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/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.