As the title says, OTL Germany as a nation unified as one nation in 1871. But what happens if Prussia have succeeded in uniting Germany much earlier than 1871?
AHC/WI: Earlier German unification under Prussia?
- Thread starter EmperorBuaya
- Start date
New Hampshire
Banned
Have them be more succesful against Napoleon, and the Austrians get destroyed by him.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
Yah... I wouldent bet on this. The Prussian army in early 19th century is a walking museum piece in terms of equipment and technique and their relative size of economy and manpower pool is dinky. You'd need a set of loaded dice to keep rolling that good.
Assuming the Turks can vassalize/hold Vienna (possible) but even then why would the Germanies look to poor, dinky Brandenburg for their hegemon? There are plenty of other candidates: Saxony for instance, or even a decentralized Federal structure under an elected HRE
They won't as first, as I said it's France at first but they don't care as much about protecting the germans as much as putting them under french influence. It will be a tolerated evil, but an unwelcome one. They might give Saxony a got to the emperorship, but they're not doing super great in the late 1600's either.
Prussia on the other hand is rapidly rising militarily, assuming it evolves the same way as otl. A couple of decades later they'll certainly be strong enough to challenge any other german state for emperorship.
Also this isn't an expert analys or anything, just a suggestion for a possible scenario.
Until they completely overhauled it after Jena, to the point they raised almost 300,000 men schooled and organized in the new system with half the territory and a third the economic assets of their former kingdom; even before, the military reform movement was gaining ground, though without the time for the improvements to really set in. Still, Prussia had a considerable army in 1806, and confederates in Germany who could provide still more men. A more advantageous opening to the war (less political dithering, more resolute military advance) could have forced the French to regroup behind the Rhine, though attacks on cantonments don't actually destroy forces as effectively as major battles. The moral impact of the French being driven from Germany though could be immense.
Taking a different tack from the previous posters, you could have Prussia ally with France, and a Prussia-led German Confederation is set up (Nappy decides to be a bit more subtle for whatever reason). Over time, this might morph into a what is a unified German state, practically speaking.
FW4 rejects Austrian demands at Olmutz. War breaks out in 1850. If Prussia wins, a German Union is set under Prussia.
I'm just posting this link below as I did it a few moments ago in a thread on Prussian weakness during that time period. Anyways, we would certainly need dates to refer to to which time in this dynamic period they were becoming outdated, but his points on Brandenburg-Prussia not having the populatoin base and economy for both defeating defeating Napoleon and the Austrians certainly stands. After all, how much of northern Germany and Poland did they actually conquer to begin with? They got Hanover when the French gave it to them, and they had the Holy Roman Emperor, the Russian Czar, and the King of Poland helping them to dismember Poland.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jena–Auerstedt
Both pretty unlikely to happen...
Almost impossible as you need a Prussia so strong to both persuade the other states to join her and destroy Austria and is unlikely they can get either earlier...
If you want an earlier unification of Germany the best way is keeping the focus of the Habsburg on Germany instead of having it shift to south-east...
Uhm, no? First of all, Prussia didn't become a rising military power until the reforms of Frederick William I, which doesn't happen before 1713, 3 decades after Vienna falls. That's way too late make make people look at Brandenburg-Prussia for leadership. Secondly, the Habsburgs wouldn't be gone after Vienna falls, they'd still be holding out in Bohemia and Silesia. There are also plenty of other German states that were relevant at the time like Saxony and Bavaria. And outside the empire there wasn't just France but also Sweden, the PLC, Habsburg Spain, etc.
Not that this matters anyway, the Ottomans capturing Vienna would butterfly everything away and unless a massive coalition beats them back the they would prevent a unified Germany. But if a coalition beats them back that'd just strengthen the habsburgers again and then we're back in a similar situation as the one we started out with.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
Old Fritz's methoidolgy had hardened around and ossified tactics and military organization relative to the other Great Power armies who's at least somewhat surpassed the religious devotion to drill, the mid-18th century conflicts had burned through the preparatory work and reserves that allowed her to overclock her military for her size during those periods (needed to mobalize a percentage of her population significantly larger than the other great powers to field a similarly size army), which made it extremely difficult to keep equipment up to date for their full feild force, to point out a few factors. Prussia always had good TIMING for leveraging temporary advantages over her rivals (Austrian Succession War and Austrian Prussian War, for example, where both launched during a window when Prussia had completed military reforms and upgrades while Austria was still in transition), and certainly was good in staff work to concentrate force when she was the one taking Iniative even when she became Germany, but is hardly a universal eternal military machine and often fumble when forced to be reactive rather than proactive.