Frederick III lives longer

You meant the German Emperor Frederick, not the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III (who actually had Imperial predecessors)? ;)
 
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He'll dismiss Bismarck as Chancellor, replacing by a statesman whose views are more compatible with his ideas about governing the country
 
Despite his somewhat confusing regnal name (based on the kings of Prussia), Frederick actually was a missed opportunity for Germany.

I agree, that Frederick would probably name a Liberal Chancellor. The monarchy itself might even become a bit more parliamentary, though probably still not the same degree as in the UK.

Even under such a scenario, there probably still will occasions of tension between the Great Powers. The German side could handle things a bit better ITTL, but some things also depend on the other side (France, Russia, UK etc.) too.
 
I have seen claims recently that he was not anywhere near as liberal as often claimed and indeed a weak willed man. How he would run the country would largely depend on who manages to catch his ear. Might be his wife, might be someone else.

Saidly the libary that has the books from where those claims come is closed right now so I can't get my hands on them for now.
 
I've done a quick web search and found these articles, both in German.

Die Aufzeichnungen des ewigen Kronprinzen


Der liberale Kronprinz

Going by these, Friedrich told Bismarck in 1885 that he would keep him as chancellor, so no change there. Bismarck might even stay in office longer than OTL, due to not having to deal with an annoying Kaiser.
Butterflies: The treaty with Russia gets renewed.
Though I doubt it will change things in the Reichstag for him. Question would be, does Fritz fire him or does he keep him until Bismarck gets fed up with the job? With no majority in the Reichstag that might not even take too long.

Another Butterfly that could happen is that Waldersee might stay chief of general staff.
But if he does, OTL he lost that position due to beating Wilhelm at maneuvers, which he seems to have done out of frustration over having to lose to an amateur like Wilhelm. Fritz at least seems to have been an alright military leader so that should not come up. So Germany would need a new chief of staff in late 1903-early 1904, don't know who would get the job.
Then again, Waldersee and Bismarck were on no good terms from what I know and Fritz and Vicky didn't like him much either so he might never get the job or lose it early.

Another small change that might happen concerns the navy, originaly the Brandenburg class was only meant to be two ships, but Wilhelm had it upped to four. So some money might saved there.

That's all I can think of for now. A lot would depend on who follows Bismarck as chancellor. Any ideas?
 
The treaty with Russia gets renewed.

This is the sort of thing I've heard often, but: does it? From Russia's perspective, Germany betrayed Russia in the Congress of Berlin by failing to support Russian ambitions in spite of the existing Germano-Russian alliance. That suggests that the Reinsurance Treaty would have fallen anyway, Wilhelm II or no Wilhelm II.
 
This is the sort of thing I've heard often, but: does it? From Russia's perspective, Germany betrayed Russia in the Congress of Berlin by failing to support Russian ambitions in spite of the existing Germano-Russian alliance. That suggests that the Reinsurance Treaty would have fallen anyway, Wilhelm II or no Wilhelm II.

But wasn't the Congress of Berlin in the 1870s? Didn't stop Russia from signing the treaty in 1887.
Also from what I read it would have been renewed in 1890, but Caprivi and Holstein were against it so Wilhelm rolled over. If Bismarck is still in power he would press for it and from what I read about Fritz he would have agreed with that.
I'm not saying that it would exist infinetly, just that it would be agreed on again in 1890, 1893 or whenever else it would need to get renewed is a whole different matter.
 
He'll dismiss Bismarck as Chancellor, replacing by a statesman whose views are more compatible with his ideas about governing the country

Not true, at least not immedately. When Wilhelm's health was failing they made a political pact, with Bismarck remaining chancellor. I can dig the source material if you don't believe me.
 
But wasn't the Congress of Berlin in the 1870s? Didn't stop Russia from signing the treaty in 1887.

The argument is that the failure of Germany to support Russia prevented the general alignment of Prussia/Germany with Russia (dating back at least to the 1860s) from being a robust one as OTL's Franco-Russian Alliance certainly succeeded in being. Whatever your opinions of the Reinsurance Treaty, it's pretty clear that it was never as robust as the Franco-Russian Alliance, which both France and Russia had internalised and made the base assumption of their foreign policy to such an extent that France tolerated and assisted the Balkan inception scenario in spite of its lack of national interests in the region and which Russian ministers valued so highly that they outright rejected German diplomatic overtures out of hand simply because they conflicted with the Franco-Russian Alliance, even when they had to actually get the Tsar to back down on that issue (and going against the Tsar was not exactly a quick and easy choice).

Also from what I read it would have been renewed in 1890, but Caprivi and Holstein were against it so Wilhelm rolled over. If Bismarck is still in power he would press for it and from what I read about Fritz he would have agreed with that.

The comparatively liberal-minded Friedrich had opposed Bismarck since before the Austro-Prussian War. I wouldn't assume that a surviving Emperor Friedrich would support Bismarck; I don't think it's impossible but I also don't think it's anywhere near inevitable. Indeed, even the same crisis that brought Bismarck down IOTL might well bring him down in this scenario if it, or some analogue of it, ever occurs in this scenario; I'd think that Friedrich would react at least as harshly to Bismarck's proposals about how to deal with socialism as Wilhelm II did IOTL. We can't view these things purely as a matter of opinions on foreign policy; in their opinions on the matter of domestic policy Friedrich was, though not precisely the polar opposite of Bismarck, certainly wildly different from Bismarck.

I'm not saying that it would exist infinetly, just that it would be agreed on again in 1890, 1893 or whenever else it would need to get renewed is a whole different matter.

Fair.
 
The argument is that the failure of Germany to support Russia prevented the general alignment of Prussia/Germany with Russia (dating back at least to the 1860s) from being a robust one as OTL's Franco-Russian Alliance certainly succeeded in being. Whatever your opinions of the Reinsurance Treaty, it's pretty clear that it was never as robust as the Franco-Russian Alliance, which both France and Russia had internalised and made the base assumption of their foreign policy to such an extent that France tolerated and assisted the Balkan inception scenario in spite of its lack of national interests in the region and which Russian ministers valued so highly that they outright rejected German diplomatic overtures out of hand simply because they conflicted with the Franco-Russian Alliance, even when they had to actually get the Tsar to back down on that issue (and going against the Tsar was not exactly a quick and easy choice).


The comparatively liberal-minded Friedrich had opposed Bismarck since before the Austro-Prussian War. I wouldn't assume that a surviving Emperor Friedrich would support Bismarck; I don't think it's impossible but I also don't think it's anywhere near inevitable. Indeed, even the same crisis that brought Bismarck down IOTL might well bring him down in this scenario if it, or some analogue of it, ever occurs in this scenario; I'd think that Friedrich would react at least as harshly to Bismarck's proposals about how to deal with socialism as Wilhelm II did IOTL. We can't view these things purely as a matter of opinions on foreign policy; in their opinions on the matter of domestic policy Friedrich was, though not precisely the polar opposite of Bismarck, certainly wildly different from Bismarck.


Fair.


Last time I checked the Franco-Russian alliance only shows up in 1892. After the Germans refused to renew the reinssurence treaty.

But that is exactly what those recent studies I spoke about disprove:
Fritz notes in his DIARY in 1885 that he told Bismarck that he would keep him as chancellor! And it's also said that as time went by whatever will there was in Fritz to change things died, by 1885 it's apparently so far gone that he even wants to keep Bismarck as chancellor.

Baumgartens book about Fritz diaries is from 2012, Müllers biography of Fritz is from 2013, I was planning to get both from the library this week but it's closed till the end of May due to ongoing works there. So I could only go by what the articles I found about the books state, and I have linked them above, but they are both in German.
 
So, I've just finished Müller's "Der 99 Tage Kaiser", quite the interesting read.

Some interesting things (not all will need to read it again) about Fritz and Willy II:

-Fritz shared his sons love for uniforms and medals, Vicky could never get that out of him

-Just like Wilhelm II. Fritz quickly got bored of things and jumped to new ones

-Fritz traveled a lot and restless, ever more the older he got, again, Wilhelm did that as well

-Fritz planned a lot of things like churches, palasts etc, his ideas were often giagantic and a lot of them were continued by Wilhelm

-Fritz was obsessed with the impirial crown and was planning to strenghten it's powers (much like Willy)

-Fritz also viewed the other German monarchs as beneath him (just like Willy) , he especially disliked the Kings of Bavaria, Wuerttemberg and Saxony cause they got their crowns from Napoleon and he mused about reducing them back to their former titles

-Father and son shared romantic views about the middle age, highlightend by Fritz' plans to be Frederick IV instead of Frederick III

-Both saw the potential of the media and used it for their own gains, though Fritz was more talented in this, successfully creating himself the picture of "our Fritz" which combined modern elements with attributes of Frederick the Great and Queen Luise. And using it to strenghten the Hohenzollern prestige throughout Germany.
Though the one time Fritz critisised his father in public nearly backfired spectaculary on him. Bismarck and Augusta (Fritz mother) had to talk Wilhelm out of having Fritz thrown into jail, and for the rest of his live Wilhelm would distrust his own son. He supposedly even said he would not allow himself to die as long as the crown prince was still alive and didn't show any compassion when hearing of Fritz' cancer, thinking it was more important to inspect a regiment than listening to the reports on Fritz' health.

-Fritz shared his fathers and sons view on the military, dissolving parliament if it didn't pass the military etat was right in his eyes and he was not going to compromise on the Kaisers/Kings powers within the army

-In 1885 Fritz drew up a plan of how he wished to govern, this plan had a lot in common with the "personal regime" Wilhelm II supposedly managed to eract

At the end of the day Willy had much more in common with his father than with his grandfather.
But
there were huge differences between their characters.
Fritz generally managed to leave a positive impression on people who often viewed him as an understanding and polite man after the first meeting. He was also better at keeping his temper in check. But he was also very depressive and doubted his ability to change things and lacked confidence.
Vicky needed to encourage him all the time and even that was at times not enough. He also relayed heavily on her in a lot of things like when formulating answers to things or when it came to writting speeches or when he didn't understand something.

Last but not least, though Fritz was in favor of the fleet and colonies he would not have pursued a strategy that he knew would upset Britain. And Vicky would have made sure of that.
Whatever that is enough to get into an alliance with it is another question.

Some other points:
-Fritz hated the social democrats and though he came to doubt the efficiancy of the socialist laws there is no evidence he ever thought about dropping them

-He despised the catholic church and critisised Bismarck for ending the Kulturkampf, thinking about starting it anew once he was Kaiser

-He hated antisemitists and openly expressed his disgust at them

-Bismarck successfully got Fritz closer to the Nationalliberals than the progressive, Fritz found he liked their program and was very fond of some of them, talking with Bismarck about macking Benningsen, Miquel and some others to ministers

-Fritz viewed Bismarcks ways of appeasing the working class as wrong and critisised them. Preffering to encourage the working people to handle their problems themself and making some concession like no work on Sundays.

His liberal views wandered from some points he had in common with the progressives to views that were more in common with those of the Nationalliberals.

He was not planning to have royal or impirial powers reduced but indeed thought about increasing them. He also was planning to strengthen the federal position at the expanse of the member states, suggesting to make Brunswick a Reichsland like Alsace-Lorrain.

He never burned all bridges to Bismarck who also never completly ignored him since Wilhelms I. advanced age was a fact and no one would have thought he would live to be nearly 91 years old. So, since Bismarck had to expect Wilhelm I to drop dead any month he was always looking for ways to get on the good side of the crown prince and secure his own position. By 1885/6 he had pretty much managed to do that, but his plans got thwarted by Fritz' cancer.

There is more but this is all I can think of from the top of my head for now.
 
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