alternatehistory.com

[Cribbed from a SHWI post by Jorg Raddatz from over a dozen years ago].

Improbable PoD alert. You have been warned!]

As in OTL, in August of 1866, Napoleon III. instructs his ambassador
in Prussia, Count Benedetti, to ask for Luxembourg and for Prussian
support for the acquisition of Belgium by France. Prussia would get in
turn the French support for the unification of the newly-created North
German Confederation with Southern Germany.
In OTL, Bismarck then took advantage of illness (September to
December) to evade a definite reply, and later, he would communicate
the draft treaty to the British in 1870 and influence British opinion
in favor of Prussia during the war with France.

But suppose, even if it is unlikely, that Bismarck does not refuse to
accept this proposal and the secret treaty is concluded - with one
important difference: France may try to get Belgium, but the small
Luxembourg is either off limits and will become neutral or can become
French only after a plebiscite. [This I base on the idea that Bismarck
will know that a simple cession of "German" Luxembourg to France will
enrage the nationalists at home.]. As I understand, the "support" wold
be diplomatically, not militarily.

So, what happens when Napoleon III acts? The British will be angry and
feel betrayed by their supposed French friends. But will they be able
to do anything against it? Especially if the Belgians (as it is quite
possible in the 1860s) mostly welcome the annexation by France.
The Austrians are still freshly beaten and can only mutter
condemnations. Russia is a close ally of Prussia at the time. Italy is
not nearly a greater power and while they might favor anything that
will lead the French to leave the Papal State araound Rome, they
cannot hope to fight France in a war even if the British would pay
them to do so.
So, at the end of 1867, there is an enlarged France, allied with a
Prussian-led
German Confederation/Empire - and no more Belgium. Both powers will
have earned the enmity of the UK for a long time.

What will be the geopolitical results?

~ an even earlier and stronger naval race?
~ close cooperation of France and Germany in the acquisition of
colonies?

I can hardly imagine a long-lasting hostility between Germany and A-H,
since the latter simply has not the power to maintain this, but there
might be a Bismarck-orchestrated French-Russian Balkan accord that
basically igores Austrian demands - like the creation of an Greater
Bulgaria in the 1870s.

Any other ideas?
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