Germany is most definitely not a Mediterranean state so there are no conflicting interests and in a longer term the growing German economic competition with the GB just strengthening this tie because for France the Brits are also the competitors (mostly colonial).
Yes, in OTL Little Nappy was a huge problem for France so he should be either gone or to be provided with a new personality.
This mighht bring the anger of britain, there a reason why little napy was such pro british.
Prussia always wanted a kleindeutchland,if they pull it as otl would not give a damn about the medditeranean.
AFAIK, Little Nappy was pro-British because they were holding him for a sucker: gave an official recognition and generously allowed to fight their war and to suffer the main expenses and losses. The practical side of the issue, as I see it, would be the British willingness and ability to go to a major war with France over the issue of Suez Canal if France does not monopolize it. "A contemporary British skeptic claimed "One thing is sure... our local merchant community doesn't pay practical attention at all to this grand work, and it is legitimate to doubt that the canal's receipts... could ever be sufficient to recover its maintenance fee. It will never become a large ship's accessible way in any case." " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal#Construction_(1859–1869) and in 1869 canal was opened under the French control and International Commission of Constantinople established a specific kind of net tonnage and settling the question of tariffs in its protocol of 18 December 1873. Strictly speaking, the only thing the French needed was to buy 44% of the shares owned by Ismail in 1875 (or a big part of that amount) and maintain a formal control over it. The Brits invaded Egypt only in 1882 to squash and uprising. With the dominant French ownership the canal would be (as an OTL) neutral zone controlled by the international company with a prevailing French ownership (not even necessary of the French government, the private shareholders would be OK). If the "natives" rebelled, then their suppression would fit just fine into the accepted schema of dealing with such accidents: they should be defeated and one of the "civilized" countries (France) should oversee the affairs of Egypt so that canal keeps functioning. Everybody is happy.
Exactly. Which produces non-conflicting international interests and even a later alliance against the common competitor.
I think you're selling short, the moment looks france is to conquer EGYPT, britain easily can demand a 'back down and give it to us' and i doubt france would goes to war over it..they could loss that war very likely
I did not say “conquer”: the Brits did not “conquer” it either. The working (not only in Egypt) schema was to have a local ruler who is being overseen (or whatever the appropriate term) by a commissioner (or whoever) from a “civilized nation”. With the canal being open (and some percentage of the British interest in the company administering it) and France already in an alliance with Germany I doubt that the GB would be too eager to stat a war over such an issue.
To quote the OP "How would the world react to Paris and Berlin joining forces? " For the practical purposes this implies alliance and I wrote about the French explicit support in Austro-Prussian war. If it makes you feel better, add explicit alliance in a form of the mutual defense treaty to what was written earlier.
Unironically i just consider both where separated, but if they want an alliance have to be after, the last thing prussia want is to be seeing as a french agent. Or maybe the alliance was early(1848 or after?) so the A-P war was just a german affair, with not nappy having delusions about luxemburgTo quote the OP "How would the world react to Paris and Berlin joining forces? " For the practical purposes this implies alliance and I wrote about the French explicit support in Austro-Prussian war. If it makes you feel better, add explicit alliance in a form of the mutual defense treaty to what was written earlier.
This is a good point: for the strong alliance they have to be the equal partners but this can be accomplished either by the early alliance or by the offer of help made and politely declined. Actually, even the friendly neutrality (as was the case with Russia) could do or the French could engage the Austrians on the Med and/or in Italy. The Little Nappy was not inevitable so this obstacle is not an "objective factor".
Techially they do that OTL and them France demanded luxemburg and use the rhine as expansionist axis, the issue was not prussia..was france herself, heck even bismarck never wanted eltass-lothrigen, he wanted money, a DMZ, and even colonies, was pressure of Bavaria and Baden he have to demand E-L otl.
I know. This is why I was talking mostly about the French side of an issue and specifically about the Little Nappy (and preferably his absence).
Yeah and we need a route work, for example. not nappy III, not france support to savoy or papal states either, they would have to beat austria alone. and so on
I've no idea of how to prevent Nap III, but to take him out there's still Felice Orsini.
IOTL Nap was still convinced by Cavour to intervene in Italy, maybe if both him and wife die (As planned by Orsini.) the following regency wouldn't be inclined to support Italian national ambitions.
Speaking about the regency: Jerome Bonaparte was OTL's choice, followed by Plon-plon (Would likely take his place in 1860.), if both remained determined not to get involved in Italian affairs France would need another space to fight the Austrians (Which the Prussians can provide.).
IOTL Nap was still convinced by Cavour to intervene in Italy, maybe if both him and wife die (As planned by Orsini.) the following regency wouldn't be inclined to support Italian national ambitions.
Speaking about the regency: Jerome Bonaparte was OTL's choice, followed by Plon-plon (Would likely take his place in 1860.), if both remained determined not to get involved in Italian affairs France would need another space to fight the Austrians (Which the Prussians can provide.).
The best way, I think, is to eliminate the Crimean War. Keep Austria and Russia friendly with each other and prevent France's semi-rapprochement with Britain. Both France and Germany would need to have somebody else as their primary enemy for it to work, and if you keep France and Britain at each other's throats while an Austro-Russian Axis is a threat to Germany, circumstances could well force the two together.
Now, there'd need to be an alternate German unification, possibly Austria trying some heavy-handed unification scheme pisses off the rest of the German states enough that they and Prussia join forces to push the Austrians out of German affairs, but Russian and British pressure prevents them from doing anything else and so Austria remains a threat and they unite together for mutual protection.
Shortly thereafter France and Germany ally with each other so that they can each focus on their main problem. France's eastern flank would be secured and with Spain in terminal decline, the Netherlands not getting involved on land, and even a hypothetical Italian state running into perfect defensive terrain in the Alps, Britain's usual strategy of "get a continental proxy to do the work" runs into a snag in that the major continental proxies they could use in Austria and Russia would have to go through Germany to get to France. That lets France focus much more heavily on its navy in order to directly challenge the British.
Similarly, with the western flank secure and France focusing on Britain, Germany only needs a navy good enough to bottle up the Russians in the Baltic and is free to focus all of their attention to the east. Once that arrangement between the two of them is formed, they would complement each other well enough that it would be difficult to break.
Now, there'd need to be an alternate German unification, possibly Austria trying some heavy-handed unification scheme pisses off the rest of the German states enough that they and Prussia join forces to push the Austrians out of German affairs, but Russian and British pressure prevents them from doing anything else and so Austria remains a threat and they unite together for mutual protection.
Shortly thereafter France and Germany ally with each other so that they can each focus on their main problem. France's eastern flank would be secured and with Spain in terminal decline, the Netherlands not getting involved on land, and even a hypothetical Italian state running into perfect defensive terrain in the Alps, Britain's usual strategy of "get a continental proxy to do the work" runs into a snag in that the major continental proxies they could use in Austria and Russia would have to go through Germany to get to France. That lets France focus much more heavily on its navy in order to directly challenge the British.
Similarly, with the western flank secure and France focusing on Britain, Germany only needs a navy good enough to bottle up the Russians in the Baltic and is free to focus all of their attention to the east. Once that arrangement between the two of them is formed, they would complement each other well enough that it would be difficult to break.
Even them, Bismarck would not help them, if there a austro-prussian war would be independant of italian entaglement as bismarck could not care less, bismarck pushed the war when he could won it and would do it anyway.
The thing is france was still obssesed as the rhine as natural border...that is why france as germany friend is hard to asb
Were the french royalists who supported the Orleans or Bourbon dynasties also obsessed with the rhine border? If they weren't we could either set the Pod a few years back or as OP did specify second half of the 19th century have Napoleon III toppled earlier or without the Franco-German war and replaced with the Orleans/the last actual Bourbon. I don't think that Germany and France can be allies if the founding myth of Germany includes defeating France so we'd need a different reason for Württemberg and Bavaria to join the NGF/the empire (the NGF and the empire were basically the same states organisation-wise) while Baden would join it anyway.