A Place In The Sun

Point(s) of Divergence: 

Prussia loses the Austro-Prussian war, with no loss in territory save Schelswig-Holstein - Austria and

Prussia battered and tired. Hungary, badly affected by the war, and furious at the taxes it must now pay for what it sees as Austrian incompetence, rises up and declares independence. Secession of most of Translethinia from Austria-Hungary. Kingdom of Austria declared. Magyar Kingdom declared.

German Confederation survives, Austria, much reduced and facing the Magyar state, looks to it's old sphere - Germany. Union signed in 1872 in Vienna - the creation of the 'Empire of the Germans with the Habsburg monarch as Emperor. House of Hohenzollern pacified by awarding portions of Austrian Poland to the constituent state of Prussia. Other concessions to various powes include the curious imperial title 'Kaiser und Konig' or Emperor-King, a Habsburg suggestion to allow them to retain Austrian possesions not in the Empire, and the potential re-absorption of Hungary, always an imperial policy.

Italian unification continues as norm - Austria retaining Venetia. In the West, the Franco-Prussian war never occurs. Rather, the French continue to press in the 'Rhine crisis' vein, leading to the Franco-German war in 1871 (hence the unification, the alliance formed by the war, a German victory leading to a slightly smaller Elsass-Lothringen, leads into the unified Germany, with the North joining the South German alliance, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein joining in 1873).

Overseas, without Bismarck and realpolitik, the Germans expand in the Scramble ofr Africa, taking the Congo, as well as chunks of what, OTL, is French West Africa.

Galicia is of note - Austria had no intention of giving it up, and it is still claimed, making relations with the Magyar Kingdom decidedly chilly. As the Ottomans begin to decay, the region is steadily destabilising, and the Magyar state as a whole looks exceedingly fragile (see Great War)

By the turn of the century, Germany is a European Great Power, holding a large colonial empire, and despite the greater size of the French holdings, it is generally held to be the strongest power in continental Europe. Overseas the main difference is felt - Brittannia still rules the waves, but the High Seas Fleet is expanding at a rapid rate, with the new 'dreadnaught' Kaiser Franz beating the British HMS Dreadnought by two years, being launched in 1904, with two more of the class under construction. Current estimates say that the Austrian (the two demonyms are generally interchangeable) fleet should reach a level to compete with Britain in the mid 1930s.





NOTE THIS IS ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TO THE OTHER HISTORY THAT SHARES ITS NAME, AND I AM WORKING TO DIFFERENTIATE.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION.