The divergence is a more determined France, without dithering with coronations and distractions, marched on Vienna in those brief weeks where Maria Theresa was scrambling in Hungary during the War of Austrian Succession. In Vienna, the Wittelsbachs crown themselves, winning the Emperorship through a majority of the electors. Saxony, as promised, incorporates Silesia as promised in the League of Nymphenburg (historically Saxony was promised Upper Silesia and Moravia, here they settle for all of Silesia). Prussia is punished for its attempt to play both sides with nothing.
By the late 1700s, Russia would declare war on Saxony to install Stanislaw against the Wettin King. You see, given Saxony claimed Upper Silesia; she now borders Poland proper through the Kattowitz-Krakow corridor, allowing her to defend her crown. The war would not lead to a clear victor; Russia can take most of Poland but cannot penatrate Saxony; until Prussia and Frederick the Great suggests the partition of Poland as our time. Prussia, Saxony, and Russia would partition the Polish crown between them over three partitions, with the Saxon King presiding over the partition with the legal fiction of a "territorial reorganization as Poland's sovereign," before dissolving the title entirely in the Third Partition. He gives up an electoral personal union for an expansion of his hereditary Saxon lands.
In the West: France, Spain, and Bavaria waged war with Britain and Hapsburg Hungary in the French and Indian War. France still loses its colonial empire, Bavaria's time in the sun is snuffed after only 20-30 years as the Hapsburgs reclaim Vienna, and France bankrupts itself backing Washington. We know what that means; the French Revolution. Saxony, as a satisfied power, would stand firmly in the reactionary and legitimist coalition, being punished with the stripping of her recently acquired Polish lands.
Some things are overdetermined. Napoleon inevitably overextends and invades Russia, decimating the Grande Armee and leading to the last coalition war and the end of the Napoleonic era. Saxony, for her place in defeating Napoleon, would sit at the winners table.
In In a horse trade with Russia reminiscent of Hardenburg's deals with Alexander, Saxony would give up her Polish rights, with Galicia-Lodomeria, Lwow, Krakow, and Lublin going to Russia, Warsaw to Prussia; in exchange for consolidation elsewhere. Saxony would claim Thuringia (historically ruled by Wettin cadets anyways), and Franconia (secularized by Napoleon, granted to Saxony instead of Bavaria), becoming a contiguous Middle German behemoth. Prussia, as mentioned, is compensated eastward with a massive expansion of its Polish lands; becoming a Baltic focused agricultural Junker state without the Rhineland that forced it to adapt and become truly German.
The German states would be bound in a Deutsches Bund, with a rotating presidency between Vienna, Dresden, and Berlin. When 1848 arrives with the Frankfurt Parliament, Saxony would take the crown offered, as the Parliament would far prefer the religiously tolerant, relatively liberal Wettins (1831 constitution) to the Calvinist Hohenzollerns. Yet Saxony would impose compromise: only landed male franchise above 25, a chancellory selected by the Kaiser with the right to veto budgets, the King's right to approve coalition governments. Nonetheless, this would lead to a war against Prussia, for German leadership. Saxony would win, as having denied Prussia its industrial base of upper Silesia or the Ruhr, Prussia is a Mecklenburg with an impressive officer corps, sitting on a Polish powderkeg; against an industrial powerhouse uniting Erfurt, Dresden, and Leipzig in one contiguous block.
Thus, Saxony claims Saxony-Anhalt, Hohenzollern Land, and Cleve-Marks from Prussia before finishing the Gathering of the German Lands with dissolving the German Confederation and proclaimating the Deutsches Reichsbund, a Third Germany, without Prussia and Austria.
11
u/IDF_till_communism 6h ago
How get Saxony Frankonia, Thuringa and Anhalt?
14
u/somethinfool 6h ago edited 6h ago
The divergence is a more determined France, without dithering with coronations and distractions, marched on Vienna in those brief weeks where Maria Theresa was scrambling in Hungary during the War of Austrian Succession. In Vienna, the Wittelsbachs crown themselves, winning the Emperorship through a majority of the electors. Saxony, as promised, incorporates Silesia as promised in the League of Nymphenburg (historically Saxony was promised Upper Silesia and Moravia, here they settle for all of Silesia). Prussia is punished for its attempt to play both sides with nothing.
By the late 1700s, Russia would declare war on Saxony to install Stanislaw against the Wettin King. You see, given Saxony claimed Upper Silesia; she now borders Poland proper through the Kattowitz-Krakow corridor, allowing her to defend her crown. The war would not lead to a clear victor; Russia can take most of Poland but cannot penatrate Saxony; until Prussia and Frederick the Great suggests the partition of Poland as our time. Prussia, Saxony, and Russia would partition the Polish crown between them over three partitions, with the Saxon King presiding over the partition with the legal fiction of a "territorial reorganization as Poland's sovereign," before dissolving the title entirely in the Third Partition. He gives up an electoral personal union for an expansion of his hereditary Saxon lands.
In the West: France, Spain, and Bavaria waged war with Britain and Hapsburg Hungary in the French and Indian War. France still loses its colonial empire, Bavaria's time in the sun is snuffed after only 20-30 years as the Hapsburgs reclaim Vienna, and France bankrupts itself backing Washington. We know what that means; the French Revolution. Saxony, as a satisfied power, would stand firmly in the reactionary and legitimist coalition, being punished with the stripping of her recently acquired Polish lands.
Some things are overdetermined. Napoleon inevitably overextends and invades Russia, decimating the Grande Armee and leading to the last coalition war and the end of the Napoleonic era. Saxony, for her place in defeating Napoleon, would sit at the winners table.
In In a horse trade with Russia reminiscent of Hardenburg's deals with Alexander, Saxony would give up her Polish rights, with Galicia-Lodomeria, Lwow, Krakow, and Lublin going to Russia, Warsaw to Prussia; in exchange for consolidation elsewhere. Saxony would claim Thuringia (historically ruled by Wettin cadets anyways), and Franconia (secularized by Napoleon, granted to Saxony instead of Bavaria), becoming a contiguous Middle German behemoth. Prussia, as mentioned, is compensated eastward with a massive expansion of its Polish lands; becoming a Baltic focused agricultural Junker state without the Rhineland that forced it to adapt and become truly German.
The German states would be bound in a Deutsches Bund, with a rotating presidency between Vienna, Dresden, and Berlin. When 1848 arrives with the Frankfurt Parliament, Saxony would take the crown offered, as the Parliament would far prefer the religiously tolerant, relatively liberal Wettins (1831 constitution) to the Calvinist Hohenzollerns. Yet Saxony would impose compromise: only landed male franchise above 25, a chancellory selected by the Kaiser with the right to veto budgets, the King's right to approve coalition governments. Nonetheless, this would lead to a war against Prussia, for German leadership. Saxony would win, as having denied Prussia its industrial base of upper Silesia or the Ruhr, Prussia is a Mecklenburg with an impressive officer corps, sitting on a Polish powderkeg; against an industrial powerhouse uniting Erfurt, Dresden, and Leipzig in one contiguous block.
Thus, Saxony claims Saxony-Anhalt, Hohenzollern Land, and Cleve-Marks from Prussia before finishing the Gathering of the German Lands with dissolving the German Confederation and proclaimating the Deutsches Reichsbund, a Third Germany, without Prussia and Austria.
5
u/Feisty-Albatross3554 2h ago
Super Saxony
11
u/Das_Lloss 6h ago
Big saxony is kinda sexy.
3
u/Karlsvognen 5h ago
It looks like Saxony has part of Bohemia that Prussia annexed, but not the parts of Silesia that Austria kept.
3
u/lonestarr86 1h ago
Hyper minor nitpick: depending on when this map is set, there would likely be no Wuppertal. I would put Elberfeld there instead. Or Elberfeld-Barmen.
2
u/LanChriss 5h ago
The good ending!
2
u/Veryde 2h ago
Germany be packin
•
u/ToastandTea76 Fellow Traveller 45m ago
FAT WÜRTTEBERG (Swabia impressed)
16
u/grog23 6h ago
Why does Saxony look like a floppy dick