The Austrian Netherlands 1815-1866

That's very interesting. I was expecting the Prussian Netherlands to be a non-starter. Re-the territorial strip to link the two halves of Prussia balanced by a bigger and stronger Hanover...

Looking at the maps of Germany in 1815 and 1867 it seems to me that the additions to Prussia would be Nassau, Hesse-Kassel and Frankfurt. Prussia would also be given Maastricht for a better join between Belgica and Rheinish Prussia and the Dutch would receive Limburg 50 years earlier as compensation. Greater Hanover would be created by annexing Oldenburg, Mecklenburg and Brunswick. But would the rulers of these states agree to loosing their independence at the Congress of Vienna? Or were they not powerful enough have a choice in the matter?

In 1815 the Elector of Hesse-Kassel was not influential enough to get the coveted royal title, so he kept the meaningless electoral title. But Deposing him completely? Unlikely. The Nassau dukes (soon to be combined in one branch) were related to the Stadholder of the Netherlands and also a less powerful, but respectable house.
The simplest way would have been if Prussia kept Hildesheim it got in 1803 and acquired the southern strip of Brunswick. That is basically the Hellweg, an ancient highway for trade and armies, connecting the Lower Rhine with the Harz and Elbe areas. Brunswick could be compensated somewhere else.
(Of course, Prussia would need Corvey and Paderborn as well, the latter it got also in 1803.)

513px-Herzogtum_Braunschweig_1789.png


According to a programme on BBC Radio called In Our Time the main cause for the Austro-Prussian War was that Bismarck wanted to annex Hanover to join the two parts of the Hohenzollern monarchy. Therefore if Prussia wasn't divided into two parts in OTL would Bismarck or whoever was in charge of Prussia ITTL be less determined to annex Hanover?

The BBC is sadly mistaken in this regard.
The acquisition of Hanover was very much an afterthought in 66/67.
The fundamental conflict was a) Austria's formal superiority inside the German Bund, and b) the electoral growth of the Liberals who wanted the national unification and threatened to push aside the conservative Prussian monarchy.
The formal reason for the war was the disposition of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Prussia wanted them for itself, in order to build the Kiel Canal and become able to circumwent the Danish straits.
Austria wanted to either deny them to Prussia (so they supported a local claimant) or to get compensated for this Prussian gain (the Austrian chancellor Mensdorff had suggested the cession of parts of silesia to Austria.)
George V. of Hanover just had made the error of supporting Austria. King Wilhelm I. just wanted to take some territory, but Bismarck was convinced that a weakened and humiliated Hanover would just plot revenge, so completely annexing it (against all tradition) was the safer and simpler course.

Would the Prussians try to Germanize the Flemish and Walloons? AFAIK they attempted to Germanize the Poles within their territories IOTL? In the long term could Flemish evolve from a dialect of Dutch into a dialect of German? However, if the Berlin government bungled Germanization and the "mixed marriages" conflict would the result have been disastrous for Prussia in the short term? In this context the short term is 1815 to 1866 and the long-term is 1867 to 1914.

The linguistic policy is hard to predict. There was less germanization in Posen before the Uprising of 1830. Making German the official language of Government in *Belgica would be a big mistake. Even Dutch was difficult to accept for the aristocrats of Flanders (!). And trying to make a Low Frankish dialect into a High German one would be less successful than Volapük.
But anyway, I can easily see high-handed Prussian governors bungling the "Prusianization" of the new territories, leading to an uprising from Ostend to Cologne around 1830, tacitly supported by the Catholic clergy.

Would Belgica under Hapsburg or Hohenzollern rule be part of the German Confederation and
Zollverein? I think it would have been as it had been part of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries. How would that influence the economic development of Belgica? AKAIK Luxembourg benefited economically from its membership of both. Is it likely that the same would have happened to Belgica? If the Flemings and Walloons could see that there were economic benefits to being Prussian would that offset the discontent caused by Germanisation and the "mixed marriage" question?

Benefits compared to what? Th3y cannot compare notes with OTL, and they will probably feel exploited and under-valued as long as their king and government is not located solely in Brussels.
 
The Idea of Prussia Belgium is interesting, so more Rhineland to hannover(taking away some land for a prussia land route?) and Netherland to offset that?

Westphalian as you say, Germanization just happened because rebellions, regardless prussia was pretty laisse-faire with their polish territory and they would be the same with *Belgica(nice people goes with the name, easier to use,xd) unless an alternated 1830 happen and that is hard, mostly when tension(and you touched magistrally, the mixed-marriage and civic services issue would be tension but as before the bismarckian era would not be that big) the 1848 equivalent would be for me far more interesting...how the Deutches Losung would be? how france will react with prussia so close their borders now? What Hannover will do as they now have even more germans and more industrial and liberal center.

About Economicss...Prussia Belgica will be massive, otl belgium coal with silesian one and prussia push for railroads and by distance they would want industrial core for keep any local army if they french try something.

That is something, Belgica will not be something away, will be part prussia proper, pushing for local garrison(when german is the only languange of instruction, more proper that cultural policies) and will be something for 1830-1848 era.

So ideas how alternate spring revolutions will unfold?
 
Benefits compared to what? They cannot compare notes with OTL, and they will probably feel exploited and under-valued as long as their king and government is not located solely in Brussels.

Point taken.

The best comparison they could make would be with French rule during the Napoleonic Wars and for those old enough Austrian rule. However, from what has been said so far on the thread I get the impression that the Belgians would have preferred to stay part of France after 1815 and until at least 1830 would have gone back to France given the chance. Is my impression correct?
 
The Idea of Prussia Belgium is interesting, so more Rhineland to hannover(taking away some land for a prussia land route?) and Netherland to offset that?

Westphalian as you say, Germanization just happened because rebellions, regardless prussia was pretty laisse-faire with their polish territory and they would be the same with *Belgica(nice people goes with the name, easier to use,xd) unless an alternated 1830 happen and that is hard, mostly when tension(and you touched magistrally, the mixed-marriage and civic services issue would be tension but as before the bismarckian era would not be that big) the 1848 equivalent would be for me far more interesting...how the Deutches Losung would be? how france will react with prussia so close their borders now? What Hannover will do as they now have even more germans and more industrial and liberal center.

About Economicss...Prussia Belgica will be massive, otl belgium coal with silesian one and prussia push for railroads and by distance they would want industrial core for keep any local army if they french try something.

That is something, Belgica will not be something away, will be part prussia proper, pushing for local garrison(when german is the only languange of instruction, more proper that cultural policies) and will be something for 1830-1848 era.

So ideas how alternate spring revolutions will unfold?

If Prussian rule of Belgica did continue after the 1830-48 era would the wars of 1866 and 1870 still happen? When I started the thread my thinking was that possession of Belgica would strengthen Austria's position within the German Confederation and possibly enable it to win the war of 1866 if it still happened. However, now we have decided that Belgica becomes the Prussian Netherlands in 1815 then that strengthens Prussia and weakens Austria.

If the Franco-Prussian War still happened and the Prussians were still victorious would the new German Empire annex more French territory? That is the Nord-Pas De Calais region (which would become part of a Greater Belgica) and the whole of the Moselle Department (for a Greater Alsace-Lorraine). And if the Germans did would that trigger an intervention by the other Great Powers on the side of France?
 
If Prussian rule of Belgica did continue after the 1830-48 era would the wars of 1866 and 1870 still happen?
Absolutely not. First of all, such amajor changewould no doubt mean redrawing the borders within Germany. In the unlikely situation that Prussia gains Belgium, it would mean that it will not gain as much territory that it would OTL. So maybe it would mean a stronger Saxony, or maybe Prussia gains less in the Rhineland or Westphalia. Different internal German borders means different internal German politics.

Besides that Prussia suddenly has two major non German areas, both Belgium and Poland. Combined with the fact that Prussia has less German territories (as stated above) Prussia is now signifecantly less German than OTL. Basicly it changes everything. The wars of 1866 and 1870 will be butterflied away, or at least be significantly altered beyong recogniation.
 
Absolutely not. First of all, such amajor changewould no doubt mean redrawing the borders within Germany. In the unlikely situation that Prussia gains Belgium, it would mean that it will not gain as much territory that it would OTL. So maybe it would mean a stronger Saxony, or maybe Prussia gains less in the Rhineland or Westphalia. Different internal German borders means different internal German politics.

Besides that Prussia suddenly has two major non German areas, both Belgium and Poland. Combined with the fact that Prussia has less German territories (as stated above) Prussia is now signifecantly less German than OTL. Basicly it changes everything. The wars of 1866 and 1870 will be butterflied away, or at least be significantly altered beyond recognition.

Thanks for your input.

It has already been established that a Prussian Netherlands would be offset by a stronger Hannover rather than Prussia having to give up some of its OTL territory. Therefore within the German Confederation its Austria the same, Greater Prussia (i.e. OTL plus Belgica) and a Greater Hannover.

I agree that different borders change Germany's internal politics, of which I know virtually nothing. Would one of the changes be that the surviving smaller states act together to protect themselves against the larger ones? Or did that happen IOTL anyway?
 
It has already been established that a Prussian Netherlands would be offset by a stronger Hannover rather than Prussia having to give up some of its OTL territory. Therefore within the German Confederation its Austria the same, Greater Prussia (i.e. OTL plus Belgica) and a Greater Hannover.
I don't understand what you are saying. How do you get a stronger Hannover, if Prussia doesn't lose any territory? Give Hannover (OTL Prussian) Westphalia and I can see it. OTL-size Hannover will be exactly as strong as OTL Hannover (not very). And I don't see Hannover being expanded at the cost of other German states (Hannover needs to absorb quite a lot for it to have any impact, something, obviously, completely unacceptable).
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
Hmmm interesting premises.

The biggest reason William I was made King of the Netherlands in 1813 was because the Dutch feared that if they didn't the country would be seen conquered instead of liberated after Napoleons defeat. After all, the Netherlands was part of the Napoleonic Empire and that's exactly what happened with Belgium.

Now for the purpose of this thread it would be the best if there would not be a independent Netherlands at the start of the Congress of Vienna. How to do that? I suggest killing off the Orange-family. Maybe when they flee the Netherlands in 1795. This won't leave many butterflies except that it perhaps forces the British to actually conquer the Dutch colonies instead of getting them presented by the Stadholder. The real effect will be after 1813 when the Netherlands get conquered by the Allies and there is no one to lead them into safety. Of course there is still the question if Wellington is able to defeat the French without the Dutch-Belgian forces. My guess is not in Waterloo at least.
 
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