Epilogue: The Price of Pride
Throughout the winter of 1870-71, the great powers of continental Europe (France, Austria and Russia) quietly jostled to divide the spoils and ingratiate themselves to the smaller nations. One never knew when an alliance with some second tier nations may prove worthwhile.
While foreign troops occupied Berlin, Prussia and her allies awaited their fate. Rather vulgar horse-trading sessions occurred as each nation attempted to better their neighbors.
France, whom supplied the most troops, received a generous peace. As expected, Savoy and Nice fell to France from their joint conquest of Piedmont-Sardinia. The French also received the western bank of the Rhine River as well as the exclave of the Bavarian Palatinate. In this region, the dialect of German was somewhat unique. Napoleon III made several concessions to the local populations and that of Alsace-Lorrain, where similar dialects of German were spoken, in terms of "official language" and a measure of local government. With Savoy, Nice, the Bavarian Palantinate and the western Rhineland now part of France, though the differences in culture would prove problematic for generations. Indeed, France often cunningly used this local dialect to drive a wedge from these peoples to the rest of Germany. As it was, the Bretons and Occitans were becoming increasingly restive due to France's central language policies. Napoleon III was willing to compromise and reestablished local dialects in local schools. Indeed, the heavily Spanish-Portuguese-Italian influenced Algerian dialect was similarly problematic and was eventually forced to be recognized as a separate language.
Still, France emerged from the war with more influence than virtually any other era in French history with the exception of Napoleon I and possibly the Sun King.
Baden received the southern exclave of their ally Hesse-Darmstadt, an exclave just to the north of Baden.
French ally Hesse-Darmstadt received the entirety of the much larger Prussian ally Hesse-Kassel in return for their concession as well as part of the Rhine province. The Grand Duke had no legitimate (meaning non-morganic) children and Hesse was largely reunited for the first time in generations.
Wurttemberg received the Prussian exclave of Hohenzollern as a reward for their loyalty to France and Austria.
Hanover was a big winner as the blind King would receive a most of Westphalia, ending 200 years of Prussian domination of northwestern Germany. Hanover's size and population doubled, making it a challenger to Prussia in the north.
Bavaria, which had ceded the Bavarian Palatinate to their ally France, would receive adjacent small parts of Hesse-Cassel and Saxony. Bavaria was somewhat disappointed with their lot as these lands weren't much more impressive (though contiguous) than the land they gave up.
The Kingdom of Saxony, on the other hand, benefited from their ally's fall, though indirectly. Yes, a quarter of the Kingdom was lost, they were rewarded (or at least the new King whom had taken the throne and immediately sought peace with Austria) would receive most of the Prussian Province of Saxony, an area far larger than the one they sacrificed. Much of this had belonged to Saxony until the end of the Napoleonic Wars and been annexed by Prussia at the peace table in 1813.
The consolidation of these Prussian territories into half a dozen mid-size German states made for significant changes in the politics of the region. These newly enlarged Kingdoms often cooperated to stymy their larger neighbors.
Austria's bounty was comparatively paltry with Middle Silesia and part of Lower Silesia falling to them. The area was predominantly German (as opposed to Poles) and probably 2/3rds Protestant.
Russia, whom did not fight a single major battle (and having lost a number of small, sharp engagements to the slight Prussian Army that retreated back towards Brandenburg, received a larger share. Predominantly Polish Upper Silesia, 80% of Posen and 40% of Western Prussia fell to them or, more specifically, the Kingdom of Poland. Many of Alexander II's advisors recommended against assuming control of the dominant majority of the Polish population lest it raise Polish nationalism once again. When the people were split between Russia, Prussia and Austria, the hope of independence fell to the wayside. However, the Czar had been steadily (but slowly) modernizing his nation socially as well as economically. The serfs of Russia had, by this point, been free for a decade. Experiments of socio-political-economic nature were often tried first in Poland, Finland, Armenia, Assyria, Pontus Greece (Trabizond), Georgia or Constantinople before being enacted upon the Russians. With only modest numbers of Poles (perhaps 15%) now living under Prusso-Austrian rule, the Polish had the closest thing to a nation since the Napoleonic Wars. That that nation was under the rule of the Czar (as King of Poland) was less thrilling even with the steady string of improvements and concessions from Alexander II.
Prussia, of course, suffered terribly. They lost the Rhine Provinces, Westphalia, Hohenzollern, over half of the Province of Saxony, most of Posen, a third of Western Prussia (the Poles were granted a strip of land to the sea). Their erstwhile allies in Saxony and Hesse became rivals and enemies.
There was talk of the Duchy Schleswig-Holstein being delivered back to Denmark but eventually it was determined that Prussia's closest ally would be raised to the level of Kingdom. The nominal monarch and Prussia puppet Duke Frederick was, almost against his will, raised to the level of King, Prussia forbidden from interfering in their northern neighbor's affairs.
In the end, Prussia lost half of her population and territory (as did Piedmont) and most of her allies, many of whom became enemies. However, this was not the victory the allied expected.
The Zollverein (the German customs union) had greatly benefited its members. Indeed, Prussia used it to bond German states to her and away from Austria with her high protective tariffs. In the confusion of Europe as the nations tried to work out the new balance of power, the secondary German states, oddly, got the final word. They desired the customs union as beneficial to their economies and lowering of bureaucracy. Both France and Austria feared that Prussia may regain influence or, worse, that their former ally and newfound rival would soon bring the augmented German states closer to them.
As a compromise, Austria and France consented to an proposal by several smaller German states for a newer and larger Zollverein that wasn't quite as integrated as before but contained all the states of German (minus Prussia which was banned) as well as France, Austria, Denmark and Sweden-Norway. Indeed, the fact that victorious Austria with their historic protectionism was forced to lower tariffs barriers at the behest of their defeated enemies and minor allies was somewhat shocking but they could not allow advantage to France with the German states. France, similarly, would be occupied with absorbing the Rhineland, the Palatinate, Savoy and Nice, not to mention Algeria and other colonial acquisitions in Asia and Africa) for many years. If a favorable trade agreement to the German states was the price of peace in Europe, the French Emperor was more than happy to pay it.
In the end, the German states emerged as winners, their Kingdoms aggrandized and a larger trade union formed.
However, nationalism in Germany and Italy was far from dead. Nationhood was becoming more than just a geographic concept.
A "Deutchland" and a united "Italy" remained in the dreams of millions of people.