Plausibility check: No Prussia results in Austria unifying Germany

In a alternate timeline, King Sigismund III of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth does not allow Prussia to unify with Brandenburg in the 17th Century. Instead, he annexes it into Polish Prussia. The Hohenzollerns do not become a powerful force in Germany. Instead, they are just another royal family in Germany.

So, come the 1870s or maybe earlier or later, does that mean Austria is unopposed in it's campaign to unify Germany or would another German state attempt to rival Austria?
 
Europe would likely be unrecognizable 200 years later so it's hard to tell if ideas like nationalism would even be around.

So yeah sure, but also no.
 
Taking away Prussia like,y is not enough for having Austria interested in unifying Germany...
You need to change a lot of things in a scenario precedent than Prussian’s rise for having the Habsburg unifying Germany:
1) Burgundy stay intact and in personal union with Austria
2) The Habsburg are able to get only the crown of Bohemia (but not Hungary or Poland)
3) The Sforza dynasty survive so Milan will not go under the Habsburg’s rule
and if 1) imply Spain and Austria were never under the same ruler would be better...
 
Poland's international position by annexing East Prussia would greatly strengthen her by allowing her to utterly dominate the southeastern Baltic coast and all the trade that comes with it. It basically eliminates the massive Brandenburg-Prussian knife in their ribs and makes it easier to secure her borders. This much stronger Poland would find it in her best interest to keep the German states disjointed and disunited, playing sides off one another. Even without having to worry about Prussia anymore, there is still a growing Habsburg presence to the west, Russia to the east, the Ottomans to the south, and Sweden to the North and across the Baltic that the Poles have to worry about. Having East Prussia in the PLC strengthens geographical cohesion for Poland, but one thing they cannot allow for is for any significant German unification to further happen.

If any desire for unification happens, it likely happens further down the line and in a way that would be difficult to predict. I generally see a handful of independent German states arising over time, with the smaller ones all getting snapped up or annexed. Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Brandenburg, and Hanover I could see becoming modern day nation-states, speaking closely related German languages, but languages that evolve in their own way.

And of course, France always does better when the Germans are disunited.
 
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