The Great German Awakening
For the duration of the 19th century, a balance of power had been maintained, occasionally adjusted through the Congress of Europe, which met when a problem had been identified. The primary movers and shakers of the Congress were France, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary-Austria, the Ottomans, Spain and Denmark-Norway. The German states attended but were weak in comparison, and Britain, Russia, Portugal and Sweden were relatively aloof, neutral powers. While the Great Powers rarely agreed, actively competed with one another for power, and occasionally warred with one another, for the better part of a century, Europe enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace. That Era of Good Feelings would come to an end as a threat to the balance of power emerged.
One of the things every one of the Great Powers could agree on, even Britain and Russia, was that German reunification was dangerous. The Republic and then the Empire of Germania had conquered Europe, utterly upsetting the established order. The Congresses of Europe had originally met to divide Germany. This situation had been maintained to the mutual satisfaction of the Great Powers and the Germanies up until the closing decades of the 19th century. Writers unearthed attempts by the Grimm Brothers to codify German folklore and set out on their own mission, gathering tales from across the Germanies. In the process, they and other academics got caught up in a romantic pursuit of a national identity that they had been robbed of. The legends of ancient Germany were couched in language which called for the reunification of German lands. Societies formed to foster German nationalism.
Two nationalist strains of thought existed in Germany at this time. The first was Kleindeutsch, which called for the 'Pure German' states of Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover and the Rhine to be united. The ideology of this group was more focussed around 'scientific' racial theory that excluded non-German races or mixed races. The other were the Grossdeutsch who had a far broader idea of the new Germany, consisting of the above, but also majority German regions of France, Denmark, and Italy, and the addition of the Netherlands, Switzerland, Hungary-Austria, Bohemia and Prussia. The ideas of this group were founded to ancient German mysticism, but also in a romanticisation of Bismarckian Germania, a far more cultural form of nationalism that embraced Greater Germany's eclecticism. These two extremely different visions of Germany would clash but in their pursuit of German reunification they had many common goals.
Due to overlap the states with the largest German nationalist movements were Hanover, Bavaria, Saxony and the Rhine. To a certain extent the government of Saxony tolerated the growing German nationalist movement, but in Hanover, Bavaria and the Rhine, the governments reacted with hostility. The Confederation of the Rhine was dominated by the Bourbon Kingdom of Westphalia, and was in turn dominated by France. France did not want a reunited Germany, taking note of the number of German speakers who lived in France, and remembering the toll of the Bismarckian Conquest of France. Bavaria's king was under Italian protection, and while the Italians to a certain extent sympathised with the Germans (the monarchy being descended from a German general from the Bismarckian Empire) they also took note of the numbers of Germans in the Tyrol Province, and that at the height of the Empire of Germania they were little more than a German client state whereas now they were one of Europe's Great Powers. Hanover was a de facto British client state and was the homeland of Britain's royal family. The Kingdom of Hanover was seen as an integral part of Britain's global empire, and was a shoe in for British influence in Europe. Losing it to a burgeoning German nationalist movement could not be tolerated.
Hungary-Austria was extremely Germanophobic. The Hapsburgs had integrated into Magyar society since their flight to Buda in the Germanic Wars, and the former Austrian Empire had become Hungary dominated. The Austrians were a troublesome minority but were a vital part of Hungary-Austria's continued relevance as a Great Power, lending them some degree of influence on German affairs, and therefore into Europe. Hungarian arms were used to put down German nationalist rebellions in Bavaria especially in the 1890s and 1900s.
However, the Ottoman Civil War in 1905 caused enormous distraction in Europe, and allowed the German nationalists a certain leeway. German nationalists attained a majority in the Saxon Reichstag, and forced the King of Bavaria to abdicate in favour of his German nationalist brother. Far more momentously, an Austrian German nationalist group called the Black Hand were formulating an audacious plot which would turn the European order on its head and change the world for ever...