Pros and Cons of an Ununified Germany

Let’s say that the unification of Germany does not occur as it did in OTL after the Seven Weeks War or Franco-Prussian War which leaves at least the southern German states unallied to Prussia. What would be the pros and cons of this situation? Obviously preventing the Nazi regime from taking power is going to be one of these things but besides the obvious lets take a look and the many outcomes this could have. So lets see who may benefit and who may suffer, and why, in a world with an ununified Germany. You may choose to discuss whatever form of disunification with whatever POD you choose with some German states allied with others but not all. Also please provide links to sources that provide further information on this topic.

PS: I plan on a TL which will likely butterfly the unification of Germany as it was in OTL so this is a topic I'd like to discuss and learn more about.
 
Germany somehow not unified is going to have a big impact on alliances going into the 20th century, specifically the relationship between France and Russia. Both were in a bad position compared to Germany when alone, but together they gave Germany two fronts that were important for the defeat of the central powers.

So without this alliance-building element the two would probably not develop the same relations, in fact it could become much worse when time for a Great War actually comes around, and I see it developing on East-West Lines instead of Centre/Periphery, imagine a Russia/Austro-Hungarian (with Prussia perhaps?) Alliance against France, Italy, and England. It would be a messy war, and one that would be not easily won.
England would have the naval advantage (especially without a Germany that is equalling them in industrial output) and would have to try blockading the Black Sea as well as the Baltic to box Russia in.

If this were to happen I believe their military goals would be as follows; East is trying to get a costly (especially in colonies) surrender from the West as well as strong geopolitical influence to or across the Rhine. The West will seek to strip the countries of any Eastern geopolitical influence farther than their borders, influence most likely to the border with Russia, possibly completely annihilating the Prussian and Austro-Hungarian states and placing protection over the new countries that are created.

The West is most likely to meet their goals and the biggest concern for them is peacekeeping in their newly created states while protecting them from Russia. Russia will be left without a friend in the world and slowly starving without any modernization as a republic, fascism could perhaps take hold in Russia and that could be the basis for this world's Cold War. Without the second world war the russians will be more likely to attempt to project power into South East Asia and the Ottomans (or what is left of them) either peacefully or with force.

Eventually some League of Nations/UN analog cleans up the mess when the Russian/Asian powers finally crumble dramatically. India will probably become very powerful in that region and what is left behind will be hundreds of times worse than any difficulties experienced after the collapse of the warsaw pact.

Forgive me if this seems unenlightened (especially the alliances) but I only have some high school 20th century history to use for this (and then it is mostly Canadian history too). I'm not sure what you mean by pro/con but I doubt it would be much better than OTL, perhaps much worse.
 
Not sure how Austria-Hungary and Russia would go together well (I rather see them and the South Germans in the French camp, with Prussia anti-French and pro-Russian), but it's certainly an interesting idea.

Culturally, it might produce all kinds of butterflies, too. For one thing, you would still have the idea of Germany, and people would refer to it as that. We migh end up with political frustrration akin to that which is currently felt with "Europe" over the inability of "Germany" to get its act together while its constituent parts merrily went their own ways.

Germany will still be quite rich. It will have its heavy industry, its customs union, its population boom and its foreign trade, though perhaps not quite to the same extent. An economic giant and military - not quite dwarf, but certainly not giant. Prussia will be a serious second-tier power, but France will still dominate the scene. In the long run, we are problably going to see a concept of "the German world" emerge, akin to OTL's "Arab world" where states and regions are united by a felt kinship and language, but in many ways quite different. You would have an increasingly cosmopolitan, anglophile northwest looking to the North Sea and Rhine, heavily industrialised, a rural, Catholic south, potentially with francophile tendencies (especially if it depended on French protection), Austria, and the Prussian east (I am quite sure people would regard its dictatorial tendencies and rural traditions as culturally Russian-influenced).

Politically, my ideal outcome would be for the League (I assume it survives) to become so paralysed that it ceases to be an effective instrument. At that point, it becomes feasible for any coming conflict between Russia and France/Britain to not include Prussia (its western provinces would be too vulnerable, and Russia might consider friendly neutrality preferable to an ally potentially in need of supporting). That could give us a belt of "small neutrals" dividing Europe from Stockholm to Berne. A politically useful arrangement, actually, and it would make for great intrigue.
 
A disunited Germany after 1871 might consist of a united Northern German Confederation aka Greater Prussia plus the separate states of Baden, Württemberg, southern Hesse and Bavaria. While it is smaller and weaker than the OTL Reich, it still will be a remarkable power reaching from the Saar to the Memel, from North Schleswig to Upper Silesia. It might seek good relations with the British, especially if earlier events have led to the abdication of Wilhelm I. and the coronation of the very anglophile Friedrich III.

OTOH, if in 1866 the Austrians can resist the attackers until the French intervene against Prussia, there might be a truly disunited Germany, with a severely chastised Prussia reduced to Brandenburg, Pomerania, East and West Prussia and Posen. Silesia would go to Austria, Prussian Saxony to the Kdm of Saxony, Lauenburg and parts of Westphalia to Hanover, S-H to the Augustenburger pretender and the Rhineland to whoever. The anti Prussian kingdoms might be able to suppress their small pro-Prussian neighbors like Oldenburg, Brunswick, Anhalt, Mecklenburg, Lippe, the Thuringian statelets and the Hanseatic cities, resulting in de facto half a dozen Germanies:
~ Prussia with Berlin as the leading center
~ Saxony with Dresden as political and Leipzig/Halle as economic center
~ Hanover with Hanover as political and Hamburg as economic center
~ Rhineland with Cologne and the Ruhr as economic centers
~ Greater Hesse with Frankfurt/Wiesbaden/Mainz/Darmstadt
~ Greater Wurttemberg with Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Heidelberg and Mannheim
~ Bavaria with Munich, Nuremberg and Spires
They would be large enough to exist on their own economically, to support one army corps for the nominal German army and to maintain their own diplomatic relations.
Such an arrangement would make the Germanies to a playground for the Great Powers' diplomacy and espionage. The weaker the central organization is, the stronger the popular demand for national unification will remain. In this age of nationalism, the idea of a united German state will not simply vanish and it is to late to replace it with Württembergian, Hanoverian or Rhenish nationalism.
 
Let’s say that the unification of Germany does not occur as it did in OTL after the Seven Weeks War or Franco-Prussian War which leaves at least the southern German states unallied to Prussia. What would be the pros and cons of this situation? Obviously preventing the Nazi regime from taking power is going to be one of these things but besides the obvious lets take a look and the many outcomes this could have. So lets see who may benefit and who may suffer, and why, in a world with an ununified Germany. You may choose to discuss whatever form of disunification with whatever POD you choose with some German states allied with others but not all. Also please provide links to sources that provide further information on this topic.

PS: I plan on a TL which will likely butterfly the unification of Germany as it was in OTL so this is a topic I'd like to discuss and learn more about.

How far back should the POD be? Because we could always have Napoleon I not invade Spain or Russia, therefore letting the Confederation of the Rhine survive a bit longer, possibly preventing German Unification.
 
How far back should the POD be? Because we could always have Napoleon I not invade Spain or Russia, therefore letting the Confederation of the Rhine survive a bit longer, possibly preventing German Unification.
Personaly I'm more interested in post 1860 PODs but I'd like to leave this thread open to discuss any situation so feel free.
 
POD would probably have to be around 1830, when the smaller customs unions (South Germany: Bavaria/Württemberg; Central Germany: Saxony/Thuringia/Hannover/Hesse/Nassau) were around.

Possible POD could be 1827, when Bavaria and Württemberg asked Baden, Nassau and Hesse to join a South-German Customs Union. The refusal of this ultimately resulted in the collapse of the customs unions for lack of size, and accession of the southern states to the "German Customs Union" between 1834 and 1836. With this POD we'd have a weakened economic-political position of Prussia within Germany, and a less sharpened "Small Germany" notion that excluded Austria. Ostensibly, the South-German Customs Union would seek an economic allegiance to Austria in the 1850s without Prussia being able to pressure the South into excluding them.

Beyond economics, this POD would become interesting when Prussia begins pressuring the South to accept its dominance around 1864, culminating OTL in the war between Prussia and Germany 1866. With a shift in the Prussian-Austrian dualism occuring as above, the war could easily turn out with the South merely becoming "neutral" players postwar between the two. Ultimately, if we play this out, I could see the South-German customs union becoming closer aligned postwar, introducing similar treaties as Prussia did prewar to destroy the German Federation, with the area becoming a more or less loose separate confederation within Germany.

Longterm, sorry, don't see much difference. The allegiance to Austria would still draw Germany into the First World War. While the 1870 war would not have occured, lessening German-French "dislike", the treaty situation of 1914 would still draw France and the UK into it as well.
 
The treaty situation of 1914 was based on things that involved the existence of a united Germany. Its not going to take butterflies to get rid of it if we get rid of united Germany.
 
It's too much to ask for there never to be another major European war, and since increasing technology meant a shrinking world, it's likely to be a world war, or something close to it. However, change up Germany as it was OTL, and you change up the treaties, the alliances, the causes of WW1, so WW1 is completely different.
 
It's too much to ask for there never to be another major European war, and since increasing technology meant a shrinking world, it's likely to be a world war, or something close to it. However, change up Germany as it was OTL, and you change up the treaties, the alliances, the causes of WW1, so WW1 is completely different.

Exactly. The when, why, where, how and who are going to be shuffled around quite a bit.
 
I wouldn't say that. In the above scenario, Germany wouldn't be disunited per se, forming independent nations or somesuch - Prussia just wouldn't dominate it as much as it did under Bismarck.

The Entente treaties between the UK, France and Russia primarily settled affairs between the countries that Germany didn't have much influence on and that wouldn't be butterflied away. The rise of Germany was primarily a British concern in forging its alliances, but the Anglo-Russian Entente would still be needed to settle matters in Central Asia between the two.

Germany didn't have much to do with the causes for WW1 btw. Austro-Hungary would still begin its Balkan expansion following the Serbo-Bulgarian wars, thus angering Russia who'd finally have enough with the Austrian antics down there.
 
I wouldn't say that. In the above scenario, Germany wouldn't be disunited per se, forming independent nations or somesuch - Prussia just wouldn't dominate it as much as it did under Bismarck.

Which is still substantial, especially as Prussia not dominating it as much means that Prussia's kings in their position as Kaiser aren't dominating policy as much, which influences diplomacy.

The Entente treaties between the UK, France and Russia primarily settled affairs between the countries that Germany didn't have much influence on and that wouldn't be butterflied away. The rise of Germany was primarily a British concern in forging its alliances, but the Anglo-Russian Entente would still be needed to settle matters in Central Asia between the two.
Except that the interest in - for example - Russia and France moving closer together to the point of alliance was because of having a Germany that both saw as a problem - which won't happen without the events that came from OTL unification, including but not limited to 1870.

"Settling affairs" and "allying" are two different things.

Germany didn't have much to do with the causes for WW1 btw. Austro-Hungary would still begin its Balkan expansion following the Serbo-Bulgarian wars, thus angering Russia who'd finally have enough with the Austrian antics down there.
Antics?
No comment.

And Germany, again, has a lot to do with the alliances that lead to 1914 going from the Austro-Serbian War to WWI.

So in that sense, yes, Germany had a considerable amount to do with the causes of WWI.
 
a huge part of the run up to WW1 was germany's naval buildup, and germany's attempt at dominance in Europe and pretenses in Africa. change up the makeup of Germany, and you change all those things. Simply removing the Kaisers as the top ruler of the German world changes everything. OTL, you have austria as a second rate power, and every other german province completely subordinate to the Kaisers, and Willy 2 was an absolute buffoon.

Austria was nominally the cause of WW1, but in reality it was Germany giving them the blank check and actively encouraging Austria to start a war that was the real start. No centralized Germany, everything else could be exactly the same, and WW1 doesn't happen.
 
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