DBWI: What if Prussia won the Franco-Prussian war?

When you look at it, they stop Germany from becoming a nation, took the Rhineland, Italy broke up, Warsaw have been burn courtless time with they war's with Russia. They took Belgium.

South Germans didn't want to be annexed by Prussia, Italy was broken up by Austria and the Pope (the French were actually pro-italian), every European country is partly responsible for Warsaw's fate (Russia most of all, they did start the Great War after all), and France only took Wallonia because Belgium was falling apart anyway.

Your only reasonable point is the taking of the Rhineland, but that was in the middle of the 19th century. The Prussians would have taken territory from the French if their positions were reversed.
 
Your only reasonable point is the taking of the Rhineland, but that was in the middle of the 19th century. The Prussians would have taken territory from the French if their positions were reversed.

Would they really, though? Even in the Napoleonic Wars where France was unquestionably the dangerous aggressor (whereas the Franco-Prussian War was blatantly and deliberately provoked by the Prussian Minister-President—I never do remember that guy's name) France was only very, very marginally reduced from its pre-Wars self. Would Prussia alone, even if it was somehow capable of it, really actually take significant parts of core France?

That's not to say that the Prussians were perfect people; just look at what they did to poor Hanover, outright annexation. I don't think the Prussians are any better or worse than any other historical country. It's just to say that I doubt they would be capable of actually annexing significant parts of core French territory. It just wasn't done by most powers at the time; France, with its Napoleonic heritage, had a tendency for vast, sweeping annexations that most countries lacked.
 
and France only took Wallonia because Belgium was falling apart anyway.
The problems in Belgium were greatly exaggerated. Yes, there existed tensions between the Walloons and the Flemish, but those could have been solved. Yes there was a small scale revolt in Flanders, but both parties were already negotiating a solution when France entered Belgium to "protect their Walloon brothers". The blebiscite afterwards was rather dubious too. Especialy since before everything happened the Walloons were actualy the most pro-Belgian faction in the country.
 
South Germans didn't want to be annexed by Prussia, Italy was broken up by Austria and the Pope (the French were actually pro-italian), every European country is partly responsible for Warsaw's fate (Russia most of all, they did start the Great War after all), and France only took Wallonia because Belgium was falling apart anyway.

Your only reasonable point is the taking of the Rhineland, but that was in the middle of the 19th century. The Prussians would have taken territory from the French if their positions were reversed.

The South Germans are not Austrian. The French could have done something. What is wrong with the German nations becoming a nation? And why did the Pope what to break up Italy?
 
The South Germans are not Austrian. The French could have done something. What is wrong with the German nations becoming a nation? And why did the Pope what to break up Italy?

Yeah we're not "Austrian" but we are part of Austria, much like the Croats or the Czechs. And can you blame us for joining Austria after the Great War. We kind of got sick of being the battlefield of Europe. we just want to be left alone, but no the French the Prussians, or the Russian have to march across us to get to each other.
 
The South Germans are not Austrian. The French could have done something. What is wrong with the German nations becoming a nation? And why did the Pope what to break up Italy?
Because the Pope did not want to lose the Papal states? No idea what Austia has to do with anything. If the Germans want to form an united nation they can.
 
Yeah we're not "Austrian" but we are part of Austria, much like the Croats or the Czechs. And can you blame us for joining Austria after the Great War. We kind of got sick of being the battlefield of Europe. we just want to be left alone, but no the French the Prussians, or the Russian have to march across us to get to each other.

Well, if you could, would you join North German, and become one nation?
 
Would they really, though? Even in the Napoleonic Wars where France was unquestionably the dangerous aggressor (whereas the Franco-Prussian War was blatantly and deliberately provoked by the Prussian Minister-President—I never do remember that guy's name) France was only very, very marginally reduced from its pre-Wars self. Would Prussia alone, even if it was somehow capable of it, really actually take significant parts of core France?

That's not to say that the Prussians were perfect people; just look at what they did to poor Hanover, outright annexation. I don't think the Prussians are any better or worse than any other historical country. It's just to say that I doubt they would be capable of actually annexing significant parts of core French territory. It just wasn't done by most powers at the time; France, with its Napoleonic heritage, had a tendency for vast, sweeping annexations that most countries lacked.

If Prussia somehow won the Franco-Prussian I could see two possible outcomes: in a limited victory Prussia forces France to acknowledge Luxembourg as a de facto Prussian vassal, or in a (compeletly ASB) total victory in which Prussia captures Paris, France isbforced to give up parts of Alsace and Lorraine (Strasbourg, Colmar and the surrounding area had a significant German population at the time), as well as control of Luxembourg. Either case would probably lead to a stronger and more centralised North German Federation, which let them win the Third Schleswig War, although they would probably still lose the Bavarian War (although maybe not as quickly). It may also lead to a restoration of the French Republic if Napoleon III is blamed for the loss.

The South Germans are not Austrian. The French could have done something. What is wrong with the German nations becoming a nation? And why did the Pope what to break up Italy?

The restoration of the Papal States was the reason that Austria and the Catholic League invaded Italy after the Bavarian War. After the restoration of the Papal States and the reannexation of the Veneto by Austria, Italy-Turin could no longer hold on to the southern part of the peninsula, leading to the eventual formation of the Republic of Sicily in 1886.

Well, if you could, would you join North German, and become one nation?

The thing is that Austro-Bavarian South Germans and Prussian North Germans are about as closely related to one another as the Serbians and the Croatians. Sure, they speak the same language, but they're divided by a history of war, religious differences, and international borders. Stop trying to tear the Greater Austrian States apart with North German revanchism.
 
Well, if you could, would you join North German, and become one nation?

I would love to be united with our northern brothers, the only cravat is I don't want to be under that "government" of theirs. The Anti-Catholic and Jewish legislation would not go well with my family. Strange to think they have such a good record with gender issues besides that.

Because you tryed with violence and war.

Yes, when the north Germans tried to throw off the last Kaiser and tyrant and the French intervened was a great experience for all. At this point we just are waiting for the death of Fredrick III and hopefully that will weaken the foundations enough for reform and talks of unification.

Anyhow, I don't think the Bavarian war would have happened if the Prussians won the Franco Prussian war. Or at least not how it went down OTL. I can see Bavaria trying to act as a counter weight and creating their own Southern German Federation with Baden and Wurtemburg, but who knows what might happen
 
or in a (compeletly ASB) total victory in which Prussia captures Paris

Prussia? Prussia, of all countries, capturing Paris? It took six coalition wars by practically the whole of Europe united to do that just a few decades earlier, and you think Prussia alone—Prussia, not exactly the world's greatest military power—could do it in one? People overlook the fact that France had many advantages over Prussia long before the war began. As Anaxagoras points out, the French chassepot was far superior to the Prussian Dreyse needle gun, and also French mobilisation was significantly faster and more effective than Prussian mobilisation. I mean, Napoleon III's generals weren't perfect but men like the great Adolphe Niel, one of the heroes of French military history, had learnt from the recent wars in Italy where they had had supply problems and thus they had managed to develop more effective systems of logistics than the Prussians did (all this revisionist nonsense about Prussian logistical system is, as I said, nonsense—they famously had problems where they sent supplies by rail to destinations which didn't actually have the equipment to unload the trains), since the Prussians didn't have anywhere near the necessary military experience to have worked out those things, nor did it have anyone in power who could deal with it. The only advantage Prussia could have had was in artillery, and they didn't really use it very well, as any student of the Battle of Braunschweig knows. Plus, of course, Paris was incredibly well-defended, as the French had been spending on it for so long; it would take French stupidity of a truly staggering degree to make the capture of the city possible.

That might have happened as a role-reversal in the anguished dreams of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV when the French artillery thundered at Berlin, but it couldn't happen anywhere else. Prussia capturing Paris isn't even ASB, it's just… no. Just no.

Oh, and as for a North German-South German union, it's really unlikely. In the Franco-Prussian War, where French troops were invading German-speaking lands (the best possible scenario for how to provoke pan-German nationalism, which was largely an anti-French force since the time of Napoléon I), Bavarian peasants were burning their crops so that the hated enemy couldn't use them… the enemy being the Prussians, not the French. And these are the people who are supposed to want to unite with North Germany? Honestly, North Germans are so annoyingly revanchist sometimes; they're almost as bad as the English.
 
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