The Disaster of House of Brandenburg

It is the year 1762, and Frederick the Great of Prussia is facing a desperate situation in the Seven Years War. In spite of the technical superiority of the prussian army and the strategic might of its commander, Frederick himself, the defeat is almost certain, due to the massive disparity of available resources between Prussia and its adversaries.

In OTL, the death of the Tsarina Elizabeth, arch-enemy of Frederick, brought to the throne of Russia a filo-prussian emperor, Peter the II. Its reign was short, but its first act was to sign a ceasfire with Prussia, which allowed Frederick to exert pressure on Mary Theresa of Austria and force her to end the war in 1763. This fact is known as the Miracle of House of Brandenburg.

I would like to introduce a POD of this kind: what if Elizabeth stayed alive for another year?
It is hard to imagine that Prussia could stand against both Austria and Russia for so long, so I presume that Frederick would have lost the war. In that case, both Elizabeth and Mary Theresa would have destroyed Prussia as a State able to compete at the same level of the Great Powers of the time, since too destabilizing for the equilibrium in Europe. As result, they dismantled Prussia as follows: East Prussia was given to Russia, which subsequently ceded it to Poland in exchange of vast gains in the East; Silesia went back to the Habsburgs, settling the main issue of the war; France obtained some gains in the western duchies formally under control of the Hoenzollerns; Sweden obtained East Pomerania, even though its contribution to the war was minimal; Saxony obtained large portion of German land previously belonged to Brandenburg, expanding its size and becoming the second larger German State after Austria and obtaining a leading role. The Hoenzollern dominion was reduced just to Brandenburg, and they became once again Electors and lost the Royal dignity.

The Napoleonic wars wouldn’t change much. Brandenburg could align with France trying ti get back its old territories, whereas Saxony would remain loyal to Austria and the ancien regime, playing a crucial role in the wars. In 1815, after Napoleon’s defeat, the Vienna Congress would reward Saxony for its effort in fighting French expansionism in Germany with more land, taken mainly from Brandenburg, which would be punished for its alliance with Napoleon. Austria, however, would still be the leading power of the new German Confederation, which substituted the HRE, and it directly controlled the entire Rhineland, as to stop a hypothetical French invasion of Germany. Poland was instead dismantled in favour of Russia and Austria.

After the Napoleonic era, in Germany, the leading powers would be the newly formed Kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover and Wurtemberg, together with Austria. The Diet of the Deutsch Bund had its seat in the free city of Frankfurt, and its Presidency was held by the Habsburgs. However in German land the nationalist sentiment kept rising after the Napoleonic wars, and it was difficult for the Habsburgs to keep the status quo.

After the Revolution of 1848, all the German States had to concede the Constitution. Furthermore, the Diet of Frankfurt, where the main representatives of the liberal middle class met after the Revolution, wanted to unify all the German speaking people in one sovereign State. After a harsh debate between those who favoured the Habsburgs as the German unifiers and those who opposed it, the German Crown was offered to the king of Saxony. In fact, Saxons were seen as champions of German nationalism, as they stood still against Napoleon’s armies when they invaded and occupied Germany. The king of Saxony, differently from the king of Prussia in OTL, was not powerful enough to refuse and accepted immediately the proposal of the Diet. Straightforwardly, all the protestant German States recognized the Diet’s decision, and hailed the Saxon king as King of Germany. Bavaria, which was the main supporter of a Habsburg lead Germany, refused to recognize a government it feared would not have pursued its interests. The cultural rivalry between protestant and catholic was still alive, as it involved legitimization issues.

After having repressed the Revolution in Vienna and Munich, the Habsburgs sent an ultimatum to the Diet of Frankfurt to dismantle the union, and immediately recognize their superiority, as they held the presidency of the Deutsch Bund. The Diet refused, and Austrian and Bavarian forces invaded the land of the newly unified Germany. Quickly, the Austrian forces captured Dresden, the capital of Saxony, as a symbol of submission of the House of Wettin, the ruling House of Saxony and now Germany, and then proceeded on to Berlin to force the Hoenzollerns on their side. On the southern side, Bavarian forces struggled with Wurtemberg trying to breach German defences and reach Stuttgart and Frankfurt and overthrow the "illegitimate government".

The reaction of the Habsburgs would have won if it wasn’t for external help. The newly elected President of the Second French Republic Louis Bonaparte, officially in order to help fellow liberals of Germany, but clearly with the aim of weakening Austria, sent French expeditionary corps to fight side by side with the German armies. A French army invaded Austrian controlled Rhineland and met the Saxon Army in central Germany, were they defeated the Austrians in Leipzig, whereas a second smaller French corps, put under command of the King of Wurtemberg, occupied Pfalz and defeated Bavarian forces before that could reach Frankfurt. In the meantime, other German forces invaded the duchy of Holstein and Pommerania, to reclaim them from Denmark and Sweden respectively.

Two years of war would follow, with alternate tide. At the end, the French-German Army defeated the Austrians at the battle of Sadowa, and seized Prague, threatening a full invasion of the territory of the Empire. After that, the Habsburgs agreed to sign the Treaty of Nurimberg. The Habsburg recognized the sovereign German State, which, according to the Frankfurt Constitution, was a unicameral constitutional monarchy, whose ruling House was the House of Wettin, whose legislative branch was the Diet, and whose capital was Frankfurt. The Deutsch Bund was dismantled, and so all the claims of the Habsburgs in Germany. However, the new German State had to recognize full sovereignty of the Kingdom of Bavaria, with no claim over it.

This alternate unification of Germany would produce a liberal State in Central Europe, with no sign of militarism and autocracy of the Prussian State that emerged after the formation of the German Empire in OTL. This would probably align Germany with England, due to ideological similarity, whereas France, which would become an autocratic Empire under Napoleon the III, would be pushed towards the repressive monarchies of Austria and Russia, creating completely new alliance in Europe. With no French-Prussian war, the French Empire would endure, and so it would do the system of alliances generated in this way. Maybe Italy could join the "liberal alliance" of England and Germany. The outcome of WWI would be unpredictable, maybe it wouldn't even happen, or it would be a new version of the Seven Years War in Europe.

I am still working out the details for what could happen after 1850, and also on some maps that could help to understan the shape of Europe after my proposed POD. Any suggestion and comment is welcome!
 
It is the year 1762, and Frederick the Great of Prussia is facing a desperate situation in the Seven Years War. In spite of the technical superiority of the prussian army and the strategic might of its commander, Frederick himself, the defeat is almost certain, due to the massive disparity of available resources between Prussia and its adversaries.

In OTL, the death of the Tsarina Elizabeth, arch-enemy of Frederick, brought to the throne of Russia a filo-prussian emperor, Peter the II.

AFAIK, the only thing Peter II was "filo-<anything>" was hunting. You are talking about Peter III. Sorry, but temptation was too big to resist. ;)


Its reign was short, but its first act was to sign a ceasfire with Prussia, which allowed Frederick to exert pressure on Mary Theresa of Austria and force her to end the war in 1763. This fact is known as the Miracle of House of Brandenburg.

Well, it is. Fritz liked drama hence the catchy slogan. However, it is often forgotten that even before Elizabeth's death relations between Russia and Austria had been anything but openly broken, cooperation between the commanders practically ceased to exist and Russian army was concentrated он securing a naval supply route via Kolberg in Pomerania giving Fritz almost a free hand elsewhere.

I would like to introduce a POD of this kind: what if Elizabeth stayed alive for another year?

You have to consider officially defined Russian goals in that war. They were 2-fold: (a) reduce military power of Prussia to a degree that would prevent its interference into the Polish affairs (by that time Russia considered the PLC as its backyard) and (b) as a program maximum, occupation of the East Prussia with a future possibility of territorial swap with the PLC. There was also a vague promise to help Austria to get back Silesia.

Both clear goals had been achieved and as far as Silesia was involved, the Russian field commander complained to St-Petersburg (after Kunersdorf) that the Austrians are refusing to get engaged in any aggressive action leaving it to the Russian troops and not even doing enough in the terms of supplying their allies with food, which made continued occupation of Silesia problematic. How justified these accusations had been is a separate issue (but Fieldmarshal Daun, while being a capable general, did suffer from a lack of initiative) but perception was there and it is quite possible that the trait would persist, especially after appointment of general Buturlin as Russian top commander: his lack of initiative was not a secret.

Taking into an account a sorry state of the Russian finances I'd not exclude a possibility of a separate peace even during Elizabeth's life time but, anyway, I doubt that anything significant was going to happen within the next year.
 
Sorry for the huge mistake:)

So you think that if the russians kept the war going with Frederick, the outcome would have been the same, just maybe delayed of some years? Or simply that the peace condition I have supposed (that is the dismantling of the Prussian state as it was built from the previous century) are to strong and that Frederick's losses would have been significantly lower?
 
Sorry for the huge mistake:)

So you think that if the russians kept the war going with Frederick, the outcome would have been the same, just maybe delayed of some years? Or simply that the peace condition I have supposed (that is the dismantling of the Prussian state as it was built from the previous century) are to strong and that Frederick's losses would have been significantly lower?

Total dismantling / debasing too much a civilized, at least second-tier Power wasen't something done casually in the Post-Westphalian world. Both Austria and Russia recognize that, while for the moment their interests and diplomatic stances might align, they had alot of conflicting interests/potential points of continent and could easily come to blows with one another in the not too distant future (For example, over P-L; Austria would be left highly vulnerable if the state fell under complete Russian control, and Russia would be ill served by leaving Austria with no effective rivals for influence/hegemony over the Germanies that would allow her to consolidate Centeral Europe into a force that might oppose her). Both their long-term interests would be ill served by having a Prussia that was fully decimated, to say nothing of the prospect of having their relations with both Britain and France soured by being too greedy (In France's case, because they'd be left holding the bag to balance the huge continental gains with Britain having a death-grip on her colonial Empire and likely insisting on extracting a higher price... particularly after another year of decimating French commerce)
 
So, what would be the most likely peace conditions in case of prussian defeat? It is my understanding that, in any case, Prussia would be much weakened, both from a military and a territorial point of view. That would still fit my proposed TL, since my main point is that Prussia would be in a much weaker position when, in 1849, the Diet of Frankfurt proposed to Frederich Wilhelm IV the crown of Germany, and it would be much harder for him to refuse. This would completely change the constitution of the unified German State, that would be much less authoritarian and militaristic and more liberal (in the XIX century sense) than the German Emprie of OTL, basically altering every event of the XX century.
 
So, what would be the most likely peace conditions in case of prussian defeat? It is my understanding that, in any case, Prussia would be much weakened, both from a military and a territorial point of view. That would still fit my proposed TL, since my main point is that Prussia would be in a much weaker position when, in 1849, the Diet of Frankfurt proposed to Frederich Wilhelm IV the crown of Germany, and it would be much harder for him to refuse. This would completely change the constitution of the unified German State, that would be much less authoritarian and militaristic and more liberal (in the XIX century sense) than the German Emprie of OTL, basically altering every event of the XX century.

Welcome to the board.

I would caution that it would need to be a VERY VERY strong fine mesh butterfly net that would see a rather large change in 1762/1763 and everything else puttering on in the same direction with Saxony simply replacing Prussia.

Your idea of a Saxon-centric Germany against Bavaria in the 19th century doesn't make much sense. Saxony's main reason why it played Prussia's "lapdog" was because Vienna emasculated it in 1815. Saxony's Wettins and Bavaria's Wittelsbachs were closely connected by marriages from the 1740s until into the early 1830s. In a situation where Prussia is removed/limited in the picture, Saxony wouldn't necessarily get anything more than what she did IMO
 
Sorry for the huge mistake:)

So you think that if the russians kept the war going with Frederick, the outcome would have been the same, just maybe delayed of some years? Or simply that the peace condition I have supposed (that is the dismantling of the Prussian state as it was built from the previous century) are to strong and that Frederick's losses would have been significantly lower?

There was no mistake at all: you just quoted the ...er... "generally-known" concept. ;)

As for your question, in the initial post you gave Elizabeth an extra year of life so my point was that most probably nothing dramatic would happen over that year, especially with the newly-appointed Russian commander in chief, Buturlin. As 6 years old Grand Duke Paul said about him, "this one will produce neither war nor peace": even the more sympathetic descriptions credit him with the good looks and nice manners but not too much of anything else. Silesia was exhausted and capture of Kolberg provided Russian troops with a supply base in Pomerania so it is reasonably to assume that they'd be concentrating closer to the Baltic coast. Relations with the Austrians soured during Saltikov's time and grew even worse under Buturlin so one would not expect too much of a cooperation.

After the campaign of 1760, it had to reduce the size of its army, which left little hope of crushing Prussia without the help of Russia so both truly interested sides (Prussia and Austria) had been close to exhaustion and Austria hardly could dictate severe peace conditions to Prussia.

Now, as far as the Russian territorial gains & interests are involved, the whole thing about East Prussia was kind of vague from the very beginning. Its conquest was intended (according to the document formulating Russian goals in the war) as a carrot to be given to the PLC for letting a free passage of the Russian troops. Further "compensation" at the Polish expense was even less clear (surely Courland was not an equivalent and there was some vague idea which can be interpreted as obtaining Southern part of the Polish Ukraine). But the troops kept marching across the PLC without any carrots so finally somebody would probably figure out that giving anything to the Poles is not necessary and that Polish Ukraine is NOT stretching all the way to the Black Sea. Even with annexation of Courland, East Prussia still would be separated from Russian Empire by (a small piece of) Lithuania and, anyway, what was the point? Wasn't there already enough noise about the Germans and their influence?

Anyway, most of the OTL brouhaha raised about giving it back was coming from the people who did not participate in the war and, as I understand, mostly generated after Catherine's coup (she did not change the peace signed by her husband but somehow the "lost glory" stuff disappeared).
 
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