How to culturally divide Germany?

See above. Nowadays Austria stands somewhat significantly away from their cousins in Germany, at least so much as we can expect while sharing the same language. Netherlands is another Germanic country that stands quite away and never really shared in the whole Greater Germany ideal that proliferated in the 1900s. Bavaria is known to have retained quite a great deal of independence even under the Prussian-dominated German Empire. Switzerland is of course a multi-ethnic state featuring Germans, while Luxembourg was the sole avoider of the German unification efforts.

So, is there a way we could divide "Germany" into more sustainable, smaller states that last well into the 1900s and further? Saxony, Hannover, Bavaria, Hesse, Prussia and maybe some state in the Rhineland? Maybe a legitimate Friesland? What if the Hessian and Saxon stem duchies somehow weren't formed? Or what if the Prussians focused more on Poland rather than Germany?

Any thoughts?
 
Have Charlemagne die early and the Franks never conquer Saxony. It might then develop into a more "Scandinavian" type of country, or even become part of Denmark.

Butterfly away the Dutch revolt and have the Habsburg Netherlands continue to expand eastwards, acquiring East Friesland, Cleves and other territories, so much of NW Germany and the Rhineland ends up speaking something akin to Dutch rather than German as we know it.
 
I would suggest the loss of Prussia in the Third Silesian War. Without defeating Austria and clearly emerging as the strongest contender for European domination in Germany, Prussia would most likely remain in a power struggle with the southern states for a long time, sapping their efforts. Also, Napoleon not defeating the Austrians at Austerlitz would help too
 
The farther back you go, the more divergent you can get in terms of culture. I’d agree with a Carolingian-era PoD to really divide the Germans because the HRE was a major unifying agent.
 
The farther back you go, the more divergent you can get in terms of culture. I’d agree with a Carolingian-era PoD to really divide the Germans because the HRE was a major unifying agent.

That, and the independent Germanic tribes won't be converted into stem duchies of the Kingdom of Germany after conquest by the Franks.

A lot of modern German dialects are really just the modern-day versions of the tribal languages. With more independence and correspondingly less central government in SOME form no matter how weak it was - IE, the Holy Roman Empire even in its worst moments - Bavarian German could just be "Bavarian", Swabian German under whatever dominating state (Wurttemberg, Baden, etc.) can just be "Swabian", etc. the same way Low German is basically Saxon by another name. Heck, I'm surprised Swiss German ISN'T simply "Swiss" yet. Maybe even the (Riparian) Franks themselves can have the descendant tongue of Old High Franconian, AKA West-Central German, simply be "Franconian".
 
A Baltic German state (Teutonic / Livonian Order state leftover) would have a distinctly different culture.
A successful Napoleon would leave us with sufficiently divided German states early enough for different cultures to develop to the present day.
A chaotic 1848 could see a Republican South-West pitted against both Austria and Prussia, with a lasting threefold division instead of just two.
(Post 1900: ) No Gorbachev and Chinese-style reforms (economic, but not political) in the Eastern bloc could see the FRG / GDR division prolonged into the 21st century, with the result of sufficiently different cultures by now.
 
See above. Nowadays Austria stands somewhat significantly away from their cousins in Germany, at least so much as we can expect while sharing the same language. Netherlands is another Germanic country that stands quite away and never really shared in the whole Greater Germany ideal that proliferated in the 1900s. Bavaria is known to have retained quite a great deal of independence even under the Prussian-dominated German Empire. Switzerland is of course a multi-ethnic state featuring Germans, while Luxembourg was the sole avoider of the German unification efforts.

So, is there a way we could divide "Germany" into more sustainable, smaller states that last well into the 1900s and further? Saxony, Hannover, Bavaria, Hesse, Prussia and maybe some state in the Rhineland? Maybe a legitimate Friesland? What if the Hessian and Saxon stem duchies somehow weren't formed? Or what if the Prussians focused more on Poland rather than Germany?

Any thoughts?
Sectarian division along confessional borders ?
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Utterly preventing the OTL dominance of the Franks would be the way to go. As others have said, the earlier the better (for keeping the German peoples divided). You end up with slower development of 'national coherency' for peoples such as Saxons, Frisians, Thuringians is there is no Frankish threat to force them to get themselves together swiftly or perish. (Of course in OTL, they lost nonetheless...) -- The various Germanic peoples will continues their existing trend: gradually consolidating tribal confederacies, each distinct from the other. Considering the tendency of the franks to occassionally splinter apart, without an overwhelming Frankish kingdom, I can easily see multiple Frankish states, more or less following the OTL Frankish linguistic divisions. So....

-- A 'Low Franconia' in large parts of what is now the Netherlands, and a 'Middle Franconia' and 'Upper Franconia' in OTL Germany. Potentially, these could be a confederal league. (But consider that up until the Franks ran them over, the Frisians occupied much of the Northern and Western Netherlands, so any Low Franconian state will likely be limited to OTL Flanders, as well as the southern portions of the OTL Nertherlands.)

-- Likewise, a confederation of Saxon tribes in North-Western Germany and the North-Eastern Netherlands.

-- Along the coasts to the north of the Saxons, there would be Frisians, exending from the coastal Netherlands all the way into what is now South-Western Denmark.

-- Thuringians to the east, basically a buffer between the eastern Saxons and the eastern Franks.

-- To the southwest, Allemannians. The Swabians may well split off to be their own people, or all Allemanic-speakers could be in a confederation.

-- East of them, the Bavarians


Without the coherent strength of the Carolingians... could a push further eastward be realised? Or would Slavic peoples continue to live in what is now Eastern Germany? Could the Bavarians even force their way into what is now Austria, as they did in OTL? Questions, questions! Still, this scenario gives us at least six separate German peoples. Depending on how united various groups are, it could even yield as many as 12 separate peoples (although many would be closely related both culturally and linguistically).

Then there's the fact that under these circumstances, historical links between (for instance) the Saxons and the Danes don't get ruptured by Carolingian conquests. Rather than an abrubt line, it would be very difficult to say where 'Germany' actually ends. Is Denmark part of it? More importantly, since a divided Germany could not be very effective in keeping out Norse raiders, Nordic influence may be more considerable upon Saxons and Frisians especially. In such a TL, the distinction between 'German' and 'Scandinavian' may not exist. 'German' might mean much the same as (continental) 'Germanic', and Norse might be seen as just as closely related to Saxon as Bavarian is related to Saxon.

Using such an ATL understanding, that would give us an even broader perspective for a grealy varied 'German' family of peoples. (Although such a route might be considered 'cheating' for the purposes of the OP.)
 
Have Charlemagne die early and the Franks never conquer Saxony. It might then develop into a more "Scandinavian" type of country, or even become part of Denmark
As I tried to point in another thread, Saxony was part of Frankish sphere of influence since the VIth century, altough largely independent and with a Frankish presence that tended to disappear as soon as they went trough political crisis (altough this withdrawal tend to be much more marked in the VIIth century than during the royal faida).
I put the explanation into a spoiler, because it's fairly long I'll summarize it in this post, but I encourage people to look into it if they're interested (or if they disagree).

Quoting Patrick J. Geary, one of the leading specialists on Merovingian period.
Theuderic (Thierry) I benefits from the crisis that the reconquest of Italy plundges not only the peninsula itself, but also in more northern Alpine regions, intending to annex most of it. He begins by submitting what remains of Thuringians, these most ancient clients of Ostrogoths. In the North he imposed on Saxons a quite relaxed control.
His son Theudeubert goes further. The abandon of Provence by Ostrogoths isolate Alamans [...]. Theudeubert submit and annex them, as are the alpine regions occupied by Raetho-Romans, particularily in Coire. Further East, he sumbit to his rule an amalgam of various peoples : Thuringians, Lombards, Heruli, Veti, Alemani, and others that combined with the remaining Roman population of Norica to form the people of Bavarii.


This map is particularily crude (I'm almost tempted to ditch my work on 117 and 1520 AD to do something better there), but gives a good general idea of the situation in the VIth.


Clothar was probably less interested on the region overall, apart from possible ressource pool, especially for his goal of unifying the frankish kingship at his benefit : let's remember Franks made an extensive use of mercenaries/allies/federated peoples, and we know that they used Saxons from Germania in their battles. For instance, Theudeubert used Saxons at his side during the Battle of Zulpich and giving their association with Thuringians as well the the courts of Theudeubert, it was certainly not Armorican Saxons there.

In fact, Merovingians seems to have been content to have a series of associated peoples, more or less controlled, in Germania as part of a clientele network. Saxons on this regard, were their least concern compared to peoples as Bavarii and Alemani that could serve against Italians or Wendes (or at least, could be allied to these, and had to be held in check). But, in the context of the VIth and VIIth centuries, when contemporary chroniclers says the Saxons revolted against Clothar (or other kings), it's essentially the case : largely autonomous peoples banding togther against Merovingian hegemony with various fortunes.

Eventually, what Franks seems to have tried to establish in Germania, was to re-establish at their scale, with conceptions and conditions that obviously changed (both in Romania and in Germania), the old clientele network of the Late Empire, doing so on the ruins of Theodoric's own network. Talking of revolts of Saxons against Franks is no more strange than revolt of Alamans against Romans (all proportions kept, of course).

Theudeubert in particular seems to have tried to impose the fiscal and institutional pattern of Gaul in Germania. I'm not saying that Franks could have pulled a "Gallicisation" of Germania (or even attempted it entierly : as said, the clientele/federal model suited them enough in the VIth and VIIth centuries), but it's hard to not consider the possible increased pressure when ooking at fiscals troubles in Gaul.

The tribute was possibly broken, in the same time as the royal faida led to a partial political withdrawal from Germania (altough some kings did launched campaigns against Saxons), and if abandoned at all, was re-established by Clothar II and Dabgobert I : always at sword-point, of course, but there's rarely other means to exert a tribute.

Quoting another specialist of Merovingian Francia, Ian Wood.

Less accessible to the Merovingians, Saxony was nevertheless subject to their influence. Gregory of Tours implies that the Saxons became a subject people in the time of Theuderic I, and he clearly regarded them in the mid-550s when they defeated Chlothar I. Although Gregory has no more to say about Saxony, it appears that before Chlothar died he re-established Frankish overlordship and forced the Saxons to pay an annual tribute of five hundred cows. According to Fredegar this arrangement continued until the time of Dagobert I, when the Saxons offered to provide military protection of the eastern frontier against the Wends instead. In fact it is debatable whether tribute was paid annually from the time of Chlothar I trough to that of Dagovert I, since ther is a reference in the Liber Historiae Francorum to Chilperic and Sigibert I campaigning against the Saxons, which may find some support in the opems of Venantius Fortunatus.

I'll go quickly over the relations between Franks and Saxons during the VIIth, if you will, prior to the Merovingian decline.
Royal faida (roughly speaking, the endless infighting between branches of Merovingians during the VIth century), without doubt, weakened the Frankish dominance over Germanic principalties altough, as we saw on the Battle of Zulpich, relations were maintained even with Saxons. For what matter Clothar's campaigns, we have to point that Saxons (led by Berthoald) were allied to Austrasians in a similar fashion they were to Theudeubert.

We have in 620's, in the courts of Austrasia recently re-established at the benefit of Dagobert, a Saxon duke (Aighina, Aega, there's a lot of various transcription), whom authority is found on the right side of the Rhine (basically in charge of "submitted" Saxons between Rhine and Weser) and essentially military-based. I'll spare you the details of court politics, but it's essentially a fight between Aighina and Austrasian families which degenerate in faida; eventually Aighina is removed from Austrasia, with Berthoald in charge of a group of Saxons.
It's not really clear if Berthoald was trusted with Aighina's direction, if he simply filled the void, if he was a competitor or not. What's interesting is that a Saxon duke (you probably had more than one or two of these) is part of Frankish court politics, integrated enough to provoke a faida, and is apprently dissimised and in inner exile in Francia afterwards (possibly recycled into military commander in Vasconia in the 630's, fighting Vascons with Saxon troops, altough it's generally considered to be an homonym)

The Saxon "revolt" (we saw that the term isn't illegitim, but I agree that we're in an in-between situation there) of 627 does happen at a crucial moment, when Austrasia lacks a military command (due to the void let by Aighina from one hand, and the one let by the majordomo he murdered). Again, we have a duke at the very least dependent on the political situation in Francia for what matters his own.

That Fredegar points that Berthoald was (on his own words) servus, in the sense of subordinated, of Clothar is quite interesting. I won't go into the details, but Helmut Reimitz makes, IMO, a good point about how it's on line with Berthoald's general behaviour (basically saying that it would be not that prestigious for Clothar to kill a servent, but a servent to kill a king,on the other hand...). At this point, the claim of Franks on having at least some form of hegemony over Saxons was acknowledged, if diversely accepted : the victory of Clothat against Saxons at Aachen, and Dagobert own's victorious campaign were made along these lines.

Regardless if Berthoald considered himself or not as subservent to Franks (and it appears he at least acknowledged the general idea), Frankish victories certainly put the concept in practice in some forms : for exemple, the tribute in heads of cattle is confirmed (altough possibly lowered to 400 heads according the LHF), and Clothar put little aftertought killing part of the Saxon aristocracy in late 620's : if "aristrocracide" is the marker of dominance you find decisive (and I agree it could be so depending on the situation) then it's worth noting that Franks underwent this as early as Clothar II's reign (altough it was made as an aftermath of the victirious campaign of Clothar, I also agree that its scope might have been much lesser than Charlemagne's)

Eventually, Saxons are largely unheard of for a time. Vascons (which continuously raid and revolt in southern-western Gaul) and even more Slavs (they didn't magically prevented to pressure Francia as much as they did in Balkans) are clearly a more important worry for Dagobert, but as well for Saxons that negociate an abandonment of the cattle tribute, in exchange of their military subservience in the mid-630's.

Not to say that Saxons were part to the same extent Thuringians, Alamans or even Bavarians were of the Merovingian ensemble: but they do seem to have been going this way IOTL, tough, until the crisis of the VIIth century, the way Merovingian Germania was : a network of autonomous principalties under Merovingian hegemony; and not what was enacted rushingly by Carolingians that had to take back more sophisticated polities under their control, whom people and aristocracy certainly didn't want to go back (or to forcifully enter completly) Francia.
On several regards, we could make a distinction (largely historiographical : I doubt it would have been clear between Thuringians and Saxons in the 630's) between peoples/territories within the regnum, such as Bavaria, Thuringia, Vasconia; and their equivalent outside (while possibly acknowledging a certain Frankish supremacy or hegemony at times) such as Brittany, Saxony, Kent.

The concept of a roughly unified Saxony itself comes from a structuration issued from Frankish presence (the name, until the end of the VIth century is only used for England), and by the time Charlemagne rised to the unified rulership of Francia, it would have been really hard to prevent a Frankish conquest (and a brutal one : Carolingians generally elected to go trough bloody and destructive warfare, compared to their predecessors) whom one of the main goals was to re-assert their dominance on their old sphere of influence (hence why Charles Martel first worry was to deal with Bavaria, rather than Aquitains or Arabo-Berbers).

As for the Scandinavisation of North-Western Germany, it seems dubious to me : it never really happened during the periods of Frankish withdrawal, and Saxons seems to have been more tied up with peoples as Thuringians (whom they shared a particularily close kinship with) or pre-VIth century Lombards than Danes.

Now, it doesn't mean that Germania was bound to fall within Frankish domination, or even to be part of the Frankish sphere of influence; of course.
Franks went in the region in the VIth century, when Theudeubert (son of Clovis) led a series of intervention in Germania : as the Ostrogoth clientele network collapsed due to Byzantine reconquest, Franks simply took over (notably Thuringians and Alamans, but as well barely structurated regions such as Raethia and what became Bavaria), partially with the idea to go in Italy. Generally speaking, Frankish presence there took the form of a clientele network with two goals :
- Gather ressources, materials or military, for inwards goals (such as succession crisis)
- Prevent a rival power (especially Italian-based) to get these and to form a threat.

With the right PoDs, we won't butterfly this situation or ambitions, but divert them enough to prevent Franks to win all the pot.
I can see two PoDs on this regard.

One is about an untimely dead of Chilperic in the 470's, in the aftermath of the Battle of Déols, before the birth of Clovis, as he fought Alamans : it could make the devolution of Belgica Secunda to Franks less likely to happen in one piece.
Eventually, with enough luck and infighting against Franks (keeping in mind that it never really prevented them to expand and assert their power), and more success in Belgica Prima and Germania Prima against Burgondians, you could see an Alemanic ensemble being successful in eastern Gaul and establishing its dominance over several Frankish entities (foedi as Ripuarii, or Franko-Romans counts as Arbgoast in Trier). For reasons aformentioned, I don't pretend it would be easy. It would be a possible turn of events, tough.

Eventually, we could see an Alemannic-Frankish kingdom being established in Belgica and Roman Germania; maybe not that able to project itself beyond Seine against a more cohesive Gallo-Britton ensemble (possibly benificing from Armorican Saxons presence as for military ressources). At least in a first time, we do end up with a divided Gaul, if not weak tough.

Culturally, nothing really changes, altough the distinction between southern and northern Gaul may be more stressed; but the Alemano-Frankish ensemble wouldn't really differ from what existed with Merovingian Gaul, altough we might admittedly end with a more peripherical sense than IOTL (due to the lack of Aquitain pool) making *Alemania (if a conquest of North-West, or at least its absorption doesn't follow which is still pretty much likely on the long run) an efficient counterpart of Francia.
Religiously, it wouldn't have world-shattering consequences but maybe a quicker evolution than IOTL : Alemano-Franks would still probably end up to convert to Nicean Christianity, and it's possible that Burgundians would re-switch to Nicean Christianity due to their new geopolitical position (keeping in mind that a large part of Burgonds probably were Niceans, even after the conversion from Niceanism to Homeism in the 430's).
A smaller post-imperial state, built-up along the Rhine on both banks would be definitely more worried about what happen in Germania (as said above, Franks tended to be more focused in the VIth by an inwards and westwards view) and submitting peripherical entities there becomes more of an urgent task. Depending on the alliances Alemano-Franks pull with Goths, you might even see a focus on northern Germania rather than southern Germania.

Another, possibly compatible, would be the permanence of Gothic Italy
, allowing Theodoric's network in Germania to be maintained, at least partially. Reasons for this PoD varies from Goths getting their shit together, to Romans being contents with taking back Sicily while making Gothic Italy a vice-kingdom of sort as they wished in the Vth century.
Regardless of the reasons, and keeping in mind Goths will still have trouble to avoid a slight decline by the VIth (altough far from being as catastrophic than the Gothic Wars), I could see their kings able to assert their dominance in Raethia, modern Bavaria and possibly up to Thuringia (which was a traditional Ostrogothic client in the Vth).
Franks, or Franko-Alamans, might be still able to project their influence and patronisation in Germania, but not unchecked and possibly more restricted to Rheinish area (including Alemania and Saxony, for exemple).

In this regard, we might end up with two geopolitical ensemble, roughly delimited by the Main basin; that might end up (depending on how the TL unfolds) as two distinct cultural ensemble especially if the Lower/High Germanic distinction still happens.
 
See above. Nowadays Austria stands somewhat significantly away from their cousins in Germany, at least so much as we can expect while sharing the same language. Netherlands is another Germanic country that stands quite away and never really shared in the whole Greater Germany ideal that proliferated in the 1900s. Bavaria is known to have retained quite a great deal of independence even under the Prussian-dominated German Empire. Switzerland is of course a multi-ethnic state featuring Germans, while Luxembourg was the sole avoider of the German unification efforts.

So, is there a way we could divide "Germany" into more sustainable, smaller states that last well into the 1900s and further? Saxony, Hannover, Bavaria, Hesse, Prussia and maybe some state in the Rhineland? Maybe a legitimate Friesland? What if the Hessian and Saxon stem duchies somehow weren't formed? Or what if the Prussians focused more on Poland rather than Germany?

Any thoughts?

I think it could be done early, with a lot of PoDs.

Walter Pohl, therefore, begins his latest survey on this subject with the sentence: “A people that called itself Germanic possibly never existed.”
This term may be applied, of course, to the language, and certainly the members of those peoples spoke their own vernacular language which may have given them a certain sense of unity, but, unfortunately, we have very little evidence of the language(s) used in the kingdoms considered here. It is impossible to say, therefore, which role the Germanic language played in the creation of the regna. And whereas former research (again mainly in Germany) has emphasized the “Germanic” character and mentality of the “barbarian” kingdoms and their constitution, recent studies have become wary of such an assumption: most elements that have been classified as being “Germanic” (for example the Eigenkirchenwesen, the Gefolgschaft and fidelity, or the “sib”, or “sept”) have turned out to be widespread among the early medieval societies—regardless of different ethnic origin, and many developments that were typical of the “Germanic” early Middle Ages had in fact already started in the Late Antique Roman Empire.


171012 .JPG
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
Get rid of Napoleon, without the "Befreiungskriege" Lieberation Wars, the formation of a GErman idendity is slowed down if not halted altogether
 
Split along the dialects? Low German, Middle German, High German makes three; the latter may be divided into Alemannian and Bavarian-Austrian.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Is Denmark part of it? More importantly, since a divided Germany could not be very effective in keeping out Norse raiders, Nordic influence may be more considerable upon Saxons and Frisians especially.

Was the Kingdom of Germany/East Francia/HRE especially effective at keeping out Norse raiders?

Didn't the Danes control most of the coast for awhile?

If the Norse impact on the HRE was less than in Normandy or Britain, is it because of better resistance, or less Norse interest in raiding those places compared to other targets?
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Was the Kingdom of Germany/East Francia/HRE especially effective at keeping out Norse raiders?

Didn't the Danes control most of the coast for awhile?

If the Norse impact on the HRE was less than in Normandy or Britain, is it because of better resistance, or less Norse interest in raiding those places compared to other targets?

As far as I know, the Danish (and at some times, Swedish) area of control and influence in Northern Germany was east of the Danish peninsula. Annexing Frisia and parts of the Saxon lands never worked out for them. Considering th wealth of the Hanseatic League, the region sure has value. Without the power of a united kingdom/empire to keep them from assuming control, Nordic influence may well end up being far more extensive than in OTL.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Denmark isn't part of Germany. The languages are much more different than German and Dutch.

Obviously, in OTL, that is the case. But if you look at Old Saxon, you may note quite a few more commonalities with Danish. Which is why I wrote:

Then there's the fact that under these circumstances, historical links between (for instance) the Saxons and the Danes don't get ruptured by Carolingian conquests. Rather than an abrubt line, it would be very difficult to say where 'Germany' actually ends. Is Denmark part of it? More importantly, since a divided Germany could not be very effective in keeping out Norse raiders, Nordic influence may be more considerable upon Saxons and Frisians especially. In such a TL, the distinction between 'German' and 'Scandinavian' may not exist. 'German' might mean much the same as (continental) 'Germanic', and Norse might be seen as just as closely related to Saxon as Bavarian is related to Saxon.

In many ways, a language like the Saxon one, if it does not get totally swallowed up by the domination of Middle German, retains far closer ties to the languages to its direct north-- this becoming a 'bridge', of sorts, between Middle German (i.e. what we perceive as 'German' in OTL) and the languages of Denmark and Scandinavia. This certainly requires an early POD, but it is hardly impossible.
 
@Skallagrim
I'm not disagreeing over the links between Old Saxon and Old Dane, there's ties even if Old Saxon is definitely rooted into north-western Germanic. But I think it would require for Old Saxon ton go full ausbausprache to be entierly considered as a middle-way between Low German and Scandinavian ensemble, if not possibly (if wrongly) considered as a part of the Scandinavian ensemble.
Meaning, a language that stems from a "mother" language or linguistic ensemble which is not really distinct from it, but grows more and more distinct thanks to an at least partially concious elaboration. It generally requires some state appartus constructrion, such as chancery. Basically, pulling a Catalan with Saxon out of Low German as it did from Occitan.

It's not unthinkable, but it requires some political change : as you said, it's not really likely that a Dane takeover (would it be a Danish expension which seems dubious in the light of political destructuration it knew after the VIIIth century; or pulling a Normandy out of Frisia which definitely more likely and temporarily happened IOTL) could really pull out this state apparatus.
On the other hand...A post-Carolingian Saxony (and I say post-Carolingian in the broadest sense I can, at least deep into Middle-Ages) that would have been able to not only swallow up Jutland, but cut itself from the Middle German ensemble politically, might be a first ground for this to happen.
 
Perhaps in the Reformation and the various Wars of Religion we get more than just the Catholics and Lutherans agreeing that the religion of the populace of each area must match their ruler, who has to be one of those. Have other Protestant groups come about who manage to hold their own against both groups. Though it may be difficult, as most rulers seemed to be set with those two denominations. The Swiss were mentioned early on, and they really are a perfect example of how to do things. We need republics. Otherwise you just get someone or forcing through marriages, without the populace having the most invested in it. If not for the Prince Bishoprics and the Wettins and Wittslebachs, perhaps something could end up being down around Kleves and Cologne, using the area to set up a small union on the lower Rhine.
 
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