Prussian Rhineland + Westphalia breaks away during the 1848 revolutions

Most unlikely. The Prussian Army never stopped obeying its officers, and it is more than capable of squashing any secessionist movement.

It would take a French invasion to detach the Rhineland and this would be virtually certain to trigger a general European war which France would be sure to lose. Even Britain, the power most sympathetic to the revolutions wouldn't tolerate France expanding that way.
 

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I think I somewhere read a timeline where this happened and later it became the first communist state. I can't remember where that was though. Maybe the old board?
 
The great powers of England and Russia would just go in kill off the new nation and hand back the territory back to Prussia. Prussia was given the territory for a reason, to be the counter balance against France and Austria
 
The great powers of England and Russia would just go in kill off the new nation and hand back the territory back to Prussia. Prussia was given the territory for a reason, to be the counter balance against France and Austria

Only against France really.

There was a tacit "division of labour" between Prussia and Austria, with Prussia guarding the Rhine and Austria guarding Italy.
 
No, they also wanted to divide Prussia and Austria against each other in Germany.

Was that a question of choice?

After all, if you want a strong Prussia to guard the Rhine, and a strong Austria to guard Italy, don't the balance each other as a matter of course whether anyone particularly wants them to or not?
 
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