WI: Crown Prince 'Fritz' survives?

I'm reading 'Dreadnought' again, after putting it down for a year, and I have a 'what if' prompt...

Crown Prince Frederick, father of Wilhelm II, died OTL of throat cancer.

He had a surgery scheduled to remove the cancer on 21 May 1887; it was canceled at the last minute. What happens if the surgery continues as planned, and fritz has his cancer, still in the early stages, is removed, and he regains his health? What are the consequences of his surviving his father as emperor?
 
Does Bismarck get to stick around in this TL? Even though you had the supposed liberal / conservative clash between the two, I think there was some mutual respect there that was not so with Wilhelm II.

Can the reinsurance treaty with Russia be kept? (I suspect not)

Does a different Heligoland treaty happen or no Heligoland treaty at all?

Wilhelm II had this sort of reckless colonial policy, lots of bomast but little achieved really and lots of people annoyed. Maybe a more conservative policy with better relations with Britain gets a better colonial empire in the end. (The Volta delta added to Togo, instead of Samoa, that sort of thing).

Can a naval race with Britain be avoided?
 
It says something for Kaiser Wilhelm II's character that he became SO impossible that, in the end, his mother the Empress Frederick supported BISMARK [a contributing factor re her son's megalomania] when even the mentor realized that the pupil had totally gone off the rails.
I think that if Frederick III had lived, he may have been able to rally those against Bismark but how he would have kept Willy from undoing his work the minute he died would have been quite the challenge [which he DID literally the instant he knew his father breathed his last].
 
Does Bismarck get to stick around in this TL? Even though you had the supposed liberal / conservative clash between the two, I think there was some mutual respect there that was not so with Wilhelm II.

Can the reinsurance treaty with Russia be kept? (I suspect not)

Does a different Heligoland treaty happen or no Heligoland treaty at all?

Wilhelm II had this sort of reckless colonial policy, lots of bomast but little achieved really and lots of people annoyed. Maybe a more conservative policy with better relations with Britain gets a better colonial empire in the end. (The Volta delta added to Togo, instead of Samoa, that sort of thing).

Can a naval race with Britain be avoided?

He assured Bismarck that he would keep him in 1885. The wording was more or less that he wanted things to continue as if there had been no change.

As for Fritz' liberalism... well, he had his liberal sides. One point on which he was unmoving for example was continuing the Kulturkampf. On the other hand he disliked parliament having a say on the military budget.

Wilhelm also got a lot from his father. Like the love for uniforms, medals, arrogance, need to be on the front pages of as many papers as possible etc.

I think Bismarck was for the Helgioland treaty OTL while in office so I guess it can still happen, same with the treaty with Russia. As for colonies, Fritz was all for Germany getting colonies, but he was also extremly anglophile, he wouldn't piss of Britain for them.

But his reign will be short. His health was poor way before the cancer showed up. Besides the German Wiki says he got Syphilis in 1869, that wont help either.
 
Top