Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Hanover

Um, what? Surely whether or not your country becomes a free democracy that looks after its people is more important than colonial jollies abroad? I would consider putting imperial prowess above political reform to be "sacrificing the very future of their country", but then I'm more of a democrat than an imperialist - much like the Frankfurst Assembly.

I see your point, but I just can't look past the 1848 liberals saying "yes, Victoria as monarch would militarily secure our future, but it will forever condemn us to being a second rate state doing Britain's bidding". You could even draw a point out about this move sacrificing freedom for freedom, nationally to socially. As Zapata once said, "it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees". Handing the crown to Victoria would be certainly mean that Germany would be living on its knees under the highly Anglicised auspices of Victoria. Sure, there may be some who favour the move, but it's just too big of a gamble and I see it being too contentious considering that this is a "make the wrong decision and your great-great-great-great grandchildren will live to regret it" kind of thing.
 
I see your point, but I just can't look past the 1848 liberals saying "yes, Victoria as monarch would militarily secure our future, but it will forever condemn us to being a second rate state doing Britain's bidding". You could even draw a point out about this move sacrificing freedom for freedom, nationally to socially. As Zapata once said, "it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees". Handing the crown to Victoria would be certainly mean that Germany would be living on its knees under the highly Anglicised auspices of Victoria. Sure, there may be some who favour the move, but it's just too big of a gamble and I see it being too contentious considering that this is a "make the wrong decision and your great-great-great-great grandchildren will live to regret it" kind of thing.

I really don't buy this. Considering they are liberals, and they want to set up a constitutional monarchy, its not like the monarch is running the show. What sort of policy is Victoria going to be capable of making that really subverts the interests of Germany too much. In fact, it would probably stop regal meddling in the affairs of parliament if the monarch is often out of the country. I'd also be more concerned about actually forming the country first, and worrying about its pecking order among the great powers at a later date - Britain would actually be quite useful to make sure France and Russia don't interfere in the mean time.

In terms of risk, I think it's a far bigger gamble for the future of the country that an authoritarian monarch ends up squashing parliament then you lose out in the jockeying for power in Africa.
 
For a start, because in this period constitutional monarchy did not mean what it means now - the monarch still held a large amount of power, they were simply bound by more laws and their Parliament (or equivalent) had more of the actual day-to-day control. Secondly, because they must have known that the British Parliament would surely meddle with Germany in an effort to bind them to Britain's side - attempting to force Germany to sign one-sided trade pacts, forcing them to play lap-dog in politics, and so on - via a variety of threats, from withholding support in 1848 itself, to using their own power over Victoria to force her to side with them, through to using diplomatic weight to have Germany excluded from international diplomatic developments. In fact, Parliament would most likely have HATED the thought of a Personal Union with Germany, and may have tried to pass a law to forbid Victoria from taking the throne, but that's another matter.

But whatever. I'm going off gut instinct more than anything. I just can't see this working out in any other way than with Britain turning Germany into their pet, until such a time as the Germans broke the Personal Union, and I think the Germans would have known that, but I have no actual evidence to back it up with so I'm going to say that we'll have to agree to disagree here, and that I'm going to step out of this debate.
 
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