Why was Bavaria eager to join the German Empire in 1870-1871 in real life as opposed to remaining independent? It could have played off Prussia and Austria against each other while competing for favor with both of them, no?
I think that by 1870 Austria was pretty much looking irrelevant as a balancing factor to Prussian N Germany, although the latter was yet to go through its massive industrial expansions in the last three decades of the century. As I understood it Bismarck was concerned that the S German states, especially Bavaria would stay outside the North German Confederation without his maneuvering Nappy III into his declaration of war. Hence it might have happened without the Franco-Prussian war and possibly Bavaria - perhaps being followed by other S German states - might have formed an economic bloc with Austria, which would have given some economic and political security to them and given Austria a stronger economy and Germanic proportion of their total population.
By this time the Hapsburg empire was caught on the horns of the dilemma - was it a multinational state or a German led one? It never really decided once the rise of nationalism made a choice necessary.