No Bismark

There's a disputed succession in the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which he ruled, between his Danish successor, Christian of Glücksburg, whose wife is the heir-general to the old King, and Frederick of Augustenburg, the heir-male. Augustenburg's claim is that while Denmark itself can pass through a female line, Schleswig and Holstein cannot, and ought to pass instead to him.

Matters are complicated three days after Frederick VII's death, when the Danish Parliament approves a constitution which unites Schleswig to Denmark. Although the great powers had all recognized Christian's right to succeed to the duchies as well as to Denmark itself, this was clearly in violation of international law, because the First Schleswig Crisis had been resolved by supposedly guaranteeing the special rights of Schleswig.

Augustenburg, meanwhile, garners a lot of sympathy and support from the German states, who want to give the duchies over to him to create a new medium-sized German state in Schleswig-Holstein.

The Austrians aren't at all sympathetic to this, but, as leaders of the German Confederation, can't allow Denmark to simply annex Schleswig without protest. In OTL, Bismarck pretends to agree with them and guides both countries into a war with Denmark over the Duchies. By allying with Austria, he is able to ignore Augustenburg's claims and finally break with Austria, defeat them, and annex the duchies himself (along with much of the rest of northern Germany).

I can't remember who it was, but as to the Schleswig War, some British? minister said: "Only three people understood the Schleswig problem: a German professor - but he went mad. The Prince-Consort [Albert] - but he's dead. And myself - but I've forgotten all about it."
 
It's been claimed that Bismark didn't set out to unify Germany, but when opportunity knocked, he responded in a manner beneficial to Prussia. Someone else in charge would have likely responded differently, and we can't really say if that would have ultimately been better or worse.

Bismarck himself said: You must wait until you hear the footfalls of God in events, and jump up, run, and hope you can catch the hem of his garment
 
I can't remember who it was, but as to the Schleswig War, some British? minister said: "Only three people understood the Schleswig problem: a German professor - but he went mad. The Prince-Consort [Albert] - but he's dead. And myself - but I've forgotten all about it."

Palmerston, I believe.
 
On the other hand, maybe six more months of constitutional crisis and the Crown Prince *does* agree to his father's abdication.

That seems probable to me.

What then follows, I suspect, is German unification as a liberal project led by Fritz...

The big stumbling block is Austria, which is half-in, half-out of Germany. This is even more true before the OTL 1867 restructuring. The Austrian Empire is a single state, and Hungary (and Galicia and Dalmatia) are legally the same as Austria and Bohemia. They're not in the German Confederation, but neither is Prussia (the Land, not the Kingdom).

Germany can't be formed until the Austrian Empire breaks up - or Germans decide to establish not just Grosser but Größte Deutschland with all the Austrian lands included regardless of language. (Plus probably Poland and the Baltic lands.)

The question is: absent the shock of losing a war with Prussia, how long does one-state Austria stagger on? Will there be another Magyar rebellion? If so, would anyone help Austria this time? Not Russia, that's for sure.
 
A further point on the Congress of Princes -

I'm not sure why anyone thinks Prussian participation would somehow have resulted in a Grossdeutsch unification of Germany. This is just buying into Bismarck's mythology of his own importance, where he tries to paint all his predecessors as pro-Austrian lickspittles. This is just wrong. Prussian policy pre-Bismarck wasn't necessarily reflexively anti-Austrian, but it also wasn't willing to simply back Austria unless Austria was willing to make concessions towards German leadership in Germany.

Prussia has basically no reason to agree to any kind of Austrian proposals that would increase Austrian power at Prussian expense. This is true whether or not the King goes to Frankfurt. If Schleinitz had still been foreign minister in 1863, all that happens is that the Austrian proposals (which Franz Joseph was only lukewarm about, anyway) are rejected more politely.



Then why was Bismarck so determined to keep Wilhelm away from Frankfurt, as all sources, whether pro-Bismarck or anti, seem to agree that he was?

If you are correct and it was doomed to failure anyway, then Bizzy had little to lose by letting Wilhelm go. He would have gone, failed to agree with Franz Josef, and in due course returned to Berlin in a sulk, anti-Austrian - and more dependent on Bismarck than ever. No harm done.

Bismarck's actions simply don't make sense unless he saw - and feared - a real possibility that Wilhem and FJ might indeed reach a deal, which might either win over the Prussian Landtag or enable the King to bypass it - and thus render Otto surplus to requirements.

And would the proposed reform really have been so bad for Wilhelm? As I understand, it would give the smaller states a "casting vote" between Austria and Prussia, and they had a tendency to favour whichever side wished to do nothing. So if FJ tried to take Germany to war on Austria's behalf in Italy or the Balkans, Prussia could probably have garnered enough support among the lesser staes to block such a move.
 
That seems probable to me.

What then follows, I suspect, is German unification as a liberal project led by Fritz...

Yet that can be accomplished only by war with Austria, to which OTL at least Fritz was firmly opposed. FJ will never stand aside short of military defeat.

But anyway, I still don't buy Fritz' acceptance of the Abdication. It would mean a sovereign abdicating over a policy difference with his Parliament - and over, of all things, control of the Army, which had always been the Hohenzollerns' pride and joy. Fritz may have been at the liberal end of the Hohenzollern spectrum, but he's still a Hohenzollern, and this would have horrified him scarcely less than his Papa.
 
Then why was Bismarck so determined to keep Wilhelm away from Frankfurt, as all sources, whether pro-Bismarck or anti, seem to agree that he was?

If you are correct and it was doomed to failure anyway, then Bizzy had little to lose by letting Wilhelm go. He would have gone, failed to agree with Franz Josef, and in due course returned to Berlin in a sulk, anti-Austrian - and more dependent on Bismarck than ever. No harm done.

Bismarck's actions simply don't make sense unless he saw - and feared - a real possibility that Wilhem and FJ might indeed reach a deal, which might either win over the Prussian Landtag or enable the King to bypass it - and thus render Otto surplus to requirements.

And would the proposed reform really have been so bad for Wilhelm? As I understand, it would give the smaller states a "casting vote" between Austria and Prussia, and they had a tendency to favour whichever side wished to do nothing. So if FJ tried to take Germany to war on Austria's behalf in Italy or the Balkans, Prussia could probably have garnered enough support among the lesser staes to block such a move.

I've not studied the Congress of Princes itself very closely, so I can't say I fully understand Bismarck's motivations. But I have looked pretty closely at Prussian policy in 1859 as part of my dissertation, and my conclusion was that Bismarck's characterization of Schleinitz and the Prince Regent's policy as pro-Austrian is deeply problematic. As a result, I'm generally distrustful of the historiography on the subject, which seems to largely rely on Bismarck's characterization of things.

That being said, it is a good point that Bismarck must have been afraid of *something* to work so hard to keep the King away. Maybe you're right that Wilhelm would have agreed to the Austrian reforms (the whole arc of Prussian foreign policy after 1848 suggests to me there's no way he'd do this without some sort of direct concession, but who knows). I'd say that probably he was just afraid of giving a propaganda victory to the Austrians, and of making the Prussian King look like a subordinate, rather than an equal, of Franz Joseph, and that he later massively exaggerated the importance of the incident. I will say that even if you are right, the Frankfurt proposals certainly didn't amount to anything like the unification of Germany.

Further contention: Wilhelm I is just about the most pro-Austrian figure in Prussian politics in 1863. Even if Bismarck's not in charge, there'll be a foreign minister who is much more wary of the Austrians than the King is. Maybe our alternate prime minister doesn't prevent Wilhelm from going to Frankfurt, but he sure as hell prevents the King from agreeing to anything that seriously compromises Prussia's position in Germany. We have four years of Wilhelm's rule in Prussia before Bismarck's appointment that we can look to as a model. In that whole 1858-1862 period, it is notable that Prussia never did much of anything that was useful to Austria.
 
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Yet that can be accomplished only by war with Austria, to which OTL at least Fritz was firmly opposed. FJ will never stand aside short of military defeat.

But anyway, I still don't buy Fritz' acceptance of the Abdication. It would mean a sovereign abdicating over a policy difference with his Parliament - and over, of all things, control of the Army, which had always been the Hohenzollerns' pride and joy. Fritz may have been at the liberal end of the Hohenzollern spectrum, but he's still a Hohenzollern, and this would have horrified him scarcely less than his Papa.

It's hard to be more Catholic than the Pope, and it's probably also hard to be more concerned about the prerogatives of the Prussian throne than Wilhelm I. At a certain point, the situation starts to look untenable, and I don't see why we would posit that Fritz will be stubborn forever - if his father's willing to give up the ghost, why wouldn't he eventually be?

At any rate, how else does Prussia escape the constitutional crisis?
 
I've had to hunt around a bit to find out about the proposed reform of 1863, mostly from the Nytimes archive and other newspaper reports, but the gist of it seems to be as follows.

1) A six-man executive Council, with Austria, Prussia and Bavaria as permanent members. The Kings of Hanover, Saxony and Wurttemberg were to hold the fourth seat in rotation, with the smaller States choosing the other two.

2) The 17-member Smaller Diet, renamed the "Federal Council", was to continue, but its membership increased to 21 by giving Austria and Prussia three votes each instead of one. Thus if Austria and Prussia were in agreement, they would need only five of the remaining fifteen votes in order to prevail.

3) The Full Diet (about 64 members iirc) was to be replaced by a House of Delegates. This would have 302 members chosen by the legislatures of the various states, with Austria and Prussia having 75 each, Bavaria 27 and the rest shared out among the smaller states. If a legislature was bicameral (iirc most of them were) the lower chamber would nominate two-thirds of its delegates, and the upper chamber one-third. So at least 25 of the Prussian delegates, nominated by the House of Peers, were pretty certain to be supporters of the King.

This gives Wilhelm a possible exit from the Constitutional crisis. If the reformed Confederation adopts a military service law for the whole of Germany, and (by sheer coincidence <g>) settles on the same three year term of service which Wilhelm is demanding in Prussia, then his Parliament is sidelined. Enforcing the military service law, and raising the monies for the Army, are now his legal duty as a member of the Confederation, which the legislature of an individual state has no authority to obstruct. Thus if the Landtag refuses taxation for the military budget, the King is not only entitled to collect the monies anyway, but "obliged" to do so. Thus Prussian judges can find in favour of the Crown, and civil servants obey it, with a clear conscience. Wilhelm is legally off the hook without resorting to the obvious malarkey about "a hole in the Constitution" which Bismarck had to fall back on.

One other point. The Organic Law of the German Confederation, including the procedure for amending it, is laid down in the Treaties of 1815, so that the Reform can be put through under the terms of an existing treaty. No new one is required. So Wilhelm does not need Parliamentary consent for any of this. The Deputies in Berlin can of course send fifty like-minded gentlemen to Frankfurt, but these may well be too few to block the measure. If so they can only look on and fume.
 
Hmm...interesting. I do like the way the Frankfurt proposals give Prussia an out from the constitutional crisis.

Otherwise, though, I'm not sure what benefits Prussia gets from it. If you look at Prussian-Austrian relations in the years before Bismarck took power, what you see is that the Austrians' main concern is to get Prussian support in Italy, and the Prussians' main concern is to extort a price for it - preferably some kind of Austrian acknowledgement of Prussian pre-eminence in Northern Germany.

By 1863, Italy is less important, because the cat's mostly out of the bag, but there's still issues. In 1859, this system would probably have forced Prussia to go to war with France (the lesser German states were wildly pro-Austrian at the time).
 
Though of course Moltke's victories were still in the future. In 1863 Prussia still appeared to be the smallest and weakest of the great powers, which is why most people expected her to lose in 1866. So being part of a more united Germany could be seen as a plus.

She could certainly have been drawn into war in 1859 (she almost was OTL) had there still been a war then. However, would Nappy III have launched such a war had he known that he'd be facing a coalition with a total population almost double that of France?

Finally, if the Spectator correspondent has it right [1] the proposed reform required a two thirds majority in the Federal Council for any war declaration unless a member was directly attacked. That would generally give Prussia enough clout to stop any war that wasn't widely supported.


[1] One of the nuisances here is that (unless I've missed a site) we have to rely on newspaper reports which don't always entirely agree. Frex, the Spectator refers to a five-member Directorium rather than six. However, the broad outlines seem to be clear enough.
 
That being said, it is a good point that Bismarck must have been afraid of *something* to work so hard to keep the King away. Maybe you're right that Wilhelm would have agreed to the Austrian reforms (the whole arc of Prussian foreign policy after 1848 suggests to me there's no way he'd do this without some sort of direct concession, but who knows). I'd say that probably he was just afraid of giving a propaganda victory to the Austrians, and of making the Prussian King look like a subordinate, rather than an equal, of Franz Joseph, and that he later massively exaggerated the importance of the incident.


I think his fear was the one that haunted him from start to finish, until it came true in 1890 - losing control of the Monarch.

The crucial thing about Frankfurt was that it was a meeting of Princes - Wilhelm's social equals. If Wilhelm got to Frankfurt, he would be among his peers - and not merely among them but the centre of their attention, with all eyes upon him as they waited with bated breath for his mighty yea or nay to the Great Project.

This would have seemed like the high point of his reign, a moment he could cherish for the rest of his life. Offered the acclamation of all his fellow Divine Right rulers, would he disappoint them all [1] and turn his Big Day into an anti-climax at the behest of a Pomeranian country squire? Perhaps, if the squire's arguments were persuasive enough, but Bismarck's reaction shows that he was far from confident of it.



[1] If the Spectator correspondent has it right, some of them might have been less disappointed than they seemed. According to him there were several who had come to Frankfurt only from fear of possible consequences if they didn't, and were quietly hoping that Prussia would get them off the hook by vetoing the scheme. However, they would hardly be able to admit that in public.

The leading figure in this group was allegedly the King of Hanover, which if true, and considering what would happen to him three years later, must set something of a record for short-sightedness. Evidently the Blind King was blind in more senses than one.
 
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I think his fear was the one that haunted him from start to finish, until it came true in 1890 - losing control of the Monarch.

The crucial thing about Frankfurt was that it was a meeting of Princes - Wilhelm's social equals. If Wilhelm got to Frankfurt, he would be among his peers - and not merely among them but the centre of their attention, with all eyes upon him as they waited with bated breath for his mighty yea or nay to the Great Project.

This would have seemed like the high point of his reign, a moment he could cherish for the rest of his life. Offered the acclamation of all his fellow Divine Right rulers, would he disappoint them all [1] and turn his Big Day into an anti-climax at the behest of a Pomeranian country squire? Perhaps, if the squire's arguments were persuasive enough, but Bismarck's reaction shows that he was far from confident of it.



[1] If the Spectator correspondent has it right, some of them might have been less disappointed than they seemed. According to him there were several who had come to Frankfurt only from fear of possible consequences if they didn't, and were quietly hoping that Prussia would get them off the hook by vetoing the scheme. However, they would hardly be able to admit that in public.

The leading figure in this group was allegedly the King of Hanover, which if true, and considering what would happen to him three years later, must set something of a record for short-sightedness. Evidently the Blind King was blind in more senses than one.

That's sensible, but I think it also obviates the need for us to postulate that Wilhelm would have necessarily agreed to Franz Joseph's proposal. Bismarck is about personal control, and the Frankfurt Congress of Princes was a place where he'd lose that control.
 
That's sensible, but I think it also obviates the need for us to postulate that Wilhelm would have necessarily agreed to Franz Joseph's proposal. Bismarck is about personal control, and the Frankfurt Congress of Princes was a place where he'd lose that control.


I quite accept that Wilhelm's agreement is by no means guaranteed. The Austrians were quite adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and Franz Josef might have proposed something that Wilhelm couldn't swallow.

However, a Royal attendance which ended in disagreement (and probably acrimony between Wilhelm and FJ) would not have seriously threatened Bismarck's position, so I think we must assume that he considered acceptance at least distinctly possible if Wilhelm "escaped from custody" for any length of time.
 
Anyway, assuming for a moment that the Frankfurt Congress does succeed, were do we go from there?

It's pretty clearly too late to avert the Danish War, but with no Bismarck around Wilhelm is likely to endorse the Augustenburg claims, so Duke Frederick will be duly installed, there'll be no Treaty of Gastein, and no Austro-Prussian quarrel over the Duchies - so no war in 1866.

This raises some questions as to what will happen in the Balkans. OTL, in 1866 Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, with a bit of encouragement from Bismarck, accepted the throne of Rumania. TTL he probably doesn't (several princes had already turned it down) so where do we go from here? Will the powers impose some other Prince (maybe Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who OTL would later get Bulgaria, though at 15 he's a little on the young side)? Or might Austria and Russia simply divvy it up - Moldavia to one, Wallachia to the other? Or even if they don't go that far, may they help themselves to parts of it, with Russia perhaps regaining the slice of Bessarabia which she lost in 1856, and allowing Austria an equivalent - maybe Oltenia, which she owned for twenty years in the18C? And if Austria does get Oltenia, will the other powers, a decade later, be willing for her to have Bosnia as well? Could get interesting.

Thoughts?
 
Or might Austria and Russia simply divvy it up - Moldavia to one, Wallachia to the other? Or even if they don't go that far, may they help themselves to parts of it, with Russia perhaps regaining the slice of Bessarabia which she lost in 1856, and allowing Austria an equivalent - maybe Oltenia, which she owned for twenty years in the18C? And if Austria does get Oltenia, will the other powers, a decade later, be willing for her to have Bosnia as well? Could get interesting.
Could the Habsburgs rather than directly annexing the country put forward a relative as an alternative Prince? Buy off Russia by giving them say all of Bessarabia and Budjak since the modern day border of the Danube and Prut rivers are clearly delineated and seem fairly sensible. Whilst that would mean the Romanians would lose their access to the Black Sea from Vienna's point of view that might actually be advantageous since it makes them much more reliant on Austria. And there's nothing to stop them supporting Romania later on to capture northern Dobruja to give them a port at Constanta, as a bonus blocking the Russians from future meddling in the Balkans. Another benefit would be encircling Hungary with Cisleithania territory, Romania with a Habsburg on the throne and the Ottoman Empire leaving only Croatia-Slavonia as their link to the outside world, and the Croats weren't exactly the Hungarians greatest fans. Could help concentrate minds if they try and cause trouble later on. Of course with no loss in the Austro-Prussian War the Ausgleich could well be butterflied for some time. One problem that they might not see coming though could be the ethnic Romanians in Transylvania, Bukovina and the east of the Banat starting to get restless later on.

Edit: Bugger, just seen another map showing that Russia already owned what looks like the majority of Bessarabia and Budjak already. The remains may well not be enough to buy them off.
 
Could the Habsburgs rather than directly annexing the country put forward a relative as an alternative Prince? Buy off Russia by giving them say all of Bessarabia and Budjak since the modern day border of the Danube and Prut rivers are clearly delineated and seem fairly sensible. Whilst that would mean the Romanians would lose their access to the Black Sea from Vienna's point of view that might actually be advantageous since it makes them much more reliant on Austria. And there's nothing to stop them supporting Romania later on to capture northern Dobruja to give them a port at Constanta, as a bonus blocking the Russians from future meddling in the Balkans. Another benefit would be encircling Hungary with Cisleithania territory, Romania with a Habsburg on the throne and the Ottoman Empire leaving only Croatia-Slavonia as their link to the outside world, and the Croats weren't exactly the Hungarians greatest fans. Could help concentrate minds if they try and cause trouble later on. Of course with no loss in the Austro-Prussian War the Ausgleich could well be butterflied for some time. One problem that they might not see coming though could be the ethnic Romanians in Transylvania, Bukovina and the east of the Banat starting to get restless later on.

Edit: Bugger, just seen another map showing that Russia already owned what looks like the majority of Bessarabia and Budjak already. The remains may well not be enough to buy them off.


Also, I don't think they'd have been willing to let Rumania become Austrian, even through a secundogeniture - precisely because that forecloses any future expansion in the Balkans.

The Austrians, for their part, would be reluctant to settle for less than a direct territorial acquisition, if that was what Russia was getting. In 1865/6 they could have wriggled out of the Schleswig-Holstein impasse by letting Prussia annex Schleswig while giving Holstein to a "junior" Habsburg - maybe the deposed GD of Tuscany or Modena. But Franz Josef wouldn't. If Prussia was getting an annexation, then his prestige required that he get one too - hence the request for the County of Glatz, which played into Bizzy's hands by putting King Wilhelm in a fine old fury.

This goes double, of course, if the Austrians are having to yield territory anywhere else. No 1866 war means that they still hold Venetia, and Napoleon III (always obsessed with Italy) will be very opposed to any Austrian acquisition which isn't balanced by Venice going to the Italians. FJ certainly won't settle for less than annexation if he's having to give anything up in return.

I'm not at all fond of Bismarck, but at times he seems like the only grownup in the European playground.
 
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