Later/Calmer German Unification

WI Germany was unified in the late 19th century or early 20th century via slower or more peaceful means instead of by the aggressive policies of the Prussians?
 
Well first of all, Prussian policies were not anymore aggressive than the other great power's various moves during the time period. The Unification of Germany held much great ramifications and changed Europe in a much bigger way but that doesn't mean the moves were any more aggressive than say France or even Italy at the time. Bismarck just orchestrated it successfully on a level far above any peers.

Onto the topic, I'm not sure you would even see a calm unification at a later date. Some kind of event would have to happen to galvanize the populations into unification. Continue economic federations of some sort might keep progressing but I just don't' see Bavaria for example joining unless circumstances pushed her into it. She was essentially bankrupt in 1870 and played a large part in convincing the monarchy to back becoming part of the German empire.

Casting that aside and playing along I suppose you would have to see a lot of power shifting upon the unification. France's unending desire for vengeance dominated her foreign policy OTL and the bungling of Kaiser WII and his diplomacy cronies post-Bismarck pushed Russia and the UK together. A delayed empire would probably be pretty torn as the former independent smaller states would be more inclined to alliances with Austria and/or France while the East might remain more closely tied to a Russia much like pre-1866 Prussia. You probably might see the UK continue a strongly solo act rather than be forced into continental business and thus perhaps much more hostile to France (Fashoda war?) and Russia. In the event things did push her to act Britain might become more strongly tied to the Japanese or even make more of an effort to create ties to the United States. Teddy and Eddy were pretty close in OTL, and might have developed more formal ties. A lot would change ...
 
WI Germany was unified in the late 19th century or early 20th century via slower or more peaceful means instead of by the aggressive policies of the Prussians?

an interesting idea; while it might not be, in number terms, weaker, this Germany might be a bit more chaotic. Hrmm.
 
You need to get rid of Bismarck, at the least, to achieve something like this.

I think the problem is that the only way the German princes are going to bow down to a unified state is through the use of military power. Basically, "people power" was defeated in '48 and clearly couldn't overcome the German states. So Bismarck decided to pursue the only course of action that could bring about German unification, using Prussia's superior military to force the other German states into line.

Without Bismarck's use of force I doubt that any of the other German princes will be able to bring about German unification. The only one who would be able to do it peaceably would be the Austrian Hapsburg Emperor. The problem is that Franz Josef was long-lived, unimaginative, and non-nationalist. If he were to be assassinated and his brother Maximilian become Emperor, then I think Maximilian might be willing to go for German leadership.
 
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