Napoleon III does not take Bismarck's bait in 1870, what's the situation in 1875?

If no Franco-Prussian war, by 1875

  • South German states and North German Confederation will remain separate

    Votes: 70 47.9%
  • South German states and North German Confederation will unite anyway

    Votes: 76 52.1%

  • Total voters
    146

Redbeard

Banned
With Prussia the clear winner in the rivalry with Austria I think the German unification will happen anyway, but without the stunning victory over France in 1870-71 the Prussian role might not be as dominant as in OTL and I could even imagine some (Catholic) parts of the OTL German Empire being left out or with wide ranged "special rights" - I of course primarily think of Bavaria.

France will of course have to anxiously watch this new and potent rival, and will have a number of diplomatic opportunities - primarily Austria and Russia. UK will the part being the least threat to its Empire - ie the one with the smallest navy and most modest colonial ambitions. A French-Russian alliance with significant naval strength and overseas ambitions has no chance of British support - unless of course the Germans are stupid enough and make themselves an even bigger threat - just like in OTL...:confounded:
 
Maybe the 2nd Empire would end up more feisty in the colonial realm, or come to blows with Britain over Egypt.

It's fairly unlikely that France and Britain would come to blows in Egypt - the British only intervened in Egypt when their plan A (to get the French to intervene alone) and plan B (get the French to chum along in a bi-national intervention) failed to interest France.

If France is more interested in colonies, relations in Britain are likely to be better than they were in this period in OTL.

fasquardon
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
I see Germany being likely unified by at least 1900. But by 1875, doubtful. Of course, Bismarck can just engineer another incident. If memory serves the cause of the Franco-Prussian war basically boils down to one guy was rude to another guy in a spa it just so happened that one was a French ambassador and one was the King of Prussia, at least officially as the casus bellum. Engineering a diplomatic insult to cause a war obviously was not that difficult for Bismarck so by 1880 I expect there to have been a Franco-Prussian War. The question is obviously, who would win? If France was given more time to reform and recover from its Mexican involvement etc. then maybe the war could have gone the other way. If I recall correctly France's forces only lost due to poor organization manifesting in a relatively slow mobilization that allowed the Prussians to move decisively.

With Prussia the clear winner in the rivalry with Austria I think the German unification will happen anyway, but without the stunning victory over France in 1870-71 the Prussian role might not be as dominant as in OTL and I could even imagine some (Catholic) parts of the OTL German Empire being left out or with wide ranged "special rights" - I of course primarily think of Bavaria.

Supposing one or more South German states remain outside any Prussian-led Confederacy (except for the Zollverein) through the 1870s. What are the odds their regimes remain stable versus one or more of them experiencing a revolution of some kind? What will Socialist or Republican strength be in the south. What will governmental stability and the strength of Socialist, Anarchist or Republican elements be like in Prussia and the NGC in this period compared with the same period in OTL's 2nd Reich?
 
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Redbeard

Banned
Supposing one or more South German states remain outside any Prussian-led Confederacy (except for the Zollverein) through the 1870s. What are the odds their regimes remain stable versus one or more of them experiencing a revolution of some kind? What will Socialist or Republican strength be in the south. What will governmental stability and the strength of Socialist, Anarchist or Republican elements be like in Prussia and the NGC in this period compared with the same period in OTL's 2nd Reich?
Short of some strong external factor like loosing a major war and your army I don't think socialist revolutions will have a chance - anywhere. I also think there was a strong contemporary awareness of this - it would usually be considered unwise to gamble the army - no heroic last stand as the army had to be kept reasonably intact to fight the expected internal unrest afterwards.

The Habsburg Empire stayed together as long as its army was intact - and when the army dissolved in October 1918, the Empire went down the drain almost simultaneously. The German army in late 1918 clearly was exhausted, but never anywhere dissolved like the A-H army - hence the socialist revolutions in Germany were very short lived.

When the French Army was beaten in June 1940 the French leadership was very keen on gaining an armistice, on almost any condition, because they feared a socialist uprising, and needed what was left of the army to fight it.

When the German defeat became the probable outcome of WWII large parts of the Danish resistance movement got a second focus, apart from fighting the Germans, and that was fighting an expected communist revolution after the German defeat. By mid to late WWII the communist part of the resistance movement was quite strong, but arms deliveries to a large degree was channeled outside the communist part of the resistance movement and instead given to the (militarily led) so called "Underground army". It was quite numerous, but wouldn't have stood a chance in open combat with the Wehrmacht and its main function was to wait for the German capitulation and make sure the communists didn't take over. In Sweden the Swedish Government even raised an Infantry Brigade recruited among Danish refugees. Officially of course to fight the Germans (for which it was ill equipped) but de facto to make sure Copenhagen wouldn't be taken over by the communists after a German capitulation.

All this just to illustrate how aware they were back then to keep the "Reds" away from power - and generally how successful they were in doing so.
 
I see Germany being likely unified by at least 1900. But by 1875, doubtful. Of course, Bismarck can just engineer another incident. If memory serves the cause of the Franco-Prussian war basically boils down to one guy was rude to another guy in a spa it just so happened that one was a French ambassador and one was the King of Prussia, at least officially as the casus bellum. Engineering a diplomatic insult to cause a war obviously was not that difficult for Bismarck so by 1880 I expect there to have been a Franco-Prussian War. The question is obviously, who would win? If France was given more time to reform and recover from its Mexican involvement etc. then maybe the war could have gone the other way. If I recall correctly France's forces only lost due to poor organization manifesting in a relatively slow mobilization that allowed the Prussians to move decisively.

He wasn't that rude in real life; the dispatch was edited to make their meeting seem much worse than it was.
 
Here's a unique possible outcome.

Without the Franco-Prussian War, southern Germany is keen to remain outside the realm of Berlin. Led by Ludwig II, the Alliance of Southern German States (or other equivalent) is tenuous. Ludwig needs to secure an heir and finds a means to do this via the Duchess Helene in Bavaria (he had already been engaged to her sister/his other cousin who was now married, Helene was widowed by then) or Empress Charlotte of Belgium/Carlota of Mexico. The former technically gives their child a claim on the French throne, the latter might see Maxine Weygand as King of Bavaria. Napoleon III likely dies by 1877 or so and his young son becomes Napolean IV. Europe is likely spared World War I and things look very different in 2017.
 
Bismarck wasn't a cartoon villain who would have abandoned his plot in an impotent huff just because the first try failed (to come back next episode with a completely different plot, stay tuned!).
The simple historical truth is that too many people in France were willing to declare war on Prussia over the slightest excuse. Unless the PoD removes that willingness to a sufficient extent, Bismarck would have found them another one in short order, maybe within the same year. He had decided the time was right and that was it.
 
Here's a unique possible outcome.

Without the Franco-Prussian War, southern Germany is keen to remain outside the realm of Berlin. Led by Ludwig II, the Alliance of Southern German States (or other equivalent) is tenuous. Ludwig needs to secure an heir and finds a means to do this via the Duchess Helene in Bavaria (he had already been engaged to her sister/his other cousin who was now married, Helene was widowed by then) or Empress Charlotte of Belgium/Carlota of Mexico. The former technically gives their child a claim on the French throne, the latter might see Maxine Weygand as King of Bavaria. Napoleon III likely dies by 1877 or so and his young son becomes Napolean IV. Europe is likely spared World War I and things look very different in 2017.

Not only was Maxime Weygand illegitimate and born out of wedlock it is doubtful whether he actually was Carlota's son instead of one of her entourage.
 
Not only was Maxime Weygand illegitimate and born out of wedlock it is doubtful whether he actually was Carlota's son instead of one of her entourage.

Hence the 'might'. Either way it gives Ludwig II a legitimate heir with some military ability and lessens questions about his sexuality.
 
Hence the 'might'. Either way it gives Ludwig II a legitimate heir with some military ability and lessens questions about his sexuality.

I've never believed he was Carlota's for a minute, call me an old fashioned romantic but I never thought accounts her mourning to be indicative of being ungenuine. It doesn't fit accounts of her in my opinion. There are better options then Maximilian's widow.
 
I've never believed he was Carlota's for a minute, call me an old fashioned romantic but I never thought accounts her mourning to be indicative of being ungenuine. It doesn't fit accounts of her in my opinion. There are better options then Maximilian's widow.

Who do you have in mind? I was hoping to find a way to expand Bavaria into a merger with Wurtemberg and/or Baden but was u able to find a way to do it.
 
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