DBAHC: Prevent the decline of Prussia

Prussia rose high and fell hard. What was in its heyday a great power of Europe is now just another constituent kingdom of the German Federal Empire. The Prussians reached great heights under Frederick the Great, only to be smacked down by Napoleon. Although Napoleon was defeated, Prussia would never really recovered, and they were ultimately defeated by the Austrians and incorporated into the new German Empire. Your challenge, then, is to prevent Prussia from declining; have it remain a strong country, and maybe, as crazy as it sounds, have Prussia unify Germany.
 
Prussia rose high and fell hard. What was in its heyday a great power of Europe is now just another constituent kingdom of the German Federal Empire. The Prussians reached great heights under Frederick the Great, only to be smacked down by Napoleon. Although Napoleon was defeated, Prussia would never really recovered, and they were ultimately defeated by the Austrians and incorporated into the new German Empire. Your challenge, then, is to prevent Prussia from declining; have it remain a strong country, and maybe, as crazy as it sounds, have Prussia unify Germany.

Well, to start with, declaring war on Napoleon was just Prussian folly from which most of the future problems stemmed. Then, faithfully sticking to Napoleon for most of the 1813 was a bad idea because it pretty much prevented them from getting a big reward from the main victors, Russia, Britain, Austria and Saxony (Austria and Saxony joined coalition in the early 1813 and were critical in turning the tide). Of course, loss of Silesia to Austria was a serious blow and the same goes for the territorial losses to the newly created Kingdom of Poland. So, let’s say that Prussia changed the sides in the early 1813, cooperated with the Russians in pushing the French from its territory and continued fighting as a major member of the coalition. Obviously, it would not lose territory and probably would even won some.

Of course, an idea of Prussia unifying Germany is a little bit on a crazy side but if it does not suffer big territorial losses and keeps developing its military, well, the crazier things had been happening.
 
I'll just say it outright. I don't think it is possible, great as Frederick undoubtedly was, he hadn't managed to turn Prussia into a true great power, merely the first of the secondary powers. His conquests did not imbue the Prussian state with enough territory to hold its own as a great power, though it certainly played at being one.

Assuming that Prussia did switch sides earlier in 1813 and does win more land in the peace that followed, what exactly could she gain that could turn her into a great power? I don't see her being rewarded with Saxon territory, and her possessions in the Rhineland are too far away from her core. Prussia had little access to the land that would later become industrialised once the Austrian customs-union began to break down internal tariffs within Germany. Meanwhile Austria had the industrial lands of Bohemia as well as the resources of many non-German regions. I'm not one to say that destiny was what secured Austria the foremost position in Germany, but for all the resources and population she had, she might as well have been destined to unify Germany since before Frederick the Great's time.
 
Alternatively, if you want a later POD you could go for 1851 and the Hapsburg Winter. We tend to take it for granted the Austrians 'unified' Germany, but really it should be understood of them making the best of a bad situation after their dream of balancing hegemony in Germany and South-East Europe collapsed.

People do tend to forget, but the moment that the Austrians moved from the dominant leader 'of, but outside' Germany to being the leader of an Austria within Germany was incredibly dangerous. They tried to portray it as a great national destiny, but it could have fallen flat if they hadn't recognised they were on the verge of disaster and seized triumph instead.

At the- frankly, over mythologised- first Diet of the German People in Frankfurt, it was by no means certain that the first Emperor of Germany would be a Hapsburg. It also wasn't certain there would even be an emperor, but I won't go on one of my tangents about republicanism here. There were various other princes who might have taken the crown. The King of Bavaria had a real chance, as did the Saxons.
As it was, the collapse in Hungary and Venetia convinced Archduke Charles to make a virtue of necessity- but if the Hapsburgs had tried to keep fighting in the rest of the Empire rather than making a show of concentrating on their German possessions, there's a chance that when the dust settled they'd be left with nothing but Austria (and possibly Bohemia) while some other enterprising monarch had got up, made a pretty speech touching on all the Romantic talking points and become Emperor of the German People.But the Saxons and Bavarians blocked each other's chances of taking the prize, the Duke of Baden was never really in the running and the less said about the Hanoverians the better. If the Austrians don't see that they're losing Illyria, Italy and Hungary and that they had to concentrate on what they could still salvage, they might have left an opening for a ruthless Prussia to seize.

So there's a window. Could the Prussians have seized the prize?

It's possible. You'd need a Prussian King liberal enough to go to the Diet, and a chief minister good enough at manipulating people to get his way. Remember, that this is also the one moment when being associated with the Bonapartes wasn't necessarily a bad thing- Napoleon II was returning to Paris for the Six Months of Glory before his assassination saw the Second Republic establish itself as the dominant power west of the Rhine to this day. The Bonapartes had a powerful myth, and while the Hapsburgs have tried to write this out of history there was a sizable strain of German romanticism that thought the Emperor was a great man laid low by hubris,* not the Corsican ogre. It would have been incredibly dangerous for the Prussians to play on their past association, but it could also have got them the support of the only faction of German nationalists who didn't have a candidate at the Diet.

Unlikely? Sure. Impossible? No.




*OOC: I think that in a timeline where the Austrians 'unify' Germany with the resources of many non-Germans that there'd be a strain of Romanticism that saw the Napoleonic period as a battle between the new, vital, exciting revolutionary dynasty- and the old, familiar, archaic Hapsburgs (with their Romanov allies.) Little states having to choose which family they stood with- which side of history they'd stand with, et cetera. You can imagine the legend. It would just be one story among many, of course.
 
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Alternatively, if you want a later POD you could go for 1851 and the Hapsburg Winter. We tend to take it for granted the Austrians 'unified' Germany, but really it should be understood of them making the best of a bad situation after their dream of balancing hegemony in Germany and South-East Europe collapsed.

People do tend to forget, but the moment that the Austrians moved from the dominant leader 'of, but outside' Germany to being the leader of an Austria within Germany was incredibly dangerous. They tried to portray it as a great national destiny, but it could have fallen flat if they hadn't recognised they were on the verge of disaster and seized triumph instead.

At the- frankly, over mythologised- first Diet of the German People in Frankfurt, it was by no means certain that the first Emperor of Germany would be a Hapsburg. It also wasn't certain there would even be an emperor, but I won't go on one of my tangents about republicanism here. There were various other princes who might have taken the crown. The King of Bavaria had a real chance, as did the Saxons.
As it was, the collapse in Hungary and Venetia convinced Archduke Charles to make a virtue of necessity- but if the Hapsburgs had tried to keep fighting in the rest of the Empire rather than making a show of concentrating on their German possessions, there's a chance that when the dust settled they'd be left with nothing but Austria (and possibly Bohemia) while some other enterprising monarch had got up, made a pretty speech touching on all the Romantic talking points and become Emperor of the German People.But the Saxons and Bavarians blocked each other's chances of taking the prize, the Duke of Baden was never really in the running and the less said about the Hanoverians the better. If the Austrians don't see that they're losing Illyria, Italy and Hungary and that they had to concentrate on what they could still salvage, they might have left an opening for a ruthless Prussia to seize.

So there's a window. Could the Prussians have seized the prize?

It's possible. You'd need a Prussian King liberal enough to go to the Diet, and a chief minister good enough at manipulating people to get his way. Remember, that this is also the one moment when being associated with the Bonapartes wasn't necessarily a bad thing- Napoleon II was returning to Paris for the Six Month's Glory before his assassination saw the Second Republic establish itself as the dominant power west of the Rhine to this day. The Bonapartes had a powerful myth, and while the Hapsburgs have tried to write this out of history there was a sizable strain of German romanticism that thought the Emperor was a great man laid low by hubris,* not the Corsican ogre. It would have been incredibly dangerous for the Prussians to play on their past association, but it could also have got them the support of the only faction of German nationalists who didn't have a candidate at the Diet.

Unlikely? Sure. Impossible? No.




*OOC: I think that in a timeline where the Austrians 'unify' Germany with the resources of many non-Germans that there'd be a strain of Romanticism that saw the Napoleonic period as a battle between the new, vital, exciting revolutionary dynasty- and the old, familiar, archaic Hapsburgs (with their Romanov allies.) Little states having to choose which family they stood with- which side of history they'd stand with, et cetera. You can imagine the legend. It would just be one story among many, of course.
I guess the thing is that this would have meant a Hohenzollern on the throne of Germany, but it still would have meant a weak Prussia within Germany, and Austria as the dominant power, given their control of Bohemia and Silesia. Plus, I can't see how the Hohenzollerns would have been able to get away without complying with the Bonaparte faction's demand for elective monarchy; Prussia was definitely the weakest state being considered.
 
Absolutely- it could very well be that a Prussian 'victory' at the Diet leads to them enjoying a decade of success before political gravity reassures itself. But depending on how badly Austria falls apart- and I agree that it's fairly unlikely that they lose Bohemia and Silesia- it's possible that Prussia could gradually solidify their position.

Hmm. Bohemia is a sticking point. Perhaps for this scenario to work you need the Prague Rising to last longer than the... what, a week?.... that it managed in our timeline. Mind you, at that point you're at a full Austria screw rather than a Prussia-wank.
 
Of course Bismarck was born in Saxony. If Prussia did wind up annexing part or all of Saxony as a result of a different Napoleonic wars, you could have had the Iron Chancellor in Berlin instead of Vienna!
 
What would a hypothetical Germany unified by Prussia instead of Austria look like? For starters, it would probably be more centralized.
 
How likely do you think was 1848 ending with a German Republic?
Not likely at all. You'd need French support for Heckart and Struve, which wouldn't be possible until they became a Republic in 1851. So I guess you'd need the July Monarchy replaced with a Republic from the get go instead of the Second Empire. Shame about that; had it lasted France and Germany could have been friends given Napoleon II's connection to the Habsburgs. I mean, they were still allies of convenience against the British, but whatever.
 
1848 was a bit of a misfire, hence everyone who's ever taken a European history paper having to write the essay on why 1851 exploded when three years earlier all that happened was idealistic young men in puffy shirts getting their deaths turned into an opera.*

I really don't think there was any chance of unification in 1848, much less a Republican revolution. The uprising never took over Baden, let alone spread from it. A better bet would be for the cooler heads to prevail, so that the German Republicans have their best leaders alive and vocal at the time of the 1851 Diet- but on the other hand, without the scare of 1848 would so many of the German states have taken the Diet seriously? It's often been argued that the great legacy of the Badanese Revolution was that it scared the German Princes into polishing their nationalist credentials.






*OOC: I was setting up 1851's 'Hapsburg Winter' as TTL's 'Spring of Nations,' so I like to think that in this timeline the equivalent to Les Miserables is about the Baden Uprising.
 
1848 was a bit of a misfire, hence everyone who's ever taken a European history paper having to write the essay on why 1851 exploded when three years earlier all that happened was idealistic young men in puffy shirts getting their deaths turned into an opera.*

I really don't think there was any chance of unification in 1848, much less a Republican revolution. The uprising never took over Baden, let alone spread from it. A better bet would be for the cooler heads to prevail, so that the German Republicans have their best leaders alive and vocal at the time of the 1851 Diet- but on the other hand, without the scare of 1848 would so many of the German states have taken the Diet seriously? It's often been argued that the great legacy of the Badanese Revolution was that it scared the German Princes into polishing their nationalist credentials.






*OOC: I was setting up 1851's 'Hapsburg Winter' as TTL's 'Spring of Nations,' so I like to think that in this timeline the equivalent to Les Miserables is about the Baden Uprising.
Ugh, don't remind me about that; honestly I much prefer the comedy version, showing it for the farce it was.
 
Ah, good old Melvin Kaminsky: 'We are the folk of the volk, overthrowing kingly yokes, and we're gonna keep on fighting till we're dead or till we're broke...'
 
1848 was a bit of a misfire, hence everyone who's ever taken a European history paper having to write the essay on why 1851 exploded when three years earlier all that happened was idealistic young men in puffy shirts getting their deaths turned into an opera.*

I really don't think there was any chance of unification in 1848, much less a Republican revolution. The uprising never took over Baden, let alone spread from it. A better bet would be for the cooler heads to prevail, so that the German Republicans have their best leaders alive and vocal at the time of the 1851 Diet- but on the other hand, without the scare of 1848 would so many of the German states have taken the Diet seriously? It's often been argued that the great legacy of the Badanese Revolution was that it scared the German Princes into polishing their nationalist credentials.






*OOC: I was setting up 1851's 'Hapsburg Winter' as TTL's 'Spring of Nations,' so I like to think that in this timeline the equivalent to Les Miserables is about the Baden Uprising.

Add to that the fact their deaths are so "important" they get overshadowed in most adaptations by: the plight of Johan Von Jansen who was thrown in jail for stealing some ale, idealogue police officer Schonbrunn who was clearly based on Otto von Bismarck a devoted Habsburg underling in old Prussia, the saccharine romance of Markus and Zita, the latter of whom was named after the Emperor's sister in law; and the tragic, woe-is-me characters like Alma, the whore with a heart of Gold in Karlsruhe, or her spiritual successor Flora, who sings the most overused song in musical theater "Make the Flowers Grow".
 
.... after a few too many glasses of something something, my mate and I have been known to belt out the Van Jansen/Schonbrunn confrontation duet. I mean, rhyming 'arrest' with 'Storm and stress' is a bit much, but come on- there's a certain cheesy charm to the complete lack of irony. And unlike the book, there's no five chapter tangent on the Battle of the Nations.
 
Imagine if Prussia unified the German States, not only do you butterfly away Die Elenden (OOC: Les Miserables in German) but you also lose, like, the entire metaphor in the Spirit of the Orchestra. The whole thing is a comment on Hungarian attempts to support Bohemian Independence in "the War for Bohemia's soul" with the intimate powerplay for the heart of the talented musician Ludimila Procopius between the monstrous and controlling Josef Aviano and the sweet and caring Stephen Zapoloya. Plus the drama between the Die Elenden and Spirit of the Orchestra aficionados is the stuff few sports rivalries can match.
 
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