Germany (Dixie Forever)

Germany (Deutschland in German, or das deutsche Reich, literally the German Realm) is a nation in Europe with a population of over 120 million people, and the third largest GDP in the world, after the United States and the Confederate States.

History
After the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in the early 19th century, Napoleon set up the Confederation of the Rhine in the west as a client state, consolidating hundreds of states into 39 states. Once he was defeated, the Germans set up the German Confederation out of all the parts of the various states that were once in the Holy Roman Empire. This loose confederation lasted for much of the 19th century, with the revolutions of 1848 stifling Prussia's ambitions in the western part of the Confederation, resulting in a reestablishment of the Kingdom of Westphalia, the creation of the Republic of the Rhineland, and the continued existence of the Kingdom of Hannover. Pressure internally in Prussia led to a somewhat liberalized constitution in the 1850s, after the failure of the Paulskirche Constitution.

Many socialists and nationalists (in the sense of wanting a strong central government, not in the sense of being patriots and loving their country) left for the northern United States after the Paulskirche failure, while many small farmers and individualists left Prussia after the failure of the constitutional reforms in the 1850s. These Germans left for the southern United States, moving across the continent from Virginia and the Carolinas all the way west to South California. Along with these Germans came a number of Czechs, Austrians, Poles, and Italians dissatisfied with the revolutions of 1848 who wanted more freedom from their imperial authorities.

In the 1860s, the German Confederation fought against Denmark in two Schleswig wars, and against Austria, defeating both, and adding Schleswig to its territory.

Germany in its modern sense was founded in 1871 with the unification of Prussia in the east with the German Confederation in the west after the Franco-Prussian War, which was maneuvered by Bismarck to unite the entirety of German speakers into one territory. The first emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm I is considered the first monarch of this German Empire. He was followed in 1876 by Frederick III, who lasted for twenty years, until followed by his eldest son, Henry I. Both Frederick and Henry steered the German Empire into closer economic and political cooperation with the British, alienating France and the Ottomans, who had wanted closer ties to Europe to help their slowly diminishing power. The Congress of Berlin helped Germany divide Africa with the other colonial powers, securing Tanganyika, Kamerun, Togoland, and Namibia for itself with the promise to 'develop' the lands, which Frederick and Henry took to meaning 'settle with Germans.'

France was jealous of British-German relations and sought allies to counter the balance of power, finding the Russians and Japanese as partners, and in 1914, the Ottomans as well. When the Austrian Archduke was shot in 1914, Austria gave Serbia an ultimatum to deliver the assassin, and when it didn't, declared war. This drew Russia in to war against Austria-Hungary, and when Austria-Hungary asked Germany to join in, it waited for the UK instead of replying immediately. France declared war on both Austria-Hungary and Germany, and fired the first shots by going through the Netherlands, at Dunkirk. This brought the UK in on the side of the Germans and Austro-Hungarians, and soon the rest of Europe fell in to one or the other side:

Allied Powers and others
 * British Empire
 * United States
 * Confederate States
 * Netherlands
 * Japan
 * Italy
 * Montenegro
 * Greece

Entente Powers:
 * France
 * Bulgaria
 * Mexico
 * Russia
 * Serbia
 * Ottoman Empire

Once the war concluded, after the US and CS joined in the fight, Europe was exhausted, including Germany, whose Rhine region had seen horrific fighting and trench warfare. The German people demanded reparations from France, as did the British, while the Confederates and Yankees wanted more moderate reparations against the French. In the end, the Germans gained some French territory oversees, and a concession on Alsace-Lorraine remaining in Germany, plus several million marks in gold and silver to be paid over 10 years. The German Emperor, a grecophile, was instrumental in the restoration of Constantinople and the Aegean coast to Greece, for which the Greeks built a statue in Constantinople to Kaiser Heinrich I. He was also instrumental in the division of Austria Hungary in favor of Austria, resulting in Preßburg being a city in Burgenland, not Czechoslovakia, and giving Austria Teschen, Sudetenland, and German Bohemia.

After the war, Germany's economy boomed, and Kaiser Henry was hailed as a rock upon which the nation held up against the waves of French soldiers. The country rebuilt its buildings and cities, and began on a massive modernization project of electrification, paving roads, plumbing, and creating subway systems in many large cities. Kaiser Henry used his popularity to help pass an amendment allowing women to vote and several other laws concerning the overseas colonies, helping grant some measure of self-government when the German-speaking population passed 51%. Namibia was the first, in 1927, to gain limited self-government.

Kaiser Heinrich I died in 1929, and his funeral was attended by the US and CS presidents, the British monarch, and the ailing French president, and officials from around the world. His son, Prince Waldemar, was crowned Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany soon afterward, but had no sons, so his brother could inherit the throne.

In 1929, the New York stock exchange crashed, which echoed throughout the world, taking London next, then Berlin, then the rest of Europe. French reparations slowed and were renegotiated to allow more time and a lower final amount to be repaid. The Germans cut back on much of their spending, including defense spending and naval spending, helping the government to cut expenditures and debts by reducing their military readiness, as most Germans in Berlin thought that another war with France was unthinkable.

Even when the PTNSF gained power in France, the Germans did not increase military spending, due to the generals who fought the last war focusing more on veterans' issues over readiness, much like the British. The socialists in Germany praised the French and a veteran from the first war, a lowly corporal, praised the new PTNSF party and helped bring his party, the NSDAP, into the Reichstag with the promise to improve Germany's economy also. With French sabre-rattling, the Kaiser was slow to respond, and he failed to replace his Chancellor for a more agile and youthful option before France opened fire on Alsace-Lorraine in late 1939, launching the second world war.

Germany was attacked on two sides, with France on the left, and Poland, under Josef Pilsudski, to the right. France fought a lightning war, and soon hit Alsace-Lorraine, Baden, Wurttemberg, and then north into Hesse and Rhineland, and also into Luxemburg and the Netherlands. By early 1940, it had conquered Hanover also, and annexed all of these lands into France directly. In the east, Poland had taken East and West Prussia, Posen, Silesia, and Pomerania up to Stettin, the capital of the Prussian province. All this happened while Prince Heinrich of Prussia, the third son of the former Kaiser Heinrich I, was staying in London on a visit to his relatives in the British royal family. Like his brother, he was not a haemophiliac.

The French were joined by the Italians, who wanted eastern Europe. Soon, most of the continent fell into one or two camps:

Allied Powers: Germany Denmark Netherlands

Axis Powers: USSR France Japan Turkey

Austria was under the thrall of its own national socialist party and allied with France, but not an axis member. It was not popular by this time and there was an active resistance force in Austria that was aided by Germans to the north. By 1940, the United Kingdom allied itself with the Germans, and urged the Kaiser to leave Berlin, but he refused to leave. By 1942, however, France had installed a puppet government in Frankfurt, and Berlin fell to the combined forces in late 1942. The Kaiser and the royal family escaped to London via Denmark, however.

The Allied powers were joined by the Confederate States and United States in 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in the US state of Hawaii, and the Confederate Territory of Guam and the Marianas Islands. Soon after, France declared war on the two American nations. But the tables soon turned when Poland invaded the Baltic states, then part of the USSR, and Belarus, then Ukraine, turning its Soviet-provided machinery against its backers, who then joined the Allied powers from being a passive backer of Poland. By 1945, Paris fell, as did Warsaw and Ankara, and in August, Tokyo capitulated. Germany had been occupied but its soldiers fought back with Allied assistance from Denmark, through Italy, and through East Prussia, recapturing all of Germany, despite Stalin's desire to turn Germany red. The Allied forces made it up to Warsaw, where the east and west stopped and celebrated the end of the war in eastern Europe. Josef Pilsudski committed suicide in his bunker under Warsaw, while French claims that Charles de Gaulle died were later disproven in declassified documents from the FBI, and CSS showing he had escaped to Africa and planned on coming back to Europe to relaunch his control of France. By 1946, the reconstruction of Germany was in effect with the Americans and British providing aid in the form of food, medicine, and new machinery to replace the destroyed machinery.