There was a thread on this a few years ago which I will be referencing, but I wanted to try and restart this conversation. According to The Failure to Prevent World War I: The Unexpected Armageddon By Hall Gardner, in March 1911 the French government was fairly certain that Germany wanted to install Franz Ferdinand's eldest son, Maximilian, as the ruler of Alsace-Lorraine. Maximillian was ineligible to receive the Austro-Hungarian crown due to his parents morganatic marriage, but he did technically have a good claim to Lorraine as he was a descendent of Francis I. Other candidates brought up in the previous thread were Fredrick Charles of Hesse and someone from the House of Hannover, but I have my own doubts. Now Maximilian would only turn 18 in 1920, so I am assuming that the decision to enthrone him or not happens around then. By 1920 the Hannover-Hohenzollern drama has been pretty much squashed by the marriage of Victoria Louise to Ernest Augustus in 1913 and (in a CP victory) Frederick Charles is already the King of Finland, so both of these candidates are non viable imo. My question though is, is this the most realistic fate of Alsace-Lorraine or would it be something else. Would it remain as a Riechsland, be annexed by Prussia, split between Bavaria and Baden (similar to the irl WW2 Reichsgau), or some other prince picked to lead it?
German Grand Duchy of Alsace-Lorraine?
- Thread starter p0lish_runn3r
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... just reread the chapter 13 about Alsace-Lorraine in the 2015 edition of the source you named:
coudn't find any notion of either Franz Ferdinand, his son and esp. their potential candidacy aside
of becoming ruling monarch or Alsace-Lorraine being a known and accepted fact by members of the french goverment.
IMO given the political climate within Germany and the development of the stateship of "Elsass-Lothringen" it would at least stay a 'Reichsland' but within time rather become 'just' another memberstate of the German Realm.
Such 'dynastic' plays are IMHO exactly that:
'plays' lacking anchouring in reality as well as the other 'possibilities' choosable here.
Strange. Here’s a screenshot of the page I saw it on.
Attachments
I get that keeping Alsace-Lorraine's as a Reichsland gives more the Prussians more votes but is it in the realm of possibility that a more liberal government later on, like the SPD, would be willing the elevate Alsace-Lorraine's status not just to appease the locals, but also the South German states who see it as a loophole that Prussia is exploiting.
Technically the whole ascension of E-L was because issues with the battalions become an scandal in Prussia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesrat_(German_Empire) they already have the votes, of course, aligned to Prussia but already have a voice and vote, so your point is already NIL
Ok thank you for the input. Does giving Alsace-Lorraine a monarchy though give it a better sense of regional identity within the empire as a whole like saxony or bavaria, since as a Reichsland it’s more of an “occupied territory”
I think that was the plan,at that point those already were 40 years old and Bismarck forgotten issue,yet they took a while to sorted it (if they didn't wanted a Habsburg,they could have give it to the sigmarinen) and Willy 2, FF personal friend ,wanted to give a gift to his childrens
Thx for showing me the quotes. I only reread the chapter explicitly dealing with Alsace-Lorraine.
(Where this 'fact' strangely isn't taken into account ...)
However, I would render it quite a strech (of interpretation by the author) to turn the report by a subordinate member of the french embassy in 1911 of a second to third hand rumor into a firm "believe" of the then french goverment. A rumor seemingly centering around dynastical 'smalltalk' only (... probably today counting as 'yellow-press-paparazzi-rumoring') and far from political considerations.
fair enough, but I do wish I could find out at least where the diplomat heard this. I think knowing who's idea it was would go a long way in determining how real the proposal was.
What about the Duke of Urach? He's Catholic and, I think, was from the line of Wuerttemberg that once ruled part of Alsace. In OTL, He was the (arguably) legitimate heir to Monaco and was to have ruled Lithuania in a Central Powers victory. Perhaps though he's the right candidate for Strasburg?
Wasn't there some ideas that him would had became king of LIthuania in case that CPs would had won WW1?
I could see in a No World War I timeline the Monaco Crisis still happening but ending largely as OTL only with William ending up as the monarch of German Alsace-Lorraine as recompense.