Liberal German State before the 1800's?

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Deleted member 1487

Is it possible and how could it be done? I really have no idea, but wanted to know if this could be done without Napoleon, ie internally rather than externally
 
Is that "a" liberal German state or a "liberal" German state?

If it's the former, you needn't look further than the Republic of Mainz, which existed shortly during/after the French Revolution (it didn't quite last long enough to set a record for liberalism, however).
 

Susano

Banned
Well, it depends what you mean with liberal. As such, liberalism didnt really exist yet in the 18th century. You could look for states of enlightened absolutism, and indeed ironcially Prussia was in this regard one of the most liberal continental states of the 18th century.

If you really mean democracy or semi-democracy a la French Revolution... uh, well, the Free Imperial Cities. Oligarchies, fo course, but hey, so was revolutioanry and Napoleonic France.
 
If you have a POD where the Hapsburgs unify Germany or something like that, then you could see Enlightenment thinking used to justify something similar in Germany to the French Revolution.
 
i doubt there is any pod where Hapsburgs could unite HRE Charles V was their best bet and he didnt come close to uniting them.. plus those German princes got to protect their germanic liberties from the dirty Austrian Hapsburgs :D
 

Susano

Banned
:confused:

Liberalism was invented in the 18th century.

To a degree, yes. As said, you could say that in a sense enlightened absolutism was already liberal, because it contrasted in a liberal way with classical absolutism or rule of the estates. But, at least in mainland Europe (GB is another matter) there was no political liberalism any 20th century or even onyl 19th century observer without historical background wouldve regogniced.
 

Deleted member 1487

I mean a unified Germany that has a constitutional monarchy. Basically the German people do it themselves, rather than waiting for the French revolution to change the game.
 

Susano

Banned
Sure, with a PoD far enough back everythings possible... the thing is that, if we just take the OTL 18th century, any German Revolution wont work, Germanys too decentralised (too understate it) for that...
 
i doubt there is any pod where Hapsburgs could unite HRE Charles V was their best bet and he didnt come close to uniting them.. plus those German princes got to protect their germanic liberties from the dirty Austrian Hapsburgs :D

I think Charles V is where you could unify Germany, with the POD being one of the many people who had to die in order for him to inherit Spain lives instead. With just the Burgundian Inheritance and Austria to worry about instead of Spain and all the rest the Hapsburg could pursue more realistic religious policies in Germany. Specifically, Charles V could embrace early Luther, grab Church property, and place himself at the head of a 'Reforming' movement of the Catholic Church.
 
Oh, that old thing. Actually Ofaloaf, thanks for the mention.

In any case, there's all sorts of interesting ways of tackling the issue: the liberal state is an eighteenth century synthesis as others on the thread have indicated, but the questions it answers are being asked everywhere in the seventeenth: Whose right is it to make decisions with respect to my soul? If my neighbor and I disagree with respect to the nature of life, death and eternity, how do we live together peacably? Is humanity fundamentally alike in that it is a race of reasoning beings, or is it fundamentally a hierarchy of superior and inferior creatures arrayed by bloodline, race and sex?

And it's not that the seventeenth century was without answers to these questions: John Milton formulated some very persuasive ones that we happen to still live with to this day. James I's have not fared so well in posterity.

In Germany, these questions that will result in liberalism are soldered to the unresolved business of the Reformation. The great compromise that was supposed to solve all the problems in the sixteenth century, that people were to be the same religion as their prince and that if they didn't like it they could leave, was not working. Instead, people were groping their way toward the world where you pick your church like you pick your supermarket and your doctor, though they were immensely frightened of it.

Now, my timeline posits one alternate answer for Germany. Another point of departure that points in the same direction is contemplating Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden and his proposed solution for the Thirty Years War, which offered freedom of worship to everyone in Germany no matter where they lived or who ruled them.

To research the timeline I've been reading CV Wedgwood's "The Thirty Years War", which is especially remarkable as a description of the most awful fratricidal bloodbath up to that point in German history considering it is written in 1938, and every page is as much about what is about to happen as what has happened already. One passage Wedgwood writes about Gustavus, very apt to this discussion, gives me chills when I read it:

"The batle of Breitenfeld was a heavy blow to Ferdinand, but it did not break him. The most perilous time for the Protestants had not yet come. It was not the weeks which preceded the Swedish victory at Breitenfeld, but those which followed the Swedish defeat three years later at Nordlingen.

"Yet this cannot affect the position of Breitenfeld in the history of Europe. Almost at once it became a symbol. The giant personality of the King, and his belief in himself, endowed his every action with miraculous significance, most of all this great battle, the first Protestant victory. Therefore it must take its place in the simplified tradition which is customarily called history, not because of what it achieved but because of what men thought it had achieved. It was as though the King of Sweden had written the incontrovertible truth about the situation in letters that every man could read. The Habsburg dynasty was defeated; the last crusade had failed.

"Two hundred years later, in the liberal nineteenth century, a monument was erected on the field, bearing one significant phrase: 'freedom of belief for all the world.' The monument still stands, set back from a quiet country road in the shade of a line of trees. Three centuries have smoothed every scar from that landscape, even as the philosophy of the New Germany has submerged the spiritual landmark. 'Freedom of belief for all the world'--forgotten yearning of an age forgotten among men who have no choice but to believe what they are told."

Written in 1938. The year of Kristallnacht.


A unified German constitutional monarchy? Oh ho, why don't I go ahead and plug someone else's TL?

Dr. Waterhouse's TL is as good as anything you'll get for this question.
 
Well, to go along with King Gustavus Adolphus, he survives the Battle of Lutzen, and goes on to have his way with the Holy Roman Empire. Which brings me to the question of whether Adolphus, in the aftermath of Lutzen, could really be stopped. Anyway, I don't know exactly what he does, but it rearranges the HRE.

The marriage between Princess (and Swedish Heir, future Queen) Christina and Elector Frederick William goes through. This union is going to be the pre-eminent power in Germany, the leader of the Protestant alliance . . .

Anyway, could Gustavus' victory be the basis of a united Germany? If he is able to force a more united Protestant alliance in Germany, he might be able to prevent the way the Westphalian Treaty dealt with Germany, that is get the treaty to recognize HRE borders and not the nobles individual borders.

If he lives, then could he be elected HRE in 1637 or cause one of his allies to be elected Emperor?
 

Deleted member 1487

BTW waterhouse I read your TL last night in its entirety (took until 4am!) and it was excellent! Possibly my favorite TL ever, so keep up the good work.
 
Well, to go along with King Gustavus Adolphus, he survives the Battle of Lutzen, and goes on to have his way with the Holy Roman Empire. Which brings me to the question of whether Adolphus, in the aftermath of Lutzen, could really be stopped.


Sure. Cut off his funding.
 
Oh my God, that's such a compliment! I'm almost ready to put up the next decade, which is going to be pretty fun.

And there's lots of different directions to go with this early modern German subject matter, so I'm interested in what you might come up with here.

BTW waterhouse I read your TL last night in its entirety (took until 4am!) and it was excellent! Possibly my favorite TL ever, so keep up the good work.
 
I'm not sure if Faeelin's answer to Matthais Corvinus' question is sarcasm, but it actually does correctly describe the state of affairs. Sweden was still a relatively poor country at this point, and the expenses of Gustavus' army was being paid by France. Of course Richelieu developed misgivings when it looked as if Gustavus might take everything from Franconia (think the Mainz) north. And in a pretty vivid chapter in Wedgwood, when a French diplomat suggests a little moderation from Gustavus might be in order to keep the money spigot flowing, Gustavus in a rage threatens to go to war with France too--when it is actually the one paying his bills.

And of course Gustavus was promising to marry Christina to Frederick William, but good God can anyone imagine though how that marriage would have actually turned out? Not in a large brood of cherubic happy Protestant children ready to go forth and make dynasties, I don't think. Although at the same time, Frederick William as the King of Sweden would be very...epic. (Also remember, the Swedes tend to be rather free-form about following dynastic rules at this point, which Sigismund III Vasa knew all about, so don't assume that Frederick William marries Christina and that makes Sweden Hohenzollern going forward).

Finally, counting Electors: at this point 4 is the HRE's 270: at the beginning of the Thirty Years War, the Protestants could count on the Palatinate, Saxony and Brandenburg, which is why Bohemia was so crucial. And it's one reason why to reward Maximilian for bankrolling him Ferdinand II gave him the Palatinate's vote.

So that means as of 1632 or so the only Protestant Electors are George William of Brandenburg and John George of Saxony, the latter of whom is frankly so ridiculously cynical and ineffectual I'm so glad my timeline has done away with him, but the bottom line is that very likely John George's vote would be up for grabs by the highest bidder here. That leaves George William as the vote for Gustavus, and he's wobbly enough considering basically Gustavus had to threaten him into a deal to begin with.

However, the countervailing thing to consider in elector-counting in the early 1630's is that at some point at the end of the 1620's Ferdinand tries to call together the Electors to make his son the King of Rome (which is basically the HRE equivalent of "Prince of Wales"). Even with the Palatinate's Elector shifted to Catholic Bavaria, the Electors are so mad about Wallenstein, the state of the war and what they feel is the Emperor's excesses that they won't do it.

So basically, there are people in play who are dissatisfied with the Emperor, but who are unlikely to vote for Gustavus because of religion. A compromise might be in order.

I think in the end the best place to take a timeline might be for Gustavus to live, force Bavaria to surrender the Electoral vote of the Palatinate (which he threatened to do, but which is weird anyway since these constitutional responsibilities can't get traded like baseball cards) and liberate Bohemia (which he also threatened to do, long past the point anyone else was taking poor Frederick seriously as King).

But you'd still need to fix problems that he had getting men and supplies down from Sweden, strengthen his finances, and make his allies more consistent and faithful than they were (John George, especially). Because superior strategy and training is great, but Gustavus was at the time of his death running headlong into the economic limitations that would place a ceiling on what he could accomplish, no matter how brilliant he was.

Well, to go along with King Gustavus Adolphus, he survives the Battle of Lutzen, and goes on to have his way with the Holy Roman Empire. Which brings me to the question of whether Adolphus, in the aftermath of Lutzen, could really be stopped. Anyway, I don't know exactly what he does, but it rearranges the HRE.

The marriage between Princess (and Swedish Heir, future Queen) Christina and Elector Frederick William goes through. This union is going to be the pre-eminent power in Germany, the leader of the Protestant alliance . . .

Anyway, could Gustavus' victory be the basis of a united Germany? If he is able to force a more united Protestant alliance in Germany, he might be able to prevent the way the Westphalian Treaty dealt with Germany, that is get the treaty to recognize HRE borders and not the nobles individual borders.

If he lives, then could he be elected HRE in 1637 or cause one of his allies to be elected Emperor?
 

Susano

Banned
Gustav Adolf? *twitches*
As a good figure for Germany? *twitch twitch*
ARGH, GIMME THAT DEATH RAY, NEK!

;)
 
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