DBWI: Lesser Germany?

You could have the pro-Hapsburg faction at the 1848 Frankfurt convention lose. IIRC, some of the attendants were favoring the Prussians, even though Friedrich Wilhelm III was lukewarm about the idea.
 
You could have the pro-Hapsburg faction at the 1848 Frankfurt convention lose. IIRC, some of the attendants were favoring the Prussians, even though Friedrich Wilhelm III was lukewarm about the idea.

Don't be silly. The Prussian monarchy was dead set on particularism. They had everything to lose from German nationalism (as future events proved) with all their Polish territory and no 'secondary' crown to Ausgleich with.

I could see something under French tutelage, though. The Western states of Germany were as nationalistic as the Austrian Germans, and many resented their position of subjection to the big players. If Austria were as unreceptive to the revolutionaries' advances as Prussia, they might form their own revamped version of the Bund and turn to Paris for protection. That poses a huige problem with Prussian rhineland territories, admittedly, but these places were held at best tentatively anyway. Bear in mind both Hanover and Bavaria had very anti-Prussian leadership at the time. I think even a war would be thinkable in this scenario, with Prussia losing.
 
Prussia did lost the rheinland in OTL, it was the main reason for the formation of Prussia-Poland.

Also, events in the 1900 would be much more different, Germany would get defeated much faster in WWI without Austrian territories. Maybe that makes WWI much less bloody, and the ATL's equivalent to the Treaty of Versallies wouldn't be as harsh (it separated Hungary from Germany IOTL).
 
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archaeogeek

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I'm wondering though... If Austria is not in, why would Prussia be in? Wouldn't this heavily catholic state make more sense as a Bavarian-dominated state...
 
Theoretically, we could have Frankfurt fail all together, and the states are united militarily by Prussia, Bavaria or Hannover.
 
Actually, I don't think Kleindeutschland was that improbable. I'm pretty sure no one would have believed the outcome of the three-way furball that the Polish wars turned into. Even after visiting the battlefields I still don't get how Prussia was able to seize Congress Poland and Galicia while losing Brandenburg to the German Empire. It just doesn't make sense. The Prussian government's concessions to Polish language and religion which ultimately to the Prussia-Poland dual monarchy, those were merely realpolitik. They preferred their heads not on pikes.
 
Prussia did lost the rheinland in OTL, it was the main reason for the formation of Prussia-Poland.

Also, events in the 1900 would be much more different, Germany would get defeated much faster in WWI without Austrian territories. Maybe that makes WWI much less bloody, and the ATL's equivalent to the Treaty of Versallies wouldn't be as harsh (it separated Hungary from Germany IOTL).
My friend, you must be a staunch revisionist historian because even German Reactionaries will admit the peace that ended the Great War was a pretty good deal. The split of Hungary from Imperial Germany was something everyone wanted. The Hungarians got their own state but with Károly IV installed on the throne, Vienna was able to save face and maintain hegemony in Central Europe. Likewise, industrial Germany stopped having to foot the bill for industrializing Hungary and instead focus its efforts elsewhere. Rudolf III was able to liberalize the Empire and guide it to its modern state as a Constitutional Monarchy.

If anything a harsher Versailles would likely undermine the Kaiser's efforts. I shutter to think what would happen come the Croat-Transylvanian Crisis of 1930 had Rudolf not been able reformed and stabilized Germany before hand. Without a strong German hand, that situation could have rapidly spun out of control.
 
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Yeah, Versailles could have been a lot worse if the French would've gotten their will of utterly butchering Germany territorially and financially.
Good thing that US President - Roosevelt was his name, iirc - was more interested in creating a lasting peace in Europe and more or less told the French where they could shove their revanchism.
Though I suspect that even so a lot of people were quite unhappy - on both sides - for turning a number of territories over to the newly founded Council of Nations until plebiscites could be arranged, even if it was for the best. Otherwise we'd no doubt have back-and forth wars between Germany and France over Elsaß-Lothringen, or between Hungary and Romania over Transylvania, and God knows what else.

- Kelenas
 
Indeed Theodore Roosevelt truly was an American Metternich for his pragmatism and vision of a lasting peace (I don't want to suggest he was a Reactionary as Metternich was of course).

The story however often told in Vienna is that personal relationships dictated international peace much more than the desire for that peace. President Roosevelt had a very warm relationship with Franz III of Germany, and there are those that say even though he claimed to be acting as a neutral mediator for the belligerents at Versailles, he did lean in favor of his dear friend's successor Rudolf III. Apparently he was some what bolstered by Philippe VIII, because while the French Prime Minister was out for blood, apparently the King, ever a family man, was worried that a severe break with his wife's family would affect his children, specifically the future Francis III, whose namesake and grandfather sat on the German Throne at the outbreak of war and whose uncle was their guest at Tuileries.

But I digress, the peace mediated by the American President was successful.
 
While interpersonal relationships were important, Roosevelt's mediation wasn't entirely selfless; Germany was an important trading partner both for the US and, before the outbreak of the war, for the UK, and both of them had an interest to keep it that way.

Anyway, back on topic; Austria-less Germany is somewhat hard to imagine. The Prussians simply didn't have the inclination, and of the other "Germanies" even the larger ones such as Bavaria or Hannover lacked the military or diplomatic power and - something that's often overlooked, nowadays - the prestige to pull off a true unification. Without outside backing I think the most we would've seen is a somewhat loose confederation not unlike our modern European Community, but limited to the minor German countries.
With outside backing, though, the main question would be; by who?
Someone suggested the French, but they would have no interested in a united and strong Germany; at best, they'd have either wanted to set up a puppet state in the Rhineland as a buffer or to take those lands for themselves.
Perhaps the British, after the Napoleonic Wars, decide to sponsor the revolutionaries in '48 in hopes of creating a strong counterbalance against the French? It would require a somewhat earlier PoD, though, perhaps in regards to Hannover (which was in Personal Union with Britain for a while, iirc).

- Kelenas
 
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