WI : North German policies without Bismarck

I'm doing some search for a late 19th century TL and I'm exploring options over what road to take with North Germany (ie North German confederacy or at least Prussia in a non unification scenario).

Bismarck remains the most influential figure of this era of German politics, but seemingly, when Bismarck first came to power, he faced stiff opposition from a liberal dominated parliament. So I wondered if by removing Bismarck (let's say he is assassinated), we would have liberals finally taking the reins of government. My forethought is about how this could impact German (north german/prussian) colonial policies, my assumption being that liberals would be more proactive in promoting colonial adventures unlike Bismarck.
 
Trouble is, that by the time the NGC is set up, the chance has been missed. The victory over Austria has given the other side a terrific shot in the arm.

You'd do better to kill of Wilhelm I (at Koniggratz?) rather than Bismarck. You could well get a Liberal ministry under Frederick III.
 
Having Frederick III is definitely the easiest and more direct way to get to that liberal governance, but I don't think it's the only one. The parliament was for some time dominated by Liberals and Bismarck actually tried to win over them at some point to end the constitutional crisis, causing a split within Liberal DFP between pro and anti Bismarck liberals. Also, early in the crisis, electoral success of Liberals almost saw King Wilhelm abdicating; we can also think of removing Bismarck around this time or reignite the constitutional crisis by having the power vacuum caused by Bismarck death triggering another power struggle.
I've no definite proposal on how to realize this liberal governance era, but I'm just saying there are many leads worth to follow.

In my own TL project, I would have the war of 1866 being less of a success with France effectively keeping Italy out of the war and intervening on Austrian side at some point, but not decisively, just enough to push Prussia to the negociating table and prevent a harsh peace. North German Confederation would eventually still be created, but Liberals would retain control of Prussian lower house and possibly NGC's too. In this scenario, I could have Bismarck eiher assassinated, resigning or fired (by Frederick III in the event of Wilhelm I's death or abdication).

However, the side which I'm most interested in remains the development of an alternate Prussian/North German colonial policy under Liberals which, I suspect, would be more prone to such adventures beyond seas and get a bigger share of Africa and East Asia/Pacific Ocean than IOTL.
On matters closer to Europe, I've no doubt that they would be less agressive (I mean here not as macchiavellian as Bismarck was with Napoléon III to get a war of unification) so you shall see no such thing as the Ems Dispatch to cause a war with France, especially if I have Archduke Maximilian of Austria chosen by Spaniards as their King (in this TL as you can read on another thread of mine, Mexican civil war of 1858-1861 is won by Conservadores with monarchy eventually restored but with a monarch of their chosing, not Napoléon III's, being likely one of the Italian princes who lost their throne during the Unification).
Another matter is that I consider that the perspective of an Anglo-German alliance looks more and more a possibility with a post Napoléon III renewed colonial Anglo-French colonial race as context (Napoléon III anglophile positions wouldn't have survived him anyway and this time, you couldn't count on the interuption of French colonial expansion caused by the war of 1870). Even if Liberal governed NGC would lead a more proactive policy, it would be likely of a far less important magnitude than France and the UK for a moment at least and they wouldn't seek to antagonize the British as the French did (ie no naval arms race). That could look more or less as a return to the old alliances of the Seven Years War (plus Italy due to colonial rivalry with France and designs on Austrian territories, and Ottomans because threatened by Russia).
 
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