alternatehistory.com

I originally posted this on another thread (about Prussia absorbing Austria), but it wasn't really germane to that topic, so I thought I'd create another thread.

And feel free to come up with any other scenarios for Austria uniting Germany as well. No POD limit, except that "Austria" and "Germany" have to recognizably resemble their OTL counterparts.

Napoleon III is either more imperialistic (France falls under some sort of other right-wing imperialist government) and intervenes in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. The Franco-Austrian alliance inflicts a major defeat against Prussia, which is effectively pared down to just historic Prussia, Brandenburg, and Pommeriania. Austria gets Silesia back, and France, in a moment of cleverness, gives the Rhineland and Westphalia to Bavaria (thus greatly enlarging Bavaria but also giving it a long border vulnerable to France-France hopes this threat will force Bavaria to ally with them, thus giving them a friendly and relatively powerful German state to work with). France annexes Saarland and gets a promise from Austria and Bavaria not to interfere should it try to aquire Luxembourg from the Netherlands. Bavaria and Austria kick Prussia out of the German Confederation and, in order to protect against any Prussian revanchism, strengthen it into a "German Union", with a common foreign policy, free trade area, common navy, and common army command during wartime. On paper it's somewhat similar to the OTL German Empire, however unlike the German Empire, which was dominated by Prussia, the German Union is much more of a partnership between Bavaria (+Rhineland) and Austria, with all this entails-both states maintain separate armies, and any major decision has to have the consent of both the Bavarian king and the Austrian Emperor (the head of the Union). Complicating this further is Austria's Hungarian appendage, which (similar to OTL), gets a parliament and self-rule in internal affairs, while its military and foreign policy remain controlled by Austria. The massive disaster in Prussia causes an attempted revolution, which almost succeeds in toppling the government before Russia intervenes and puts it down.

Howver, *Napoleon III's successor is much less clever than he is. After 1866, France is seen-by itself and the rest of the world-as the single most powerful state in Europe and in the late 19th century this begins to go to its head-France begins a large naval and army buildup, entertains schemes of annexing Belgium and the Rhineland, and allies with Russia (mad at Austria/Germany, for OTL reasons). Britain, searching for a way to contain French and Russian power, turns to the two-headed monster sitting in between them, and the German Union gradually becomes Britain's closest ally on the European continent.

Eventually, this all leads to alt-WWI, with France and Russia on one side and Germany, Britain, and the Ottomans on the other. Germany's army isn't as strong as OTL (its essentially a hodgepodge of small state armies, Austria's and Bavaria's being the largest), but on the other hand, Britain still has the strongest navy in the world and can blockade France and Russia. France's armies penetrate deep into Germany before the offense stalls out, and like OTL, the two become ground down in trench warfare (on the eastern Front, Germany, with British help, has much more success against Russia). The war proves to be a "baptism of fire" for German nationalism, as Germans from every state fight to keep their fatherland safe from France and Russia. At the same time, the inefficiancies of Germany's army(s) become very obvious to most of the soldiers, who gradually begin to chafe at the Austrian and Bavarian aristocrats commanding them. In Hungary the war occaisions a great deal of resentment, as thousands of Hungarians (serving in the Austrian-and thus German-military) die for what seems to them a primarily German cause, that they had no say in.

After five years, the British/German alliance wins the war, though its about as destructive as OTL-WWI was. German and Hungarian troops come home and demobilize, and Hungary soon deposes the Austrian emperor as its king. Austrian attempts to call up its army to deal with this meet with mutinies and riots (everyone's sick of war, and as most Austrians have come to think of themselves as German, preserving Hapsburg Hungary isn't a cause that excites them all that much) which soon snowball into a full-scale revolt against Hapsburg monarchism, one that soon spreads to the rest of the German Union and Prussia. All the crowned heads of Germany are sent packing, and the Hapsburg empire disolves, with Hungary and Croatia becoming independent. The "German Union" is replaced by a Republican "German Federation", including Prussia.
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