First, here's a bit of background to explain the scenario I'm proposing.
The PoD is when Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria dies in the Battle of Abensberg in 1809, fighting against the Austrians. The absence of the strong-willed, anti-French crown prince—who in OTL was in part responsible for prompting his father to turn against the French Empire and join the Sixth Coalition,
before Emperor Napoleon suffered his great defeat in the Battle of the Nations—leads the more cautious King Maximilian of Bavaria, of the Wittelsbach dynasty, to maintain his alliance with Imperial France for longer. As a result of King Maximilian fighting for the Emperor and only jumping ship to the Coalition at the very last moment, the Wittelsbachs do
not get the guarantee they got in OTL of keeping the borders for the much-enlarged Kingdom of Bavaria that Napoleon Bonaparte created. Indeed, the rulers of the Coalition see the Wittelsbach dynasty as traitors and collaborators. Also—you could view this as a second PoD or as a butterfly, it doesn't really matter—Napoleon doesn't escape Elba, so there's no Hundred Days in TTL; the OTL Hundred Days took credit (of being immediately responsible for Napoleon's recent, seemingly-final defeat) away from the Austrians and Russians and gave more credit to the Prussians and the British. So Austria is also in a more prestigious position. Following this, Napoleon Bonaparte's invention of an expanded Bavaria is wiped off the map in TTL, like so many other of Bonaparte's borders, and it is annexed to Austria. Prussia gets somewhat greater Rhineland concessions, to balance Austria's strength, but now Austria too is in a position to act as the protector of the small states of western Germany from French aggression.
Following the reactionary order imposed upon Europe at the Congress of Vienna, there are still alt-"Revolutions of 1848", called the Liberal Risings or the Great Risings. In 1851, Hungary rebels against Austria. The Hungarian conservative aristocrats are very powerful in Hungary and wary of things going too far for fear of jeopardising their own power, so there are signs of attempted compromise between the Diet of Hungary and Emperor Leopold of Austria, but the situation on the ground continually deteriorates due to Hungarian liberal and nationalist militias clashing against Austrian Habsburg forces. Unfortunately, one of the Emperor's generals takes it upon himself to send his troops into Hungary to crush some Hungarians who were harrassing Austrian supply lines and things rapidly spiral out of control. In that way so common to history, bad decisions that are made in a moment of crisis, on the ground, cause conflict that the decision-makers in the air didn't want. Due to some other aspects of the TL—notably, there was a major war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the 1830s, where the British took the Ottoman side and the Austrians decided to stay out of it—the Russians don't keep to their side of the 'Holy Alliance' and fight to defend Austria, feeling that the Austrians betrayed it first; and the Prussians don't intervene because they're afraid that the Austrians are dangerously too powerful in Germany, due to the annexation of Bavaria, and they want to see Austria cut down to size.
Hungary wins the war, so Hungary becomes independent, as a chaotic republic with frequent political conflict between its powerful aristocracy (who are now committed to republicanism but aren't fond of democracy and, especially, land reform) and more liberal elements, and also between Hungarian nationalists and those advocating more autonomy for the many non-Hungarian nationalities in Hungary. Usually the more pro-democratic Hungarians are also more nationalist, envisaging a culturally united, unitary Hungarian democratic republic, so the aristocratic conservatives and nationalities are in an alliance of convenience.
Moreover, this is a long and hard-fought war for Austria. Its most important result for German history is to give Austrian troops valuable military experience and the Austrian army and state a kick up the backside to improve its army in a way that it didn't get in OTL. Meanwhile, the Prussian army, top-of-the-line decades ago, is out-of-practice and hasn't been given hard-fought conflicts and defeats to motivate it to keep up and pursue new military ideas. The Prussian army is somewhat less impressive than in OTL, whereas the Austrian army is much more so, including, critically, faster local mobilisation (with much less fear of separatist revolts now that most of Austria's non-German regions are already lost).
What all of this is building up to is an alternate Austro-Prussian War in the late 1860s, known in TTL as the Prusso-German War. Like in OTL it's fought between Prussia and the rest of the German Confederation when Prussia arbitrarily decided to seize all of Schleswig-Holstein (recently conquered from Denmark by the German Confederation) for itself, violating the will of the other states of the German Confederation as expressed in their German Diet. In OTL the Prussians won against the rest of the German Confederation (not just Austria as it's often remembered) as a short victorious war in a matter of two months. They annexed lots of the other German states, forcibly dissolved the German Confederation and forced the rest of northern Germany into a
de facto Prussian-ruled 'North German Confederation' which was constitutionally extremely similar to the later Empire—annexation in all but name. Because the Prussians won, this action against the will of German unity wasn't regarded as a blow against German unity. In TTL the outcome is different. Austria puts on a much better showing, holding off the Prussians, and the rest of the German Confederation rallies to Austria's side against the Prussians. Ultimately, the outnumbered Prussians are crushed and Austria obtains a decisive victory.
- Silesia (annexed by Prussia from Austria a hundred years earlier) is returned from Prussia to Austria.
- Prussia obviously doesn't make the huge territorial gains it made from this war in OTL.
- Prussia is expelled from the German Confederation, ending the situation where the German Confederation had two rival leading powers and hence was ineffectual and indecisive. Now it's very clearly Austria running the show.
- The German Confederation has a single governing power, Austria. (The Emperor of Austria is always President of the German Confederation.) Now it also has an experience of fighting together in a common cause and achieving military victory. Whereas in OTL the German Confederation was torn apart and a new Germany was established as a separate entity, in TTL the German Confederation becomes "Germany".
- Prussia is hated by the German Confederation, and is thought of as clearly un-German, an aggressor against Germany. Prussia, in turn, is Germany's implacable enemy, with a grudge as bad as OTL due to the loss of Silesia.
- The Prussian-ruled Rhineland, whose people think of themselves as Germans not Prussians and haven't been under Prussian rule for very long anyway, is taken away from Prussia and made part of Germany.
- Much of Prussia's remaining territory is now ethnically Polish, not German. Prussia is a foreign country outside Germany, whereas Austria is the leading power of Germany.
So, whereas in OTL Germany was formed with Prussia running the show and Austria locked out, here Germany is formed with Austria running the show and Prussia locked out.
How do you think this kind of Germany would develop? There are loads of questions that come to mind.
Would TTL Germany end up less centralised than OTL Bismarckian Germany?
What would Germany's religious relations be like between Catholics and Protestants, with Catholic-majority Austria as its dominant power and Protestant-majority Prussia as its external enemy? A reverse-Kulturkampf?
What would happen with the various national minorities in Austria (Czechs, Poles, Slovenes, maybe Italians if Austria still includes Lombardy and Venetia) as national minorities in Austrian-led Germany?
As it includes Austria and no Prussia, with only minor North Sea and Baltic Sea coastlines, it would presumably be less Baltic- and North Sea-focused and more Mediterranean-focused. What effects would that have? A Mediterranean-focused Germany is an idea I've never seen before.
What sort of relations would TTL's Germany have with other countries? There's no Alsace-Lorraine problem with France, but there
is a Silesia problem with Prussia. Prussia in TTL would be a small, not-very-powerful country, but how would ATL Austrian-led, Mediterranean-focused Germany relate to other countries, such as the Russians, the French, the British and the Ottomans?
Please tell me your thoughts!
