WIP! To be continued!
Das Dritte Reich: A History of Germany
Some believe that the term "Drittes Reich" (Third Reich/Third Empire) would, in at least some parallel universe, have an extremely bad connotation. But here, the "Drittes Reich" just neutrally, even somewhat positively, names the (eastern) German government.
How did it come to this? And especially, why do we talk about the "Third" Empire? Why did the infamous Second Republic (Zweite Republik) arise
In 1800, a certain Fabre d'Églantine, renowned poet and inventor of the French Republican Calendar, with his co-leaders Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette and Jean-Jacques Hébert, had taken control of the Comittee of Public Safety. "Traitors" and "threats to Public Safety" like Maximillien de Robespierre and Louis de Saint-Just had long been assassinated, and Napoléon Bonaparte was as of yet an unknown officer on the island of Corsica.
However, during the invasions performed to spread the revolution to the small Duchies and principalities west of the Rhine, the French military - built on a proposal by Napoléon called a levée en masse - proved effective. 1803 (An XI) saw the completion of the border at the western bank of the Rhine, and most German states which were not Prussian allied against the main reactionary threat against the Republic of France: The Anglo-Prussian alliance. In 1808 (An XV), the Republikanische Rhein- und Elbvereinigung (approx.: "Republican Association upon the Rhine and Elbe") - for short the Rheinbund - came together for the first time as a customs, and arguably the first "free trade", union of newly formed German Republics. It included Austria despite the latter being a monarchy.
Those powers allied first managed to hedge Prussia in in the "War of the Fifth Coalition" (1810-1811), managing to reinforce Denmark's ownership of Schleswig-Holstein and the independence of the Republic of Saxony. Napoléon Bonaparte had steadily proven his competence as a general, with the Triumvirate of d'Églantine, Chaumette and Hébert keeping any insanities (e.g. a daring plan presented to them to take Moscow in An XX) in check. Poland, though, was liberated and made a puppet kingdom of Austria in the War of the Sixth Coalition. The only stalemate the French had to put u with was the failure of the invasion of Britain and inability to achieve any border changes to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. This is known as the "War of the Eighth Coalition".
Germany was still not united, but Prussia's power was significantly lessened and Austria's significantly strengthened. This resulted in a more radically liberal period of German Idealism (Johann Gottlieb Fichte et al.) resulting in a more violent Kyritzer Fest. The Prussian people demanded democracy and liberty. This is the first occasion where Black-Red-Gold, later the colours of the First and (unfortunately) also the infamous Second Republic were shown.
But democracy and liberty, for most Germans at least, had to wait several more years, namely until An LIV (1847/8). This year was a year of revolutions in much of Europe, but only partly were those revolutions successful. The most successful revolution ended in the Paulskirchenverfassung (Constitution of St. Paul's) in Frankfurt, where the first (fairly) freely elected parliament in German history convened. When Friedrich Wilhelm IV. of Prussia rejected the throne, it seemed at first as if the attempt at German unification had failed. But this was not to be: The Frankfurt Parliament agreed to a Republic - a liberal, democratic, but decisively theist republic in opposition to Paris. Turmoil in France had cost the French Republic (still led by the Triumvirate in an authoritarian manner) all lands where German was spoken except the Saar region.
Thus, all Germans were now united in freedom and democracy. All Germans?
By far not, as Austria had seceded when the decision to make the new German nation a republic was made. However, the Austrians seemingly were okay with not being part of Deutschland.
Deutschland "only" went from Aachen to Berchtesgaden and from Memel to Lörrach and did not include Salzburg or Fiume.
The peaceful period the next twenty years allowed every nation of the continent to rebuild and stabilise. The civil war beyond the Great Pond was the opportunity for the British Empire to prove its strength another time, as London intervened on the side of Richmond due to the RMS Trent incident.
The Second Empire:
But war returned to Europe. Industrialisation had significantly advanced, and with it, the workers' movement had been born. Workers were brutally exploited and mistreated in the period known as "Manchester capitalism" (only ultra-capitalists would belittle it as "Manchester liberalism"), and several philosophers, among them Karl Marx but also Franz Kielsteig and Irishman Patrick Forde, developed ideas and ideologies that should advance the workers' cause. At the same time, one Auguste Comté developed the ideology of Positivism.
In 1865, the charismatic nationalist and experienced military leader Otto von Bismarck was elected Chancellor of Germany, the same time that Gijsbert Westhuizen led a junta in the United States. Especially von Bismarck's understanding with Vice President von Wagner, himself of German descent, was excellent - and so, they managed to forge an alliance against the UK and France. France and the UK soon allied with the Confederate States of America.
However, in 1871, workers in Paris rose up in the month of Germinal. The Tulip Strike (called that because the strikers took to the streets on the Day of the Tulip - 4 Germinal, An LXXIX) - and destitute soldiers in several quarters of Paris, and soon in other cities, too, joined the workers' cause instead of firing on the people as had been ordered on the Day of the Bee (15 Germinal).
Germany saw an opportunity to weaken its opponents, and indeed, that was the case. Austrian workers soon rose up, too, and thus, both France and Austria could be invaded to "restore order".
The wars were rather quickly won, especially as the UK declared its "neutrality in continental affairs", but all in all, with the civil wars afterwards, France fell to the workers' revolution under Alain Borset, Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by Germany, and the same was true for Austria. In 1874, Großdeutschland, the dream of 1848, was finally achieved! And Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor having quasi-absolute power, asked the House of Hohenzollern whether it would accept the role of Emperor of Germany. Indeed, the son of Friedrich Wilhelm IV., known as Friedrich Wilhelm V. of Prussia, accepted and was proclaimed Wilhelm I., Emperor of Germany!
With this success - and a mediterranean coast to boot - Germany, or more formally the Second Reich, was now a veritable great power and could participate in the Scramble for Africa. Not only some "leftovers" were colonised by Germany. Germany, in cooperation with the Netherlands (which got Senegal and Equatorial Guinea, as well as lands in OTL Cameroon) and in conflict with France and the United Kingdom, managed to achieve Mittelafrika before the UK could realise its plan of a Cape-to-Cairo Railway.
But Bismarck was a charismatic negotiator, too, and he did not want big wars breaking out over some land in Africa. There indeed were significant crises, notably the Fezzano Crisis over conflicting claims by France and the Kingdom of the Five Sicilies in the Fezzan desert, and of course several crises over Morocco, but Bismarck and the German Empire managed to negotiate them away. And it was an ageing Bismarck who, in 1890, led the Conference of Berlin which - at least for the most part - settled African claims to the happiness of most relevant great powers.
