Germany (Battle of Manzikert)

German Empire
Deutsches Kaiserreich
Timeline: Battle of Manzikert
OTL equivalent: Germany

German Iron Cross on the Tricolor German Coat of Arms Motto Die Zivilisation muss bestehen bleiben ("Civilization must persist")
Anthem	"Deutchlandlied "
Capital	Magdeburg
Largest city	Frankfurt
Language   official	German
others	Polish, Wallon, Czech, Old Baltic, Danish
Religion   main	Protestant (49.1%)
others	Catholic (49%), Orthodox, (0.5%)
Ethnic Groups   main	German (92.2%)
others	Wallon, Polish, Czech, Danish, Old Baltic, Russian
Demonym	German
Government	Monarchy
Legislature	German Court and Parliament.
Kaiser	Fredrick V
Royal house:	House of Magdeburg
Chancellor	Robert Wieters
Population	103 million
GDP   Total:	$4.6 trillion
per capita	$44,660
Currency	Deutschmark
Time Zone	Central European Summer Time
summer	May-September
Driving Side	the left
Calling Code	12
Internet TLD	.deu

The German Empire, commonly referred to as just Germany, is a semi-autocratic regime located in Central Europe. Founded in 1821, it is arguably Western Europe's most powerful country and certainly one of the most powerful in Europe.

Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the center of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1821, a united Germany was declared, however, the newly formed state quickly descended into civil conflict over contention between Republicans and Monarchists. The Monarchists were victorious in the conflict. The country fought numerous European conflicts, culminating in the Great War of the 1950s and the Nuclear Iron and Anvil War of the 1980s, mainly with France and Muscovy. In the 1990s, a revolution occurred, overthrowing the Absolute Monarchy and installing a Constitutional Monarchy, modeled greatly after the Byzantine Empire's government.

History

Germanic tribes from Scandinavia first populated modern-day Germany during the bronze age. They became the predominant group in the area and continued spreading outwards. In 9 AD, the Roman Empire, under the emperor Augustus, invaded Germania but were defeated at the Battle of Teuteberg Forest by Armenius, a Germanic general that served under the command of Rome, but nonetheless betrayed them. The Romans returned a little over a hundred years later but withdrew once more.

As the Roman Empire decayed, the barbarians that surrounded the empire began to invade. Around 260, Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands.  After the invasion of the Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved farther southwest: the Franks established the Frankish Kingdom and pushed east to subjugate Saxony and Bavaria, and areas of what is today eastern Germany were inhabited by Western Slavic tribes.

In the latter half of the 8th century, Charlemagne came to power in Francia (the Frankish Kingdom). He waged war with hist kingdom's neighbors, the most notable of which were the Saxons. In 800, the Pope crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day. He expired in 814 and subsequent emperors struggled greatly to withhold the Frankish domain. After a brief civil war, in 843, the Treaty of Verdun divided the empire into three: West Francia, Middle Francia, and East Francia, the latter of which would evolve into Germany upon the election of Conrad I as King of Germany. Otto II would be crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in 962, officially establishing the Holy Roman Empire.  The Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy under the Salian emperors (1024–1125) and the Hohenstaufen would further the empire's glory.

Point of Divergence (1189)

In TTL, in 1189, Fredrick Barbarossa invaded Northern Italy, engaging the Papal-backed Lombard Leauge and defeating them at the Battle of Pavia in 1190. This took the meat out of the Papal coalition that had formed during the Investiture Controversy, isolating the Pope in his territorial holdings in central Italy. This would later allow for Fredrick to march into Rome, installing his anti-pope and paving the way for full Imperial control of Italy once more, as well as also providing wealth for him and his descendants to eliminate the constant revolts in Northern Germany. This would allow for the Holy Roman Empire to remain as a large, centralized, and united force.

13th Century: An age of Greatness

With the Pope virtually eliminated as a threat and with the empire remaining unified, the 13th century was truly a golden age in German History. All across the empire, from the lagoons of Venice to the shores of Oldenburg, the empire experienced an age of prosperity, much similar to the age of prosperity that was present in the coastal areas of the HRE in OTL. The difference would be that the empire as a whole would be thriving, without inland Germany being a battleground for local warlords. Trade flourished and the cities of the empire swelled in population.

In this era, we saw the mass movement of Germans into the Baltics. As the empire was splintered, this migration was mainly spearheaded by the Teutonic Knights and Livonian Order. However, with the empire being a unified, centralized force, the central government would be able to sponsor the migration of German settlers into the Baltics, similar to how the Byzantines did with the Kinsi.