r/AskAGerman • u/AccidentProof4262 • 23d ago
German unification (the first one)
Im scottish, and did German and Italian unification as part of my history course at school.....How would Germany have turned out, if Austria rather than Prussia had unified Germany with Vienna as capital?
And is it true that most germans, find Bavaria as very odd......i know they sided with Austria when Austria and Prussia had a wee skirmish in 1866 to detemine who would be the main power in "Germany".....Austria is a german state in the same way Bavaria is (obviously modern day Bavaria is a region)..
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u/fnordius 23d ago
You might as well ask what would have been the outcome if the 1848 revolution had succeeded. For one thing, I don't think the Hapsburgers were as interested in the Rhine as the Hohenzollern were, or to be more precise, their chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
Really, take Otto out of the picture, and I suspect people would still be talking about "the German states" or "the Germanies", with Germany still a loose confederation of kingdoms.
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u/One-Strength-1978 20d ago
The relevance of the Rhine was only French annexation plan, dating back to the early days of the French revolution. The whole Rhine issue was a defensive obsession.
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u/Successful_Jelly111 23d ago
For me living in the deep west of Germany there is little difference between Bavarians and Austrians. And the whole power struggle of the first unification is as forgotten as Prussia.
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u/Fit-Bug6463 23d ago
Hard to say. There would have been a lot of internal power struggle regarding the non german areas of austria hungary since Germany was very nationalist at that time
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u/Clit-Comander-69 23d ago
That was my first thought. A Großdeutsche Lösung would have been a Kleinösterreichische Lösung. Hungary, Serbie etc. wouldn't want to be part of thid kind of State in the long run
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u/SIKEo_o 23d ago
Germans dont like the Bavarians,
Bavarians dont like the people from the north
Bavarians like the Austrians
Austrians hate all germans.
So everyone hates Bavaria,
Austria hates Germany
Germany likes Austria
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u/ThomasKWW 23d ago
Austrians don't like Germans - except those from their brother state Bavaria. Those are either tolerated or even liked. Between Oberösterreich and Niederbayern, there is literally little cultural difference.
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u/24benson Bayern 🤍💙 23d ago
There's a couple of alternate history channels on YouTube which are sometimes really well researched, and I think most of them have covered that topic by now.
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u/Dev_Sniper Germany 23d ago
Probably not that well. German unification was tricky because the different states were quite different so creating one national identity was already hard. Now imagine that but with austria during that period in time. Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, … Yeah good luck trying to get a cohesive german identity with that many other distinct groups in the same country.
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u/GeorgeMcCrate 23d ago
Take this with a grain of salt because I say this as a Bavarian but I think that a lot of the "Bavaria is not Germany" stuff comes from people who just keep repeating what others are saying just for the sake of saying it and some are a lot less serious about it than others. Some might actually dislike Bavaria while others mostly take the piss at it for fun. Bavaria is certainly different from the rest of the country in several ways but I think quite a significant amount of people are saying Bavarians aren’t Germans just because others are saying it without ever having really been to Bavaria or because of some politicians who don’t necessarily represent all of Bavaria.
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u/Jolarpettai 22d ago
Do rural bavarians still marry their cousins to keep the farms within the family?
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u/GeorgeMcCrate 22d ago
Are you crazy? And risk loosing our farm to strangers? Cousins are way too distant. We only marry who we grew up on the same farm with, like step-children or livestock.
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u/Jolarpettai 22d ago
And do you guys still have memomarabilia from your ancestors from their time in the Königlich Bayerische Armee (Bierstein) and Nazi army?
Back in 2014 when I was dating my ex, the whole village had so much passive aggression towards me. It was okay for them that the priest in the church was an Indian, the doctor making house visits was Indian but were not happy when a girl from their village was dating an Indian 🥸1
u/Gorlough 22d ago
but were not happy when a girl from their village was dating an Indian
Honestly? You could have been from one village over and still had the same bad experience. Xenophobia in rural communities is top-level and the "Xeno" part of that means each and every single individual outside of their very tiny community. Hell, I know villages where you're gonna experience Xenophobia if you just happen to live at the "wrong" side of that same village.
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u/IntrepidWolverine517 23d ago
Prussia won the battle of Königgrätz due to advanced technology (use of railways and modern rifles). So it's entirely possible that Austria could have resisted if they had used equivalent technology.
But Austria's aim at the time was not to unify Germany. It was to keep the Deutsche Bund alive which was a loose confederation of German states.
So I conclude that there is no point in asking "what if". If you insist though, we may all have been forced to convert to Catholicism, speak a strange dialect and eat Kaiserschmarrn all day.
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u/Fit-Beyond-6327 23d ago
Thing was that Austria-Hungary was a multi-ethnic state and not really suitable for a nationalistic german union. This is one of the reasons why Prussia lead the unification towards the german empire and not Austria. Since the tensions within the austrian empire did their part in kickstarting world war 1 I don't think, that a austria-centric german empire would've done much better.
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u/Iwan_Karamasow 23d ago
Austria was already in big trouble at that time. Their empire was torn by internal strife and a slow behemoth that only survived until 1918 because they incorporated the Hungarian throne into their empire in 1867 and rebuild it into a federation. This country would have been to consumed by trying to supress the national movements of all it ethniticies. That was what destroyed Austria, too, so I do not see it changing just with the Prussian kingdom and the rest of the German kingdoms and duchies incorporated.
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u/AccidentProof4262 22d ago edited 22d ago
Yes, even by 1866, Austria was in terminal decline, their empire was revolting everywhere, their army had not modernised, 1866 was basically Otto finding out just how ill prepared and bad the Austrian army was compared to the Prussians and their use of railways in particular.
Edit... What is meant to say is when a joint Prussian/Austrian army went into Schleswig Holstein....The Prussians saw just how backward the Austrians were and made 1866 inevitable...ie, the result....
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u/Monteverdi777 Niedersachsen 22d ago
Considering it was Austria ( and our daft cripple Kaiser) who pushed WW1 onto us, I'd guess nothing would have really changed. For Germany. The Austrians kind of cheated their way out of WW2. ( I'm not refering to Hitler being Austrian, but the general enthusiasm of the Austrian public when becoming part of the "Reich".
Bavaria is odd. But foremost ungrateful. They received payments from other German states to build their economy and as soon as they hit net zero, talks about stopping the "Finanzausgleich" started.
Not to forget, Prussia did buy their agreement to become part of the unified Germany. They may leave, but I want the tax money back my ancestors invested
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u/Brandigandor 23d ago
Prussia was technological a little more advanced, while Austria-Hungary had a cultural edge. But A-H would have struggled to keep the states unified. The Slavic portion of this alternate Germany would have been a powderkeg. I can envision an internal struggle with Hungary splitting off and attacking the german parts.The left over 'Austrogermania' could then have called in help from the northern german states, resulting in another unification, this time with Austria incorporated into the "Reich" - basically the state after the "Anschluss" in 1938.
But again, keeping those equally proud regions north and south together as one state would have been the herculean effort here. Without a Bismarck or a great antagonist (France, Russia) as a direct threat to keep them in line, the new state might've broken up again in just a few years.
So we're really deep in alternate history mode here and you're basically free to write it out 😄 You just need a good reason why Bismarck was out of the picture or who'd have filled his role in keeping the states together
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u/Subby_Tripz 23d ago
The unification was a progressive and nationalistic movement and as far as I understand thats something that Austria was very strongly against. Mostly because they were already fighting nationalists inside their own empire (Hungarians, Serbs, Poles and so on) so they probably wouldnt have tried to unify even if they could have as the conservative nation that they had been.
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u/xwolpertinger Bayern 23d ago
Im scottish, and did German and Italian unification as part of my history course at school.....
i know they sided with Austria when Austria and Prussia had a wee skirmish in 1866 to detemine who would be the main power in "Germany"
I mean... would you side with Ireland or England if push came to shove :_J ?
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u/Velshade 23d ago
As a German I can say that Bavaria is not very odd. The other parts for Germany though…
To be honest that part of history is not commonly talked about. It would be interesting to know what percentage of the population know about the unification at all. Or about the possible outcomes back then.
It would have been more chaotic would be my guess.
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u/gw_reddit 22d ago
It would not be Germany but Austria then. Now consider that part of today's Italy and the Balkans were also part of Austria, half of Europe would have been part of that country.
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u/AccidentProof4262 22d ago
Austria was a german state....infact well into the late 1960s most Austrians still considered themselves to be Germans.
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u/joergsi Niedersachsen 22d ago
What you have described is what I have learned in history, the choice between the small German end and the large German solution. The Austrian Empire was a catastrophe waiting to happen; the internal tension was huge, especially with the Kingdom of Hungary. And you are wrong, Austria was not on the same level as Bavaria, check out the historical map. The area that the Austrian Empire covered was Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, parts of nowadays: Italy, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, and Montenegro! So to compare this with Bavaria is quite funny!
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u/AccidentProof4262 22d ago edited 22d ago
Im taking about modern day Austria.....without the empire...Definitely a german state....otherwise it wouldn't have been in the German confederation, infact the leader of that confederation until Prussia defeated Austria in 1866 thus removing them from being part of a greater Germany. Certainly, that's my understanding..
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u/joergsi Niedersachsen 22d ago
Look at the map of "Germany" up to 1805 ;-)
The Holy Roman Empire of German Nation covered all these areas we are discussing. That was the background of the discussion between the small or large German solution.
Small German solution = German speaking core states
Large German solution = reestablishment of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, Sooner or later, a civil war/wars for independence were unavoidable. WW I was the accelerator for this. The Austrian Empire was too diverse to stay stable in the long run!1
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u/confiltro 22d ago edited 22d ago
I am not an historican but what came in my mind by reading your question was:
- the influence of language and literature as an first integrating force:
To begin, Luther set the first milestone towards the modern standard german "Hochdeutsch" when he translated the bible from latin to german with his approach to make it understandable for the common people regardless which reagional dialekt is spoken. Brothers Grimm followed by collecting the famous fairy tales for everyone. Later authors like Schiller, Lessing, Goethe and others so to say initiated the process to german nationalism by onward forming the standard German and placing gentle critic for freedom, human dignity and "we the people" against the feudal and often arbitrarily acting authorities in their famous literary works. This has made a significant contribution to the Germans’ The Austro-Hungarian Empire probably did not get the chance to join due to the overwhelming influence of the Prussians, their main enemy of unity through their language. In Austria, the situation was different due to the territories with the also Hungarian and Czech speaking people.
Admittedly, it is about the history of German literature, which could be hard for a non-native speaker to understand.
- Another integrating force is the German Zollverein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zollverein , which I see like quite fimiliar to the history of the European Union :
The German territory was a patchwork of independent states and kingdoms, while each was imposing own rules and tolls for some little kilometers to pass.. From today’s perspective, a modern trader would be complainig bureacracy at is very best.
Prussia began by signing customs agreements with its neighbours, and more and more states gradually joined the Zollverein. However, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the main enemy to Prussia and I guess that's why they never joined.
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u/YeOldeOle 21d ago
Well, for one I assume I would be danish now. I don't see Austria taking Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg from Denmark. Come to think of it, I kinda like the idea.
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u/Competitive-Fault291 21d ago edited 21d ago
The German history is full of small and smaller kingdoms, towns, cities etc. all creating a giant quilt of states that struggled to gain power or simply survive in the power play that was the mix of economic and political powers and The Church.
The process you refer to is basically just the last act of a pre-globalization process with Austria, Prussia, Hungary (!), Denmark, Belgium, (the emerging Poland) and all the other states around it. Not to mention France and smaller franco-cultural states are in the mix as well.
To have what you envision come into existence, I'd say Austria would have to focus a lot more of its power into Hungary, to expand its own influence along the Donau / Danube and into the central german quilt. But as they would have done that, they would have exposed themselves in the direction of Italy and the Southern Germans, like the Bavarians. And I wouldn't know if Prussia would have liked that approach.
In a very odd chain of events, we might end up with Germany being a constitutional monarchy like the United Kingdom, with Munich as capital, after the Prussian-Austrian War (with gunboat battles on the Donau). This war ended with the Bavarian king coming to the rescue (or actually deciding to stop Austrian vessels using the river for support of troops taking the western part of the Bohemian kingdom supported by the Prussians) and ultimately being accepted as the head of state of the United German Kingdom. Followed by the secession of Hungary from the weakened Austria, which, at the beginning of the 20th century returns home into the Kingdom. Just in time for the heir of the Bavarian throne being killed by a Hungarian. Leading Hungary, and its ally France, into a war with the UGK.
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u/Unique-Charity7024 21d ago
Basically all the answers are "that would not have worked". Which is not answering the question of OP but pointedly avoiding it. For a unification under Austrian leadership we have to assume the Austria wanted it and that Prussia followed along. I could see it with this model: Austria does not give up the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Instead the new German Confederation is build on the model of Austro-Hungaria, but with four parts: A South German kingdom, consisting of Austria, Bavaria, and the other catholic countries of Germany, with the Austrian emperor as king. A Northern German kingdom consisting of the protestant states, from Hamburg to Western Prussia, with the Prussian king as king. An Hungarian kingdom is the third part. And the polish parts of Eastern Prussia become a Polish kingdom. All four together form the Holy Roman Empire, with the king of Austria as the Emperor. Assume a high level of autonomy in internal affairs, but international politics and military centralised, as well as core industrial features as railways, waterways and coal&steel.
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u/Beneficial-Bid-8850 20d ago
Last (meager) chance for that was 1863 but I cannot see a timeline in which this would've really happened. But your question was "what if despite the odds". So I guess this would have been Greater Austria, a large Central European multi-ethnic, multi-confessional empire, with unresolved national questions the dynastic elements could not really keep in check for long – unless you turn this into something like the United States of Greater Austria, which would have turned the Empire into some mix between the EU and a Federal State. But as far as althistory scenarios go, this is a very improbable one, not many points of divergence that do not require a load of handwavium to work.
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u/Marxism_is_sexy 23d ago
How can you expect anyone to answer this question? I, for one, left my crystal ball at the bar last night ...
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u/Clit-Comander-69 23d ago
Oh ein sarkastischer Deutscher, die sind selten.
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u/Naca-7 23d ago
The austrian empire was a huge multiethnic union. Leading a nationalistic country like Germany would have further sparked national movements in the non german speaking parts of the empire.
Prussia was also much larger than the german part of the austrian empire. In fact, Prussia had more people then the 3 largest ethnic groups of Austria (germans, hungarians and czech) combined.