Most stable 3 Germanies

The Professor

The Professor

So post 1800 what's the best way to end up with 3 states in central Europe that can be described as Germanies but are independent of each other and not liable to unify.

What is each composition?
What dialect standard do they use?
Etc etc

EDIT: if post1800 is too hard, best pre1800?
 
Last edited:

Richthofen

A stronger Austria creates an analogue South German Confederation to prevent Prussia from doing the unification. You'd have the North and South German Confeds + Austria. For this you need to somehow prevent the Franco-Prussian war, but that is not a very big hurdle. The big one is getting an Austria strong to enough to both influence the southern German states and to bounce back up from the defeat in 1866 that allowed Prussia to create the North Confed.
 
Skallagrim

Skallagrim

Banned
1. Prussia, basically covering the areas marked 'Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch', 'Märkisch' and '(Ober-)Sächsisch' and every German area east of there on this map.

2. Unified Austria and Bavaria, including the southern Sudetenland and South Tyrol. So basically what's marked 'Bairisch' on that same map.

3. A West German Confederation, stretching out from Schleswig to at least the northern border of Switzerland, but possibly even incorporating all of German Switzerland. It shouldn't include the Netherlands however (as on the map I linked), or at least not the Low Franconian (i.e. Dutch) speaking area. An 1800 POD still allows for regional Low saxon dialicts in the north-eastern Netherlands to be prevalent enough to join that area to Germany linguistically (German can gradually replace Low Saxon just as well as Dutch did in OTL), but I doubt the region's inhabitant's would he happy. (They'd be less likely than the rather more culturally German Swiss people to accept becoming German.)

That third country is the trickiest one to form in any case, because it's basically "everything that's not Prussia or Austria-Bavaria". Yet you want three states that can really be called a 'Germany', and this is the way to make that happen. The West German Confederation would include catholics and protestants, and various Low, Middle, and High German dialects. It would have to be confederal or (decentralised) federal in order to function well, but that can be arranged.

The three countries described here would be able to keep each other in check. None would be able to dominate. It's pretty much a stable situation. This kind of thing could have been implemented by Napoleon, which fits the c. 1800 POD for this...
 
Albidoom

Albidoom

The Professor said:
So post 1800 what's the best way to end up with 3 states in central Europe that can be described as Germanies but are independent of each other and not liable to unify.

What is each composition?
What dialect standard do they use?
Etc etc
Click to expand...

How about OTL? Germany, Austria, Luxemburg and Switzerland?

...

Oops, that's four Germanys, one too many.
 

trajen777

Banned
Ok going way back 1400 :
1. Have Teutonic Knights win B of Tannenberg
a. Conquer Baltic states, parts of Poland, some of Belarus, over the next 200 years
b. Germanificaton continues in these areas.
c. Focus on the east
2. Netherlands, Eastern Belguim, West German states, AL, Lux "guaranteed independence" after Nap by Prussia, Austria, GB, France. However a power onto themselves
3. Austria and the southern German state

So one focused east, west, and south
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Albidoom said:
How about OTL? Germany, Austria, Luxemburg and Switzerland?

...

Oops, that's four Germanys, one too many.
Click to expand...
Don't forget the Netherlands. "Dutch" very often referred to German until oh, maybe a century or two ago. The Pennsylvania Dutch are German, for instance, not Dutch, although that's a fossilized usage.

Netherlands, Austria, and Germany. That's 3 'German' independent nations today.
 

pompejus

The Professor said:
Funnily enough back in the 1770s the Americans were considered English...
Click to expand...
Funnily enough the Swiss might have been considered German during the Middle Ages, but they weren't German anymore in the 18th century or the 17th century.

My point still stands, the Swiss aren't German, even if they speak German.
 
Skallagrim

Skallagrim

Banned
Of course, German nationalism was an evolving process, and by 1800, it had not reached clearly defined - "bordered" - shapes, really. Songs from the Napoleonic era defined "the German fatherland" in many ways. Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland, indeed! It even comes back in the anthem: Von der Maas bis an die Memel, von der Etsch bis an den Belt... That describes more than just 'Germany' as we understand it. Furthermore, if German Switzerland is so non-German, then why do its inhabitants call it Deutschschweiz? Literally "German Switzerland".

German Switzerland is culturally German, and considers itself as such-- much as Austria does. Politically, it's another matter, but by 1800, that was not so well-defined. The right POD thereabouts could easily have German Switzerland swept up into the whole German consolidation phase, and in such a scenario, no inhabitant in the region would hesitate to identify as 'German' by the present day.

ETA - directly from "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland":

"Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?
So nenne mir das grosse Land.
Ist’s Land der Schweizer, ist’s Tirol?
Das Land und Volk gefiel mir wohl
doch nein! nein! nein!
Sein Vaterland muss grösser sein!"
 
The Professor

The Professor

pompejus said:
Funnily enough the Swiss might have been considered German during the Middle Ages, but they weren't German anymore in the 18th century or the 17th century.

My point still stands, the Swiss aren't German, even if they speak German.
Click to expand...
Hence "partly German".
But I wasn't after Switzerland as one of the 3 Germanies anyway! Partly because of the already existing multilingual Swiss identity you're so protective of.
 

Napoleonrules

Banned
People of Luxembourg, Leichtenstein, Austria, and German parts of Switzerland are German. That's ridiculous idea that ethnicity is transformative in such a short amount of time without a period of ethnogenesis. Ethnicities exist and nationalities should not be confused with ethnicities.
 

Napoleonrules

Banned
pompejus said:
Funnily enough the Swiss might have been considered German during the Middle Ages, but they weren't German anymore in the 18th century or the 17th century.

My point still stands, the Swiss aren't German, even if they speak German.
Click to expand...
Swiss is a nationality not an ethnic group. Same for Leichtenstein and Austria, and yes even Luxembourg. You're confusing the two concepts. German Swiss people are ethnically German with Swiss nationality. They aren't ethnically Swiss, no one is.
 

pompejus

Skallagrim said:
Of course, German nationalism was an evolving process, and by 1800, it had not reached clearly defined - "bordered" - shapes, really. Songs from the Napoleonic era defined "the German fatherland" in many ways. Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland, indeed! It even comes back in the anthem: Von der Maas bis an die Memel, von der Etsch bis an den Belt... That describes more than just 'Germany' as we understand it. Furthermore, if German Switzerland is so non-German, then why do its inhabitants call it Deutschschweiz? Literally "German Switzerland".

German Switzerland is culturally German, and considers itself as such-- much as Austria does. Politically, it's another matter, but by 1800, that was not so well-defined. The right POD thereabouts could easily have German Switzerland swept up into the whole German consolidation phase, and in such a scenario, no inhabitant in the region would hesitate to identy as 'German' by the present day.
Click to expand...
Switserland had its own seperate national identity far before Germany existed. Far before German nationalism existed and even before the German identity existed. The Swiss identity, seperate from the HRE existed even before they became independent after the treat of Westphalia. The treaty of Westphalia only accepted asituation that already existed. The Swiss were no longer interested in being part of the HRE or a greater German nation. They were already Swiss. Why did people spoke about German Swiss, well simply to distinguish them from the French and Italian speaking Swiss. Not to identify them as German. One thing to realise is that the word for German at its core does not mean German. In English it points towards the Germanic heritage that the Swiss and Germans share with the Scandinavians and the English. In German (and Dutch) it points towards the people. Deutch, Dutch, Diets even Teutonic spimply means people, mainly as opposed to the Latin of the church. Calling a German speaking Swiss would simply mean a Swiss that spoke a Germanic language. Not a Swiss with a German identity.

This discussion simply points to the fact that people on this forum (and everywhere) have a very simplistic worldview.They see someone speaking German and they assume that he must be German. Especialy in history. The thing is: the world is more complexthan that. As I said, noone would claim Americans are English, simply because they speak English. Oreven claim that the Irish are English simply because they speak English. The German national identity developed in the late 18th early 19th century. The Swiss (and Dutch) national identity were already firmly developed in those days. The Dutch and Swiss (and Flemish) did not consider themselves German, simply because they considered themselves Dutch and Swiss. This as opposed to the Austrians (and in a lesser case the Luxemburgians). They had no seperate national identity,so they could consider themselves German when German nationalism arose. Before that time there was realy no such thing as a German identity, nor did people care about it. That is why Prussia conquered so much of Poland and Austria conquered Hungary. That is why Francophone areas like Lorraine and Wallonia were part of the HRE, or Czechia. Nobody was interested in creating a German state. Land on its own (and the people living on it) were key. Not some strange non existing identity.



BTW Napoleonrules, your ideas about ethnicities are incredibly outdated. There is no German ethnicity, at least not in such a way that is distinct from a French or Danishor whatever ethnicity.
 

Dunning Kruger

Skallagrim said:
1. Prussia, basically covering the areas marked 'Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch', 'Märkisch' and '(Ober-)Sächsisch' and every German area east of there on this map.

2. Unified Austria and Bavaria, including the southern Sudetenland and South Tyrol. So basically what's marked 'Bairisch' on that same map.

3. A West German Confederation, stretching out from Schleswig to at least the northern border of Switzerland, but possibly even incorporating all of German Switzerland. It shouldn't include the Netherlands however (as on the map I linked), or at least not the Low Franconian (i.e. Dutch) speaking area. An 1800 POD still allows for regional Low saxon dialicts in the north-eastern Netherlands to be prevalent enough to join that area to Germany linguistically (German can gradually replace Low Saxon just as well as Dutch did in OTL), but I doubt the region's inhabitant's would he happy. (They'd be less likely than the rather more culturally German Swiss people to accept becoming German.)

That third country is the trickiest one to form in any case, because it's basically "everything that's not Prussia or Austria-Bavaria". Yet you want three states that can really be called a 'Germany', and this is the way to make that happen. The West German Confederation would include catholics and protestants, and various Low, Middle, and High German dialects. It would have to be confederal or (decentralised) federal in order to function well, but that can be arranged.

The three countries described here would be able to keep each other in check. None would be able to dominate. It's pretty much a stable situation. This kind of thing could have been implemented by Napoleon, which fits the c. 1800 POD for this...
Click to expand...

It seems to me this works best after Germany starts to industrialize. That way #3 now has much more economic power, an interest to unify around, and third parties with a motive to keep it separate from the other two. The timing is tricky though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top