WI no loses for Saxony at the Congress of Vienna

Maybe they bail from Napoleon's side earlier (like Bavaria). Territorial losses is certain (like Bavaria losing Tyrol and Salzburg), but maybe it only loses Lusatia or something.
 

Redbeard

Banned
I think the key lies in weakening the position of Prussia and strengthening that of Austria. Battle of Leipzig hold many options for that, like if the initial French plan to first maul Blücher actually succeed, but then turn exhausted towards the allied main army under Schwarzenberg and are themselves badly mauled.

Another opportunity would be Hanau in late October 1813 when a Bavarian and an Austrian Armycorps try to block what they think are only French straglers their retreat to France, but meet the Imperial Guard and Napoleon himself. With more accurate intel. for the allies Napoleon could very well have met his "Hanau" that day. First being repulsed by the Austro-Bavarians under Wrede and then smashed by the allied main army arriving from the east (in OTL Schwarzenberg didn't know of Wrede's blocking attempt).

Anyway, the OTL Prussian role of "primary German hero" fade seriously, not only because their main rival in the quest for the German soul - Austria - is much more prominent, but this ATL also lacks Waterloo. Austria would prefer a strong Saxony to balance Prussia but in OTL couldn't resist a self-aware Prussia supported by Russia and UK.
 
Only possible idea other than a POD during the war of the Sixth Coalition, would be for Russia to not care about Poland making the trade of New Eastern Prussia for Saxon territory void. Prussia keeps New Eastern Poland and Saxony doesn't loses 40% of his land, I think that even then the Rhine would go to Prussia as they wanted them to act as a shield to get the blunt of a possible French campaign in Germany.
 
Maybe Denmark cops it even worse, losing Holstein to Prussia as well as Norway to Sweden. Or maybe Prussia gets Liege and a slice of Belgium in lieu of the Saxon land. In the latter case, might Belgium be left too small to rebel successfully in 1830?
 
Vienna was a horsemarket - pure and simple. One observer described it as they spent the days trying to pick one another's pockets and their nights drinking and dancing together.

For Prussia not to get Saxony it needs to be compensated elsewhere. Maybe Bavaria can be forced to disgorge the former margraviates of Ansbach and Bayreuth. This bumps Prussia's population numbers up significantly, but keeps Saxony relatively intact. Now, Saxony might have to cede some land to someone else - maybe Lausitz to Austria? in exchange for Austria allowing Bavaria to keep Salzburg.

Or this was another situation I worked out a while back, I haven't yet found a POD by which to make it happen, it was more just a thought exercise when considering all the competing desires at Vienna.

Note: Sweden is still under the rule of more competent Gustaf IV, Poland hasn't been partitioned (or was reborn in the Napoleonic Wars), and Bavaria and the Palatinate are under separate branches (Karl Theodor either has legitimate children, or Maximilian succeeds in Bavaria, and the dukes in Bavaria inherit the Palatinate). Oh, and I hadn't really considered what was going on in Italy.


Denmark had lost its ancient crown of Norway when the Swedish king had invaded that kingdom and seized control. He had Russian support to do so, since in exchange for said support, he had waived his right to the grand duchy of Finland which now flew the Russian flag and sang ‘God Save the Tsar’. Sweden’s young hotshot, desiring to restore Swedish power to the days of his namesake, Gustaf Adolf, had also threatened Denmark’s holdings in Pomerania. Denmark, allied with France, but unable to mount an appropriate defence since her defeat by Britain a decade earlier, called Sweden’s bluff and sold her Pomeranian holdings to the kingdom of Prussia. And instantly the king of Sweden backed down.

A similar incident took place in the Low Countries. The Palatinate’s royal family signed over the duchy of Jülich, Kleves and Berg to the house of Nassau, the kings of the Netherlands. In exchange, the Netherlands handed over the duchy of Luxemburg to the Palatinate. There had been an earlier proposal that the Netherlands would get the former margraviate of Antwerp, but the British had curbstomped that idea. So, the Netherlands got Limburg while the Palatinate got Luxemburg.

The Habsburgs lost the ‘eagle’s tail feathers’ in Swabia to French-allied Württemberg or Baden, but was recompensed for the loss by gaining the southern parts of Tyrolean Bavaria. The three episcopal electorates of Cologne, Trier and Mainz, were abolished, and their territories either going to the Netherlands (who’s territory now included the former archdiocese of Cologne, plus enough German territory to link the Netherlands to the traditional German duchy of Nassau), the Palatinate (which got almost the entirety of Trier alongside the former territory of the Prince-Bishop of Liège), Prussia (whose family members from the branches of Ansbach and Bayreuth got the grand duchy of Würzburg (carved from the Mainz electorate’s territory) and the secularized archbishopric of Bamberg) or Hesse (which got the grand duchy of Frankfurt – another Mainz sponsored creation – and the remainder of the episcopate).

Prussia, which was once again denied her dream of West-Preussen to connect the duchy of Prussia with the march of Brandenburg, was accepted as holder of the various Silesian duchies of Jagerndorf, Wohlau, Glogau, Liegnitz and Brieg, in exchange for renouncing its exclave in Cottbus to the elector of Saxony, while at the same time, expanding to the Baltic when it acquired Denmark’s former holdings.

Denmark itself had been expected to keep smiling as it waved goodbye to Norway (which didn’t exactly take well to Swedish rule), but was rewarded by the ripping of the duchy of Lauenburg from Hannover, as well as seeing parts of the duchy of Münster attached to its satellite state of Oldenburg.
 
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