2300AD/2320 What If: Bavaria stays out of Germany

[rfmcdpei]

I've a long-standing interest in alternate history--that's actually how I came to the setting more than a decade ago--and I wanted to address a counterfactual that has long interested me.

***

The scene is Bavaria, on 1 September 2291, in the office of the Bavarian prime minister as she talks on the videophone to provisional German president T.H. Schumpeter.

"The referendum results are in, and I just called to tell you that the electorate has decided that Bavarians don't feel like we're Germans, at least not most Germans. For three centuries, we've had our own separate history as the heart of a vast and diverse interstellar empire, while the other old successor states to Germany have been fairly small and normal northern European states. As for the colonies--well, let's not get started on those. We wish you Germans well, if you want help setting up a colony in our sphere of influence we'll be more than happy to oblige, and we'll keep the French off your back, but we're our own nation."

Over the next year, the four German states of Westphalia, Hanover, Saxony, and Brandenburg establish a Federal Republic of Germany. After three centuries, "Germany" again appears on the map of Europe. The French military junta is unhappy, but this Germany clearly cannot pose a threat to the empire and, brought down by its many economic failings, a new republic is declared in 2294. Energized by the 2291 referendum, Bavaria and all of its colonies from Hochbaden in the French Arm to Heidelsheimat in the Chinese Arm embark in a series of constitutional talks aimed at creating a new sense of Bavarian nationality for a vast federation of four hundred million people living on eight worlds.

With German reunification being limited to four small states in the Terran region of central Europe and Bavaria remaining intact, there is no costly transformation of astropolitical relations in human-dominated space, no potentially problematic Third Empire, no growth of polarizing Franco-German tensions throughout Terra and the French Arm. The French at Aurore and Nous Voila and the Bavarians at Hochbaden continue to collaborate in friendly enough fashion, even after France suddenly loses contact with its research station at Arcturus ...

***

What next? If the French and Bavarians do a better job of cooperating than the French and Germans of Canon history, they might be able to limit the scope of the initial Kafer incursions against Aurore. Conversely, a less militarized French Arm might not stand up as well.

Thoughts?

 

[mbrinkhues]

I've a long-standing interest in alternate history--that's actually how I came to the setting more than a decade ago--and I wanted to address a counterfactual that has long interested me.

***

The scene is Bavaria, on 1 September 2291, in the office of the Bavarian prime minister as she talks on the videophone to provisional German president T.H. Schumpeter.

"The referendum results are in, and I just called to tell you that the electorate has decided that Bavarians don't feel like we're Germans, at least not most Germans. For three centuries, we've had our own separate history as the heart of a vast and diverse interstellar empire, while the other old successor states to Germany have been fairly small and normal northern European states. As for the colonies--well, let's not get started on those. We wish you Germans well, if you want help setting up a colony in our sphere of influence we'll be more than happy to oblige, and we'll keep the French off your back, but we're our own nation."

Over the next year, the four German states of Westphalia, Hanover, Saxony, and Brandenburg establish a Federal Republic of Germany. After three centuries, "Germany" again appears on the map of Europe. The French military junta is unhappy, but this Germany clearly cannot pose a threat to the empire and, brought down by its many economic failings, a new republic is declared in 2294. Energized by the 2291 referendum, Bavaria and all of its colonies from Hochbaden in the French Arm to Heidelsheimat in the Chinese Arm embark in a series of constitutional talks aimed at creating a new sense of Bavarian nationality for a vast federation of four hundred million people living on eight worlds.

With German reunification being limited to four small states in the Terran region of central Europe and Bavaria remaining intact, there is no costly transformation of astropolitical relations in human-dominated space, no potentially problematic Third Empire, no growth of polarizing Franco-German tensions throughout Terra and the French Arm. The French at Aurore and Nous Voila and the Bavarians at Hochbaden continue to collaborate in friendly enough fashion, even after France suddenly loses contact with its research station at Arcturus ...

***

What next? If the French and Bavarians do a better job of cooperating than the French and Germans of Canon history, they might be able to limit the scope of the initial Kafer incursions against Aurore. Conversely, a less militarized French Arm might not stand up as well.

Thoughts?

Short detail: The "Thieving Hill Tribes" (19th century Brockhaus about Bavarians) are actually one of the SMALLER German states. Both Westfalia and Nether-Saxony are much larger and have more population.

As for the Rest: I doubt the new Germany will let the Bavarians exist, there is likely to much "bad blood" given the Bavarians "toady/leech" affair with France

IF they do allow them to exist basically Germany becomes uninteresting similar to Italy so replace all instances of Germany with Bavaria and be done with it.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Short detail: The "Thieving Hill Tribes" (19th century Brockhaus about Bavarians) are actually one of the SMALLER German states. Both Westfalia and Nether-Saxony are much larger and have more population.

2300AD-era population distributions are likely to be quite different than in the pre-Twilight era--I'm curious to know more about the "Rhine Metroplex" that is the largest city in France--and a Bavaria that's at the heart of a vast interstellar empire would need somewhat of a larger population base (and perhaps territorial? maybe this is how Swabia gets reunited?).

That said, a country with a population in the 70-80 million range clearly isn't a marginal player in Europe. Presumably, quite a few people descended from migrants of this Germany have found their way to the stars. Maybe Germany could follow them?

As for the Rest: I doubt the new Germany will let the Bavarians exist, there is likely to much "bad blood" given the Bavarians "toady/leech" affair with France

That's not my reading of German reunification at all. Schumpeter seems to have taken great care to make sure that German reunification was conducted in an impeccably democratic and fair manner, not least because he needed to neutralize France. Things did go relatively worse in many of the colonies, but that might have been expected to happen. Germany might like Bavaria to join, but I hadn't thought it much more likely to pressure Bavaria than to pressure Austrovenia.

You could even get a German-Bavarian alliance out of this, even Bavarian support for a German interstellar program. If the Texans can cooperate with the Incans, why not?

IF they do allow them to exist basically Germany becomes uninteresting similar to Italy so replace all instances of Germany with Bavaria and be done with it.

I wasn't going for that. I was wondering how, in the light of those changes (no war of German reunification, no Bavarian fragmentation, no French empire) the Kafer War might have happened differently.

 

[Colin]

Without the Reunification War, the Kafer War would have gone better for the Bugs at first, but there would have been much better coordination between the French and Bavarian units. French starships did most of their fighting against the Manchurian, not the Germans, and even that was a while ago. They would still have some captains and crew with fighting experience. Colony worlds all downt eh Arm would likely have been harder hit, and quicker, but Allied forces would likely have stopped them somewhere between Beowulf and Niebelungen.

 

[mbrinkhues]

2300AD-era population distributions are likely to be quite different than in the pre-Twilight era--I'm curious to know more about the "Rhine Metroplex" that is the largest city in France--and a Bavaria that's at the heart of a vast interstellar empire would need somewhat of a larger population base (and perhaps territorial? maybe this is how Swabia gets reunited?).

From T2K the French took the "Linksrheinische" (Left Rhine) side of Germany. That would be Cologne, Aachen and maybe Krefeld, M-Gladbach and Moers. The latter three are already on the Dutch-German border so them becoming French isn't sure.

That is a small part of the real live Rhein-Ruhr Metroplex (Aachen does not belong to the Region IRL Btw). The majority of it's population actually lives Rechstrheinisch and that remained german.

As for the Bavarian Population: There are currently 12 Million of them (and they WILL be invaded by the Italians loosing a few including refugees. OTOH NRW has 19 (and will loose around 2 to the French) and is not touched by ground war, Niedersachen adds another 8 but might loose some refugees depending on Timeline (IIRC in T2K 1.0 there are two germanies)

Populations can only grow on what they have as a base. And pre-spaceflight/post WWIII the Bavarians have a problem with a lack of agrarian production. The sustainabel population using 1930s technology is a lot smaller (Bavarian population was heavily reinforced post WW2, almost 1/3)

OTOH "Bavaria independend" makes no sense anyway. While on first look they seem to have a lot of industry it is all dependend on deliveries from the rest of germany. BMW won't last a day with steel from the Ruhr Valley or Rearlight-covers from Westfalia, Siemens down there is depended on Chips from the East German states, Kraus-Maffai can't finish a tank without guntubes from Düsseldorf and so on. Bavarian industry is a latecommer (Bavaria only switched from being considered agrarian to industrialised in the 1960s/70s) and only could grow due to heavy sponsoring by the big states back then (Inter-State financial transfer)

That said, a country with a population in the 70-80 million range clearly isn't a marginal player in Europe. Presumably, quite a few people descended from migrants of this Germany have found their way to the stars. Maybe Germany could follow them?

How do you arrive at that population figure?

That's not my reading of German reunification at all. Schumpeter seems to have taken great care to make sure that German reunification was conducted in an impeccably democratic and fair manner, not least because he needed to neutralize France. Things did go relatively worse in many of the colonies, but that might have been expected to happen. Germany might like Bavaria to join, but I hadn't thought it much more likely to pressure Bavaria than to pressure Austrovenia.

Bismark wanted to peacefully integrate the Bavarians in 1866. When that did not work Moltke got the order to "kick some Austrian Butt" and Bavaria became German. So IMHO it is not without precedence that Bavaria is "forced" to see the light.

You could even get a German-Bavarian alliance out of this, even Bavarian support for a German interstellar program. If the Texans can cooperate with the Incans, why not?

Inca-Texan has less stress points and they are quite close to one another in status and sponsors. Bavaria-German is different in power/status. A Germany without Bavaria will likely remain a 3rd rate power with little stellar interest since for strange reasons GDW gave the colonies to the Bavarians.

I wasn't going for that. I was wondering how, in the light of those changes (no war of German reunification, no Bavarian fragmentation, no French empire) the Kafer War might have happened differently.

Depends (among other things) on what the Bavarians did build up military wise. I.e the new Germany did build 3 BC and a couple of slow but well-armored and armed cruisers and frigates. The Bavarians on the other hand used thin-skinned French craft a lot and only managed on BB (The Bavaria)

 

[dan891]

Hmm.. without the Reunification War you would miss a number of factors:

a - Militerisation of the French Arm. The Franco-German rivalry wouldn't have seen the increase in forces (Joi apart if you take Halbinsel to be a Hanoverian rather than a Bavarian colony.) This mainly effects Beta Canum on the ground, Adlerhost could actually be more militerised than canon without the peacekeepers but then loses the Anglophone squadron.

b - Expansion of the DSKM with no Bismarks etc

c - No loss of Freihafen/Garten and no potential fracture of the Bavarian Space Force and certainly more continuity and resources.

d - Much less inter-ESA rivalry

So what could have happended?

- Initial incursion at Aurore still occurs. Relief expedition still goes ahead but with a potentially less powerful Bavarian contingent initially (and no Lutke). No real change.

- Bavaria commits more resources to the follow up with the Aurore Fleet.

- There would still be a response to the Kafers in the EB Finger worlds with civil defence and more military measures.

- Invasion happens. Aurore still cut off - but how does it fare with no Bismarck (although the squadron is likely to have more supporting ships) and Lutke to bolster Borodin?

- Hochbaden, Dunkelheim and Nous Voila probably still have their fates.

- Human military response still kicks in although with less build up time to move ground military units around and mobilise militias etc.

- Rochemont's Fleet probably hangs together a bit better but again no Guderian for the relief expeditions.

- No Grosshiddenhafen base? Although given it's strategic position this would probably not last long before someone realised.

- Kimanjano - no change. Its a Bavarian squadron working with the Japanese rather than a German one but even if they work better together the

- Beta Canum - although fewer ground military units on the surface and the Bavarian Continent would aid the French more I don't see any major change here to the canon outcome.

- The Reserve Fleet. Doesn't have any German capital ships anyway and the number of non cap warships wouldn't alter if they were Bavarian or German. Indeed there might be more with a Garten contingent.

So in summary I'd guess it wouldn't make a huge difference. Perhaps only to the fate of Aurore with one less capital ship and no Lutke. Vogelheim might be more vulnerable too. But the Battle of Beowulf wouldn't change really.

Dan

Without the Reunification War, the Kafer War would have gone better for the Bugs at first, but there would have been much better coordination between the French and Bavarian units. French starships did most of their fighting against the Manchurian, not the Germans, and even that was a while ago. They would still have some captains and crew with fighting experience. Colony worlds all downt eh Arm would likely have been harder hit, and quicker, but Allied forces would likely have stopped them somewhere between Beowulf and Niebelungen.

 

[BMonnery]

Bavaria, the successor state to West Germany/ FRG is not the current province of Bavaria. It's West Germany minus the Rhineland (now metropolitan France), Westphalia (a French sponsored buffer state on the other side of the Rhine, possibly only the old "Dead Zone") and Hanover (what the British occupied and set up as a pseudo-puppet state in the early 21st century). Basically, Bavaria is what the German Army had at the end of the Twilight War. It may also embrace parts of what was Austria and Northern Italy.

The two eastern states (Brandenburg and Saxony) seem to have been built around former Eastern German army units that weren't really loyal to the new Germany....

Before 2292, the terms Bavaria and Germany are interchangable...

 

[rfmcdpei]

Bavaria, the successor state to West Germany/ FRG is not the current province of Bavaria. It's West Germany minus the Rhineland (now metropolitan France), Westphalia (a French sponsored buffer state on the other side of the Rhine, possibly only the old "Dead Zone") and Hanover (what the British occupied and set up as a pseudo-puppet state in the early 21st century). Basically, Bavaria is what the German Army had at the end of the Twilight War. It may also embrace parts of what was Austria and Northern Italy.

Regarding territories like Baden and Hesse and others, I'd assumed that they'd slowly been incorporated into Bavaria somewhat like Franconia.

 

[BMonnery]

Regarding territories like Baden and Hesse and others, I'd assumed that they'd slowly been incorporated into Bavaria somewhat like Franconia.

Using T2K as a source, I have rough borders for the German states, although there is some conflict with Italy:2300 (a non-canon article in the Traveller's Digest).

I seems to me that the united Germany includes the Tirol from Austria and Italy (so Salzburg and Innsbruck are now German), Silesia from Poland and Czechslovakia, and the western parts of Hinterpommern from Poland, while losing Schleswig to Denmark (although German 2nd Corps is in a possible position to expel the Danes in the early 21st C), and the Rhineland to France and Holland. What was western Czechslovakia may also have been incorporated.

There were effectively 6 German states in the post-twilight world, which interacted with the Kingdom of Silesia and the Polish Peoples Army:

Brandenburg: Formed around the US 11th Corps and the Polish Peoples Army (the Army of the Black Madonna), embracing the states of Berlin, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, plus west Hinterpommern from Poland

Saxony: Formed by whichever side wins between the combined 3rd German Corps (mainly East Germans) and 2nd Soviet Guards Army, and Julians Kingdom of Silesia.

Hanover: initially a quite small state incorporating the area between Hanover and Magdeburg, with Brunswick. Essentially what the British occupied for oil.

Westfalen: Based around Arminius's little fiefdom, either with it surviving or with the French kicking it in and setting it up as a satellite later.

FRG/ North Germany: Based around Helmut Korell's 2nd Corps, they took control of all the allied equipment dumped at Bremerhaven and became the most powerul military force remaining in Germany. However, they were loyal to the Federal govt in Nurnburg.

FRG/ South Germany: Essentially everything remaining, with Bavaria as the largest state, plus Hessen, Baden-Wurttemburg etc. This is the legitimate "Germany", although in 2k3 it has become "Bavaria".

 

[rfmcdpei]

Using T2K as a source, I have rough borders for the German states, although there is some conflict with Italy:2300 (a non-canon article in the Traveller's Digest).

I seems to me that the united Germany includes the Tirol from Austria and Italy (so Salzburg and Innsbruck are now German), Silesia from Poland and Czechslovakia, and the western parts of Hinterpommern from Poland, while losing Schleswig to Denmark (although German 2nd Corps is in a possible position to expel the Danes in the early 21st C), and the Rhineland to France and Holland. What was western Czechslovakia may also have been incorporated.

It doesn't seem plausible to me that France, after annexing the Rhineland and giving a significant chunk of territory to the Netherlands, would let the German states descended from the main villain of three world wars annex territories to their east and south. As late as the mid-21st century, France was willing to defend the eastern European territorial order in the Russo-Ukrainian War. How much more willing would France be to do the same in the decades immediately after the Twilight War with their much weaker neighbours?

 

[ben51]

I have to agree with BMonnery here. Having been a big T2K player prior to moving on to 2300AD I have always felt that the 2300 borders were/are a bit too "current". Given the level of destruction that occured in the Twilight War one would think that their would have been major re-organizations of national boundaries.

Poland especially was a total wreck. A realignment of Germany's eastern border seemed a logical outgrowth of the military situation (with the added bonus that Germany could finally get the correct Oder River boundary as intended at the end of WWII).

In my T2K/2300AD I also have a few micro-states arising from left behind military units carving out their own countries. My two favorite were Ruritania along the Czech-German border created by an alliance of US-Soviet troops and allowed to exist because it formed a useful buffer between Germany and Czechoslovakia, and Grand Fenwick centered on Dubrovnik, formed by survivors of the US 42nd Infantry Division (NY NG).

I just don't see France having the resources or will to preserve near pre-war boundaries. Sure they were better off than most of the globe but they still were in a world of hurt. By the time they had become a superpower (around 2060 per 2300AD canon) a redrawing of the new boundaries would be near impossible. Given mass die offs and migrations the original ethnic may longer even be present in the region in question. I think France played a game of strict "real politics" without delving into misguided Wilsonian Idealism.

Benjamin

 

[mbrinkhues]

Bavaria, the successor state to West Germany/ FRG is not the current province of Bavaria. It's West Germany minus the Rhineland (now metropolitan France), Westphalia (a French sponsored buffer state on the other side of the Rhine, possibly only the old "Dead Zone") and Hanover (what the British occupied and set up as a pseudo-puppet state in the early 21st century). Basically, Bavaria is what the German Army had at the end of the Twilight War. It may also embrace parts of what was Austria and Northern Italy.

The two eastern states (Brandenburg and Saxony) seem to have been built around former Eastern German army units that weren't really loyal to the new Germany....

Before 2292, the terms Bavaria and Germany are interchangable...

Actually Westfalen (Westfalia) IRL is bordering the Netherlands. It is the former Prussian Province of the same name. While it would make a good state to occupy (Little Population, few targets for nukes, agrarian/net exporter and not overly patriotic) it has little value since it has little industrie.

Hannover is likely Nether-Saxony. Poor guys, they have a number of mayor targets, large population centers and they will be short on food. maybe one should really give them parts of Westfalia. The only problem is the first natural border to the west is the Weser and after that it's all the way to the Netherlands

=====================

As for the DSKM not building the Bismarks etc.:

I think the crafts will be build anyway. Or something along the lines. Simply because there still IS the potential thread of the French PLUS the thread of the Bavarians with their Battleship.

========================

As for the Oder border: The Oder WAS the East German/Polish border IRL so no need to re-align borders. Actually the IRL Oder-Neisse Border would work quite well since it is a clearly visible physical border. If you really want to Re-Aline borders, the proper ones would be "From Maas to the Memel, From the Etsch to the Belt"

 

[BMonnery]

Amazing how people get around. (Randy I assume?), I see your point, and I've been mulling it over before replying on etranger.

One of my main counterpoints is that I'm considering that France etc. may see the eastern breakaway provinces as counterbalances to FRG in the short term. IRL France backed Prussia against Austria in 1866, not knowing what was round the corner....

However, if I was going the whole hog and rewriting the history of Europe,I would have many more, smaller, states. I'd probably, for example, have a state based around the Free City of Krakow....

 

[mbrinkhues]

If you are refering to me, no I am not Randy McDonald. Didn't post on or read Etranger for some time.

 

[rfmcdpei]

I'm consolidating my replies to you both into a single post for brevity.

(Yes, it's Randy McDonald.)

I just don't see France having the resources or will to preserve near pre-war boundaries. Sure they were better off than most of the globe but they still were in a world of hurt. By the time they had become a superpower (around 2060 per 2300AD canon) a redrawing of the new boundaries would be near impossible. Given mass die offs and migrations the original ethnic may longer even be present in the region in question. I think France played a game of strict "real politics" without delving into misguided Wilsonian Idealism.

France does seem to have had some power-projection ability at the time, as evidenced by France's leadership of a coalition including Egypt and Britain (!)
in the 2010-2013 Saudi War. If France is able to dominate the Middle East after suffering tremendous damage, then a major role in defining European state frontiers seems quite possible to me.

I agree that France would engage in realpolitik in regards to Germany. In the aftermath of an unprecedentedly devastating war caused by an attempt at armed German reunification, France would likely act according to the maxim of François Mauriac: "I love Germany so dearly that I hope there will always be two of them." In this particular case, five Germanies would seem sufficient (five-and-a-half if the Netherlands is included) given the amount of damage that they caused.

It's not clear to me that Germany would necessarily come out among the less damaged countries of Europe. Both Germanies had a considerably higher pre-war population density than Poland or Czechoslovakia or Hungary, these three countries also having relatively stronger agricultural economies.

I'm quite prepared to agree with you that pre-Twilight state frontiers wouldn't have to correspond with ethnic boundaries. Mutual assimilation is possible over time, as is ethnic war--James Boschma has a Stettin War in the early 2160s between Brandenburg and Poland that results in population shifts.

Amazing how people get around. (Randy I assume?), I see your point, and I've been mulling it over before replying on etranger.

One of my main counterpoints is that I'm considering that France etc. may see the eastern breakaway provinces as counterbalances to FRG in the short term. IRL France backed Prussia against Austria in 1866, not knowing what was round the corner....

I think it's doable without annexations in Czechoslovakia and Poland. Two methods come to mind.

1. East Germany managed to persist OTL for a bit over forty years despite its lack of its own identity or even legitimacy thanks to Soviet support. It seems possible to me that France supported the East German successor states (and Westphalia?) against the rump FRG through similar methods.

2. Perhaps more relevantly, there's also the precedent of Austria after the Second World War, which redefined itself as a nation and a culture separate from that of Germany after being devastated. Say that you're a German successor state, and that you're finding it exceptionally difficult to make it in the world because people resent you for what your nation did to theirs. What better way to escape that than to distance yourself from past atrocities by claiming that you belong to a separate nation?

This might explain the conundrum of Bavarian identity.

Say that "Bavaria" is initially the rump Federal Republic of Germany, commanding the loyalties of most of the southern half of the country plus the isolated city-state of Hamburg and other stuff. That seems at least as plausible an explanation as any for Bavaria's lead over the other German states, and does appeal to me. We know that, over the next three centuries, something happens to Bavarians, many of whom stop thinking of themselves as Germans and reidentify themselves as Bavarians.

When German reunification happens, the question of national identity is a big issue. Heidelsheimat secedes; Adlerhorst succumbs to a fairly nasty civil war; Dunkleheim credibly threatens to make a unilateral declaration of independence; people in the countryside of BC's German Continent feel more Bavarian than German; Garteners respond by seceding altogether and creating the new nation of Freihafen. Who knows what happens in Terran Bavaria? By the 2290s, even after a fairly substantial propaganda campaign, quite a few people were invested enough in a Bavarian identity separate from a German identity to be willing to fight for it, to die for it. How might this shift happen?

FRG ambassador, circa 2050: "Why, yes, we're reorganizing and renaming our country. In truth, we've had little to do with the Germans--we joined Germany in 1871 only because France and Austria were defeated. We're really quite different from them--we can trace our history back to the freedoms of the medieval Swabian confederation and the artistic accomplishments of the Wittelsbach dynasty and the technological advances of Baden-Württemburg and Frankfurt's history as a seat of economic trade and freedom. So, you see, we're really not Germans. Now can we please move on and start a joint trading company already?"

However, if I was going the whole hog and rewriting the history of Europe,I would have many more, smaller, states. I'd probably, for example, have a state based around the Free City of Krakow....

I don't disagree with you that a rewritten history of Europe, and the world, might make more sense. (I'll be posting on the Latin Arm tomorrow.) My guiding principle is parsimony: I want to make what we're given work. Somehow, a jerry-rigged construction feels more real to me--more spontaneous, more believably complex--than something tidy. If that makes sense.

Besides, I'm lazy. ;-)

 

[mbrinkhues]

Actually Germany CAN feed it's own population. That IRL it has less farming and land per person is due to EU regulations and money for letting fields fall fallow. Depending on how hard the airstrikes where (I can't find detailed data in T2K) there is also a solid distribution network (Channels, Rivers and trains(1)) And given the population concentration, often away from the farmland should work nicely too.

==================

Hamburg being Bavarian sounds funny. Hamburg is Protestant-Calvinistic and Bavaria is Catholic-Conservative(2) Same for some other "Bavarian" Regions


(1) The channel network can be cut into pieces in case of damage and large parts work "lockless" It was designed/build pre WWII so it extends into East Germany with minor breaks not filled in a T2K 1.0 (non-unification) Timeline

(2) Munic/München is NOT Bavaria. Munic is an alien enclave within Bavaria

 

[ben51]

@Randy - I don't think France's leadership in the Saudi War really shows a superpower at work here. They took over from US troops which left in the 2008 and then fought off an Iranian attack. Given the lack of detail presented in canon I don't think we can really say what level of fighting really occured during this conflict. Given the pounding that Iran had taken I doubt that the Saudi War ever reached a level even close to high-intensity conventional warfare.

As for Germany...France has an interest in keeping Germany dismembered, but are they really willing to wade into the mess that is post-war Central Europe just to make a point on a few disputed border regions?

I can buy that Bavaria and even some of the other German states formed their own national identity. That seems totally reasonable given the nearly 300 years of history that occured. Which of course begs the question as to why the German states felt the need to unite at all.

Given that the sum total of canon material of World History is like covering 1700 to the present time of our history within a single issue of National Geographic Magazine I think that there is a lot of filling in we can do without ever messing with canon. I for one have French occupied Rhineland racked by revolts in 2070-2072, which are put down leading to large numbers of ethnic Germans emmigrating to the other German states and America. A second more extensive revolt occurs in 2151-2155 known as the German States Revolts leading to more emmigration over the next two decades. This of course mirrors the revolts of 1848-1849 which preceeded a major wave of German immigration into the US.

Benjamin

 

[rfmcdpei]

@Randy - I don't think France's leadership in the Saudi War really shows a superpower at work here. They took over from US troops which left in the 2008 and then fought off an Iranian attack. Given the lack of detail presented in canon I don't think we can really say what level of fighting really occured during this conflict. Given the pounding that Iran had taken I doubt that the Saudi War ever reached a level even close to high-intensity conventional warfare.

Granted. What the Saudi War does suggest to me is that France is capable of force projection in a way that very few other countries, if any, can emulate in the first couple of decades after the Twilight War.

As for Germany...France has an interest in keeping Germany dismembered, but are they really willing to wade into the mess that is post-war Central Europe just to make a point on a few disputed border regions?

But France is going to get involved in any case, in deciding which new borders between which countries to support on which grounds, and trying to get these countries to respect these boundaries. A France that's concerned with the economic rehabilitation of Europe isn't going to want caught up in unending disputes ("The line of mountains runs this way, the pre-Twilight settlement patterns go this way, our ancestors came here in xxxx ...").

The pre-war frontiers--at least, outside of the German states--have the key advantage of being already established. Compare the situation in OTL Yugoslavia, where the seven successor states that have emerged from the SFRY all had long histories as federal units of the SFRY, and have kept their SFRY-era territories.

That these frontiers have the advantage of tightly containing the German states ... Well.

I can buy that Bavaria and even some of the other German states formed their own national identity. That seems totally reasonable given the nearly 300 years of history that occured. Which of course begs the question as to why the German states felt the need to unite at all.

National identities can change over time. I can easily buy Schumpeter's perception that France was trying to manipulate the German states, turning them against each other. Likely a fair number of other people in the other German states felt the same way--it's difficult to explain how he wouldn't have been regarded as a nutcase otherwise. If the German states felt less defensive about their identity and who knows what sort of processes went on, unification is a possibility. Who knows? There may well have been and be a significant amount of German nationalist sentiment in Austrovenia that never managed to get beyond fringe status.

The problem with all this is that the Terran Germans managed to misunderstand the processes going on elsewhere in German-speaking space rather badly. If three-quarters of your colonial population secedes in the two decades after unification ...

Given that the sum total of canon material of World History is like covering 1700 to the present time of our history within a single issue of National Geographic Magazine I think that there is a lot of filling in we can do without ever messing with canon. I for one have French occupied Rhineland racked by revolts in 2070-2072, which are put down leading to large numbers of ethnic Germans emmigrating to the other German states and America. A second more extensive revolt occurs in 2151-2155 known as the German States Revolts leading to more emmigration over the next two decades. This of course mirrors the revolts of 1848-1849 which preceeded a major wave of German immigration into the US.

Agreed!

 

[BMonnery]

A quick note, Schumpter is non-canon. It was a fan based article from the original gENIE group.