DBWI: What would it take for Germany to be unified by Prussia?

What it says on the tin. What would need to happen for Germany to be unified by Prussia instead of Austria?
 
What it says on the tin. What would need to happen for Germany to be unified by Prussia instead of Austria?

I think a Napoleonic defeat at Waterloo means Prussia can keep its armies, instead of having them crushed a few weeks after the English. In turn, this gives them more weight in the negotiations, which could lead to (I know, this is near-ASB) Prussian Rhinelands. That would give Prussia the critical size for taking on Austria and maybe uniting Germany.
 
I think a Napoleonic defeat at Waterloo means Prussia can keep its armies, instead of having them crushed a few weeks after the English. In turn, this gives them more weight in the negotiations, which could lead to (I know, this is near-ASB) Prussian Rhinelands. That would give Prussia the critical size for taking on Austria and maybe uniting Germany.

Agreed. Plus the Second Confederation of the Rhine wouldn't have existed, so its influence on German history would have been butterflied away.
 
Agreed. Plus the Second Confederation of the Rhine wouldn't have existed, so its influence on German history would have been butterflied away.
I think Austria would've tried to bind a stronger Prussia with itself and the rest of Germany. Perhaps not a Confederation of the Rhine, but a broader German Confederation? It would probably not mean much, with two big powers in it, but it would for a while fetter the Prussian hold on the industrial power of the Rhinelands.
 
Much earlier. You need Prussia winning the Silesian Wars. With Silesia sticking like a dagger between Brandenburg and Prussia - the Kingdom is never secure from the Austrians. Winning Belle Alliance or at least Brussels will shorten Russias and Austrias struggle against France, but ultimately Austria and Russia will overwhem France, by 1815 France was bled dry and only Napoleons military genius kept it going that long.
 
Why would the Prussians even want to unify Germany, when they, except for small minority in larger towns, are not germans and are in culture and language much much cloaer to samogitians and curonians of the kingdom of Lithuania?
 
Why would the Prussians even want to unify Germany, when they, except for small minority in larger towns, are not germans and are in culture and language much much cloaer to samogitians and curonians of the kingdom of Lithuania?
Maybe the OP's idea of Prussia was a Germanized territory and fully incorporated to Brandenburg.
 
It seems pretty unlikely that Prussia would unify Germany. After all, it's no coincidence that Prussia is an independent state to this day. It's completely different in culture, owing more to the process of colonisation of the Baltic region by the Teutonic Knights than the cultural flowering of the Rhineland and the commercial tradition of the Hansa.

There's a reason Prussia has always been a third-rate, autocratic little "Grand Duchy". It doesn't have the same pedigree as Germany, nor is it "German" in any real sense, despite its official language.
 
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