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In a Spring of Nations TL, can a liberal-ish France and a Frankfurt Diet Grossdeutschland remain allies as the center of a proto-EU. I'm assuming a united Italy, an independent Hungary, and a Habsburg collapse. A united Scandinavia is optional, as is Galicia and Congress Poland successfully rebelling.

With the cause of the Nations and Liberalism largely successful, can these states avoid their irredentist claims on one another leading to outright rupture? Or are sticking point like Alsace-Lorraine and Trieste inevitably going to lead to conflict?

Can we see a common market and full military alliance emerge?

Do the Continental powers still seek a colonial empire? I'd imagine that at least France does, and probably Germany and Italy as well, but perhaps they can cooperate pretty closely.

How would Britain react to such a power bloc? Is it a direct threat, or can they work with them, as they did with Napoleon III IOTL?

Russia? Particularly with an independent Poland in the bloc, I imagine it feels deeply threatened; but they likely won't feel too confident even if they gain Galicia. Can the powers cooperate on carving up the roast in the Balkans? Might be the only way to keep Russia chummy. Or does Russia seek a British entente?

The United States? I presume they're not all that focused on the situation - other than the wave of immigrants - but they're probably pretty happy to see liberalism triumph overseas. Maybe they even seek an anti-British alliance under the right circumstances.

Does the Netherlands join the emerging power bloc, or do they balance their interests, given their trading ties to Britain?

Do the powers hope to divide Belgium and Switzerland? Or, as in the Latin Monetary Union IOTL, are they brought in as sovereign partners?

I imagine the Spanish are destabilized by all this liberalism north of the Pyrenees, and we might even see liberal adventurers in Iberia whenever the next civil war breaks out. Or can Spain evolve into sort of a last stand for European absolutism?

How do the Balkans react? I'm guessing Greece, as well as Romanian, Serbian, and (to a lesser extent) Bulgarian nationalists are trying to utilize the lessons of 1848 to achieve their own national unifications. The Continentals are likely sympathetic, especially to the Greeks; as are the Russians and British, for their own divergent reasons. But the British will probably come down in support of the Turks in order to keep the straits out of either Continental or Russian hands.
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