But even with an arms race and without Bismarck, Prussia and Austria would never oppose Russia in suppressing the Poles since all 3 of them have a vested interest in seeing the rebellion crushed. Remember that Prussia and Austria took part in the Partitions as well and if the uprising looks like it might even be remotely successful then the risk increases of rebellion in Prussia and Austria (and unless the leadership in both nations are congenital idiots, that will be QUITE aware of this). And damaged prestige is not an empirical measurement and is hardly likely to affect how the Russians deal with rebellions. Besides the damage was almost a decade before and would have begun wearing off. Also, Prussia and Austria know that they cannot end up on the losing side by doing everything possible to prevent the rebellion from succeeding, after all, who is going to help the Poles? And how? Even if France won’t give Russia support, she is just as unlikely to give the Poles (probably wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about what’s happening) and would have to pass through Austria or Prussia to give direct aid (unless the make a landing in the Baltics to fight their way through to Poland, which though possible is unlikely, especially given the incompetence shown on all sides in the last war against Russia). Just look on wikipedia (although it should be used with caution and taken with a pinch of salt) under January uprising, it shows how the Prussians aided the Poles and how apparently western Europe issued an appeal to the nations of western Europe, which was “received with a genuine and heartfelt response” the “appeal to the nations of western Europe” by the Polish revolutionary government (but that sentence looks fishy, more of opinion than documentable actions and fact, but….) . Anyway, I don’t wish to dwell on Poland (since that country seems to have a knack for generating heated debates almost on the order of the Turkish-Armenian issue which will not be mentioned and not spoken of after this reference). I’d just rather not have some kind of “Molobo Effect” going on.
Well, the union of Scotland and England wasn’t that sudden either since from young James was a child at least, the possibility of union was there and of course given his ancestors it also wasn’t totally unexpected.
While this makes sense it almost seems like something a politician would say (no offence meant of course)….are you into politics by any chance?
Okay, cool. By the way, apart from Kingdom of Scandinavia, another future title could be the United Kingdoms (note the plural) of Scandinavia. The first title (Kingdom of..) would imply a new kingdom being formed from 3, while the second title (United Kingdoms of…) would not only imply one new realm forming from 3 but also that the 3 kingdoms are still in some sense distinct. I took the second title also from various references about “the banner of the realms” by King Erik during the Kalmar era to refer to the Kalmar Union (and using “the banner of the realm” to refer to Denmark alone).
Why Gotenburg for the loose “confederate” (for lack of a better term) government? Why not Lund as one common capital? After all it would have space for future expansion and is close to Denmark (Malmo would be a good choice too since it would be the city closest to the Danish coast, plus being a port, but Lund is symbolic and could use Malmo as a port) . I know I suggested South Africa’s example, but I don’t really see such an example being used since this is 1863 and not 1910, unless anyone else knows of countries with multiple, functional capitals before 1910.
I have 3 flag proposals for you, well 4. I’ll detail them in the next post.
What I meant was, why would a traditional monarchy that is going more along the path of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, plus its components of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, ever dream of trying to look to the republican United States? Mark you, they could in terms of some aspects of government structure (upper house, lower house, etc), but such influence would not be nearly as great as that of the Scandinavian kingdoms themselves and then the UK and the Netherlands (plus they are friendly/allied to the UK and are linked by marriage to the Netherlands). Also, the multi-ethnic union of Poland-Lithuania was much more diverse than Scandinavia (Balts and Slavs (East Slavs and West Slavs as well) for Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, i.e. 2 language families, compared to just the North Germanic speakers (broken down to East/Mainland and West/Insular Scandinavian at most (1 language family) for Scandinavia). Also it seems a bit too….romantic (?) for the assembly of Scandinavian politicians to decide to look to a Polish uprising (which hardly anyone would think likely of succeeding) and then think back to the old Polish-Lithuanian state (which none of them could possibly be old enough to even remember being on a contemporary map) as inspiration for a new weak government, much less that they would wish to have combined elements of monarch and republic, since their state is an unambiguous monarchy (though a constitutional monarchy). It’s too much like Serbia looking to France as an inspiration when it was gaining independence during the Napoleanic era, or Serbia looking to the United States during that same time, simply because the US was at war with Britain and Britain was friendly with its enemy, the Ottoman Empire….too indirect.
If I were to rank the likelihood of a particular state inspiring the delegates it would have to be:
1) Denmark, Sweden and Norway (past and present as of 1863)
2) United Kingdom
3) Netherlands
4) France and Belgium
5) United States
6) Greece and possibly the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
7) Ancient Rome and Greece
With anything coming below 1) hardly registering in terms of influence.
Right, but to naval attack and I doubt they would feel more vulnerable to rebelling Poles. Also, when people feel more vulnerable they sometimes tend to act more rashly and harshly and if Russia feels more vulnerable to naval attack, it is unlikely that it would sit cowering in fear of the next one, but would feel the need to begin building a decent navy and decent naval defences. So a military build-up (or re-building since they lost a good many ships 10 years before) is more likely to occur since the Tsar will not wish for such an event to happen again….this could have effects on the Russo-Japanese war (if there is one).
Also, before the “Dreikaiserbund” (and Reinsurance treaty) of the 1870s and 1880s, and the Franco-Russian alliance in the 1890s, Russia never really had any tight allies, so for Russia your TL is not that drastically different from OTL and she never really lost any allies (didn’t really have any good ones to begin with, which is why if fought the Crimean War alone) (in fact the main difference is more ships lost in a theatre almost entirely unrelated to Sevastopol and a shorter war meaning fewer dead Russian soldiers from the war—which would mean a slightly (very slight) larger army 10 years later). But even without a formal alliance, Russia, Prussia and Austria will cooperate to suppress the Poles, or at the very least not give any aid to the Poles and not take side against Russia versus the Polish rebels.
