The Liberal Kaiser and The Dawn of Pax Germanica

The zeitgeist, spirit of the age, can often be radically changed or altered by the few or even one man at a particular point in time. In the late 1800s in our timeline, Germany it was set by Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Prussian Junkers who favored conservative autocratic monarchy and the empowerment of the newly formed German Empire. In their view Germany not only had to be powerful economically, but also show it's military muscle to obtain imperial gains abroad and promote Germany as the political center of Europe.

This zeitgeist, however was not inevitable for Germany. Indeed with the slight change of events could've prevented a conservative militaristic perspective from taking helm. This in turn could've very well prevented the antagonistic military build up, and both of the world wars. One likely scenario would be a dominant sustainably powerful Germany, one which in the OTL has never seen.
 
The most viable candidate for this would have been ill-fated son of Wilhelm I and father of Wilhelm II known as Frederich III who was fated to only reign 99 days in 1888 while dying of cancer. Alas, with both his father and, especially, his son loathing his ideas of liberalism (considering them to have been feminizing, Anglocentric machinations brought forth by his wife Victoria, the Princess Royal [and proud daughter of Vic and Al]). Truth be told, Frederich may have been more inclined to consider her ideas and the English form of government more than either generation would have liked- but I don't think he was as gung-ho to implement them as either his wife or mother-in-law would later posthumously insist while the former especially tried to bolster his memory among the cacophony of Wilhelmine mania. Moreover, even had Frederich managed to rule for years instead of months, it's all but certain that his vindictive son would have done his best to undo any of his progress as he wasted no time in undoing what few actions his father had attempted in the tiny window of his reign.
Perhaps,though, had he lived long enough, Frederich could have somehow persuaded the Reichstag to have considered the Crown Prince mentally unfit to succeed him but even that would have been a longshot with almost no chance of success.
 
What if Wilhelm dies in childbirth, Henry perishes in a naval misadventure and there is a doctor available to save Prince Sigismund. His Mother thought Sigismund the brightest of her children at a young age. So long live Kaiser Sigismund I.

This works because one of the reasons Wilhelm did not like England was his dislike of his Mother. Her treatments for his withered limb were horrifying.

One of the possible reasons Sigismund died was Germany was at war and no good doctors were available to save him.

With no Wilhelm or Henry around Ziggy becomes more than the spare heir. His welfare becomes paramount and he is better taken care of. Also his Mother treats him like gold and Germany gets an Anglophile on the throne and thus more open to the Island's more liberal views.
 
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The zeitgeist, spirit of the age, can often be radically changed or altered by the few or even one man at a particular point in time. In the late 1800s in our timeline, Germany it was set by Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Prussian Junkers who favored conservative autocratic monarchy and the empowerment of the newly formed German Empire. In their view Germany not only had to be powerful economically, but also show its military muscle to obtain imperial gains abroad and promote Germany as the political center of Europe.

That agenda was set before Wilhelm became Kaiser. It was really his grandfather and Bismarck who did it. Read The Begum's Fortune (1879) by Jules Verne. The premise is that two scientists, one French and one German, each inherit half of an Indian queen's wealth, and use it to build their ideal city-states. The German is a total caricature: an authoritarian militarist with genocidal itches, almost a proto-Nazi racialist (though anti-semitism doesn't figure at all). Now granted Verne was a patriotic Frenchman writing less than a decade after 1870, but he laid these particular villainies on a German from exposure to German thought and attitudes in the period

This cultural trend could have been reversed later on, but Wilhelm agreed with it, and so it advanced for another generation, culminating in WW I.
 
Part One: The Liberal Kaiser
The Rise of Frederick


June 2nd, 1914

Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin, Germany.


The newly crowned Kaiser Henry of Germany stands solemnly alone above his father's tomb. His father had ruled Germany for over twenty six years. His reign had seen reform, family betray, a failed coup, which could've thrust Germany into civil war or dissolve the newly unified state.


Not far from where his father lay was the tomb of his grandfather Kaiser Wilhelm I. Henry too remembered the day they put his grandfather to rest in the palace. His father and grandfather had been nearly opposites in both personality and political philosophy. Wilhelm I had always been a very stern, very conservative man, and had ruled that way. Frederick was an aspired to liberalize all of Germany. Despite an early, and by all accounts, successful military career in the wars against France and Austria, Frederick had always expressed his disdain for war. Fredrick had been enticed by the wave of liberalism that had spread in West Germany during the mid-1800s, and studied at the liberal university of Bonn. His wife Princess Victoria, the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria of England, had solidified his beliefs even further. She had a very strong impact on her husband’s beliefs and is likely the reason Henry had modeled the constitution of 1891 on that of the Britain’s Constitutional Monarchy. Together they were perhaps the most liberal royal couple in continental Europe. When his grandfather Wilhelm Germany gained the most liberal monarchs in Europe.

Henry thought back on the day of his father’s coronation, and the look of disdain on his elder brother Wilhelm face. A few months later, as his energetic Father laid out his vision for a more liberal Germany Wilhelm, Wilhelm had said to him “Our grandfather had united the German peoples under Prussia. He had fought for our place in the sun, and had won it. Now our father may lead us back into darkness, so that neither you nor I may continue grandfather’s vision.” At the time Henry had thought little of his brother’s remarks. He had known the relationship between his brother and his parents had strained in recent years, however Wilhelm's later actions would seem inconceivable at the time.

800px-Frederick_III_Mausoleum%2C_Potsdam%2C_Berlin%2C_Germany-LCCN2002713635.jpg

(Tomb of Kaiser Frederick III)
 
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Sieg Kaiser Heinrich! Looking forward to Pax Germannica and Germany winning World War I. By the way is Heinrich going to push for an alliance with America? I'd think he'd get along great with Teddy Roosevelt.
 
Wilhelm tries to lead a coup? This is bafflingly something that i want to see.

Wilhelm is pompous, but would he really do that to his own father? The man who he looked up to as a child, and relished in the stories about his military successes against France and Austria? Frederick may be king, but there is another great powerful man in Germany.
 
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