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yes, but Bismarck's goal wasn;t to shatter the European system, but to adjust it as much as he reasonably could in favour of Prussia.
Greater Germany is just that extra step in that direction, and it doesn't shatter the European system.
I'm not intending to suggest that Kulturkampf would tear up any such Grossdeutschland. I said its effects were exagerrated. I meant by its existence to point out that Bismarck was, at a basic level, Junkerish in outlook.
Kulturkampf was in no way essential to his objectives, he could have easily done without.
He had no desire to include Austria in Germany if he could possibly avoid it
This is an exaggeration, again. Let's say he was not going to take too many risks for it.
Austria wasn't nearly such a ticking time bomb as you perceive it.
True, in 1918 it weathered total defeat so well...
For one thing, the 1866 was a cabinet war.
This hasn't anything to do with the scenario I've proposed.
Sentiment didn't enter into it, and the opinion of pan-Germans was divided or apathetic.
This may easily change if total national unification looks within easy grasp. Popular sentiment may change radically within weeks.
Your scenario assumes that Austria will just curl up and die without any provocation.
Total military defeat on both fronts, invasion, and a new Hungarian rebellion is no provocation ? What do you want, the nukes ?
On the contrary, if the powers wish to keep Austria in existence, it will stay in existence.
At the whim of All-Powerful Whitehall, the map of Europe is rearranged back into eternal status quo.
Bismarck does,
He is not going to risk his neck to kill it, big difference.
the Russians do,
They wasted blood to save it once, and it backstabbed them. They are not going to do it again.
and the Italians aren't terribly relevent in this situation.
If they win a total victory, it changes everything.
Given that the Austrians pointedly refuse to hand over Venetia, a more succesful Italy will probably have only prestige-related rewards.
Oh, please. They did it because they had won the Italian side of the war. With the Italians in Brennero and Trieste, it would have been a wholly different song. Check your notes on the war again.
This assumes that everyone is just going to allow Austrian collapse to happen.
Rather, it's too much of an effort to stop it. Far better to let the inevitable happen and profit from or adaot to the outcome.
Left to itself, Austria will survive.
Not true in trhe scenario I've described.
And the line of the Alps can be defended by a very small number of troops. We saw that in WW1.
After 50 extra years of fortification-buinding and developments that favored the defensive much more than the offensive.
What I mean is that Russia in 1866 or 1871 has no desire to see Austria dismembered.
They are not going to bleed again to save it, then the obvious alternative is profit from its collapse.
Gorchakov was staking Russian interests on Austrian co-operation in 1876.
Greater Germany can play that role just as good.
But as I said, he was very leery of socialism, among other things.
Socialism has nothing to do with the policies we are discussing.
True, it's not. And what differance is relevant here?
British power-projection by fleet is much less meaningful to affect things in Vienna and Budapest.
Adn the times when Germany and France were actively co-operating? In 1886-7, it was France which suggested a Franco-German front over Bulgaria and Egypt.
Odd turns of the diplomatic game do not an alliance make.
What else do you want to call it?
Expansionist and status-quo ?
Why doesn't it work? Because Austria has attacked him once (what with how he engineered the 1866 conflict. to simplify things quite a bit?).
And now it's attacking again.
He was planning to let France off ligtly in the unlikley event of war in the 1880s, remember?
Apples and oranges. France is still going to be there and more or less the same whatever the French or Germany do. The Austrian problem can be settled in one swift stroke of pen, in a way that strenghtens Germany and makes it more secure.
This is all distinctly Turtledovian. There was a reaosn he made the alliance that he did.
Everything that happened in OTL had to happen ? This is the negation of AH.
An alliance with Italy and Russia doesn't have the same purpose as the Dreikaiserbund. It doesn't fit with Bismarck's goals in the same way. I'd have to check my notes for details.
I note you have failed to produce a justification why he could or would not have it, and why in his complex diplomatic dance, just this step could be substituted.
"Of sorts" as in "it could stabilise itself if it happened, but why should it happen"?
A different 1866 or 1870, a brekadown of the Ausgleich, in Bismarck's tenure. Or more likely, he makes a Triple Alliance with Russia and Italy, which entrenches itself after his demise, and leads to a wholly different WWI.
It would require Bismarck to betray both interest, sentiment, and principal by destroying Austria.
Wild exaggeration. In the end, it's not ultimately different from destroying Hanover.
Which would explain why in 1885 they were ordering the Ottomans to put the seal on their complete victory in the Balkans by invading Bulgaria. The Russians won three things: access to the Danube, a strip of Caucasian mountain, and a ginormous liability called Bulgaria.
I was speaking about the military outcome. Sometimes, clear military victories turn into political messes just around the corner, ask GWB.
He said, in 2009. You know what they say about hindsight? And Bismarck given his politics would be disinclined to picture in which nations could be whipped into militant frenzies by political fringe groups and commercial interests.
Those forces were already taking shape in the 1870s and 1880s.
But why would he do it?
He was already very concerned throughout his career that Germany had to avoid a clash with Russia almost to any cost. Push this thought one extra step and he decides to make Russia the "official" ally of Germany instead of Austria.
Why should this be the case?
"The Habsburg are traitors to Germany because they refuse to complete the national unification and they side wirth France, our Austrian brethren are kept into bondage by Habsburg lackeys and their Hungarian and Slav goons and want to join the Fatherland (even if they do not know it yet)".