Migrating towards Silesia and Saxony are of course options, but don't ignore the possibility of them leaving Prussia and maybe even Germany all together! Maybe ITTL there's more Prussians emigrating to the US, for example, or South America.
According to the Wikipedia article about the Ostflucht, the US lost attraction as a destination for the people of Polish Prussia once it stopped giving free land to settlers in 1893. That's a pretty long time after the PoD, however, and certainly long after the height of the Ruhr Boom. I think you might be correct in assuming that there'd be increased immigration to the Americas ITTL.
I wonder if more parts of Silesia could end up with a Polish majority ITTL anyway though.
Maybe a "anything but Catholicism" attitude will emerge, maybe not. Since I don't see Prussia ITTL in a position to unify all of Kleindeutschland, just trying to keep Catholic influences out could be enough for the Hohenzollerns.
That sounds very likely, but keep in mind that even if they don't succeed in unifying Germany, they're still going to have to deal with the heavily Catholic Polish population. They can't just pretend that Catholics only live outside of Prussia.
Considering the many situations where the dual system of the German Confederation nearly collapsed, I can definitely see the lack of Saxony between Prussia and Austria to cause an earlier, more intense falling out.
I wonder how that would turn out. OTL, the Prussian military was in decline until the reforms of the 1850s, and there was a growing anti-war sentiment in the population in general, a sentiment that was only turned around thanks to the series of victories in the 1860s. Austria might well win such an earlier falling out, assuming the Prussian military follows a similar path as OTL.
Personally I'd like to see the Rhineland ITTL as part of a South German Union, basically covering everything south of Hannover and the Thuringian statelets (so that the two Lippe principalities and the Hessian states are South German), while the remainder falls into the Prussian orbit.
That's more or less what I was thinking as well, though I am inclined to agree with JCVocke regarding Hanover.
Agreed, but I assume the new "German" territories, who have a relatively large amount of protestants will remain loyal to the Netherlands. So this increases the strength of the Netherlands, so they might be able to keep more territories under Dutch control. The Netherlands might be able to keep all of Limburg and/or Antwerp. That said, it probably depends on the layout of the new provinces in the Netherlands. For example I could see Cleves and Gueldres (including northern and middle Limburg) be fused into 1 province.
That sounds like a good province layout. What would the fused province be called though?
Without the Prussians all of Luxemburg will probably be lost, even in the unlikely case it ends up Dutch.
Lost to Belgium in the event of a successful uprising, or lost to someone else?
I know we've been going back and forth regarding Luxemburg a lot, but if not the Netherlands, who would get it?
I'm not so sure that would be the case. Historically Hanover sided with Austria, and lost their country over it. They sided with Austria despite the factors you mention still being in place and, arguably, being even strong since historically they controlled much of the territory lying directly between the two chunks of Prussia.
I think this Hanover would, especially if it is enlarged as the last map suggested would be firmly in the Austrian Camp, as would the new Rhenish State. Historically all of the large German States chose Austria, because a distant Austria preserving the loose German Confederation is better for them than a Close Prussia creating a German Empire.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Prussia now having a history of outright annexing another medium-sized German state isn't exactly a point in its favor either. Hanover is still going to be a potentially juicy target for future Prussian expansionism due to the reasons Iserlohn mentioned though.
I meant the saxon Rhineland, yeah
it's hard to figure out; but the only significant German state that DID border the Netherlands (namely Prussia) was repeatedly willing to intervene in Dutch politics (in the late 1700's) and supposedly planned to intervene against the Belgians too. The Saxons might, too.
Rhineland, being a Catholic state ruled by a Catholic king, might feel a bit conflicted in aiding the Protestant Netherlands in suppressing a rebellion which was, in part, motivated by religious conflict. What pompejus said about them not really caring much about Dutch politics sounds about right too.
Would this new arrangement change anything in the Polish Revolution? If it takes place at a different time or is butterflied away entirely the Russian Army will march to aid King Willem I.
Interesting. Do you have a source on that?
The Polish Revolution would not necessarily change much, but the sum of the changes in the east and the west might result in both the Belgian and Polish revolutions taking place at different times.
How would a Russian move so far west be seen in Britain? Could the revolt lead to a bigger European war in this scenario?
@ Pompejus: IMHO Luxembourg probably becomes Saxon ITTL. They won't have the longest border with France, but by giving them Luxembourg did well share some of the burden.
Giving Luxemburg to the Saxons means less of Westphalia for the Saxons, which in turn means there's more land I don't really know what to do with, since giving too much land to Hanover is out of the question. I guess giving more land to the Netherlands, as suggested earlier in the thread, is a possibility, but that raises the question of why they didn't just get Luxemburg instead to begin with.
Wasn't the reason Prussia ended up with the Rhineland so that France would be forced to confront a major German state on the Rhine? Without that, are the Congress Powers satisfied with having a few weak states, a middling Netherlands and a Saxon king who chose to aid France arrayed against potential French expansionism?
Seems to me like they'd want more assurances, like giving Austria back her South German holdings or giving the Palatinate to someone more powerful than Bavaria.
I would think that you would need either Austria or Prussia in the Rhine region.
Perhaps Austrian Luxembourg or Austrian Palatinate, Bavaria gets other land in compensation such a keeping parts of Tirol and Vorarlberg.
Well, I see that the purpose of the TL is to keep Prussia East of the Weser. So what about an enlarged Austrian presence, perhaps in compensation for Prussian Saxony, in the Upper Rhine? Chunks of Switzerland?
Interesting idea. If memory serves, Austria and Prussia actually seriously considered forcing France to cede Alsace, or at least the part that was originally Austrian, back to Austria after the Hundred Days. Other territories of the original Habsburg Vorlande were to be returned to Austria as well, with the South German states in question receiving appropriate compensation. The idea was to create a strong Austrian military presence at the French border.
Perhaps something like this, though it might be a little excessive: (France cedes Alsace, but keeps Lorraine)
Given that Prussia got Saxony, it could be implied that France had a weaker hand in the negotiations (Someone other than Talleyrand?), so something like this *could* work.
I'm also wondering what Prussia's compensation for losing her territory in Poland is, as she initially held everything West of the Vistula IIRC. I'm just not sure if the Great Powers will be satisfied with this balance of power, it favours Russia and France far too much for either Austria or Britain's liking, while Prussia is happy about Saxony. Is Sardinia still receiving her gains in Italy?
Prussia still gets Posen on top of Saxony and Swedish Pomerania, so I'd say they get a decent amount of territory for what they lost. If you have any suggestions for other territories east of the Weser they might acquire, do tell.
Sardinia is still receiving their gains in Italy, and I also considered letting them have parts of Valais to boot. Haven't decided what to do with Italy yet though.
Well I found these maps here and here:
The Netherlands and its new borders, as proposed in Willem Frederik's memorandum of 9 November 1813.
PLATE 4: The Prussian ideas about the territory of the new Netherlands state, as formulated by chancellor Hardenberg on 29 April 1814. In these plans the Netherlands would become a member of the German Confederation. Comparison with Plate 4 clearly shows the conflicting territorial aspirations between Prussia and the Netherlands.
Thanks, I hadn't seen those maps before. I knew roughly what William wanted, but I didn't know it was quite that ambitious.
It would be interesting to see what Prussia's conception of how Europe should be organized was versus Austria's conception, and Britain's conception and Russia's conception at the Congress of Vienna
Yeah, I'd like to see that as well.
Furhter as is mentioned before in this thread, Bavaria joined the winning side in time while the King of Saxony was in the losing camp, so why borther to give him a new kingdom.
Can it be that Prussia and Rissia made deal iwth each other which infuriate Metternich
The idea was that Prussia had to make concessions to Austria (etc.) in order to get all of Saxony, which in this case meant the Kingdom of Rhineland for the Saxon king.