What if there is no Spanish royal vacancy of 1868, and thus no Hohenzollern candidacy of 1869-70?

raharris1973

Well-known member
What if there is no Spanish royal vacancy of 1868, and thus no Hohenzollern candidacy of 1869-70?

Will France find another way to "be provoked" by Prussia into demands and war? Will Bismarck find another way to provoke France into war? If so, how and when? If not, what happens to French Second Empire foreign relations with Prussia, and everyone else, during the regency period we would expect after Napoleon III dies and while Napoleon III is still a child?

How will politics evolve within the Germanies without a Franco-Prussian war in the 1870s? The previous war with Austria had established the North German Confederation and excluded Austria (now Austria-Hungary) from Germany. It also bound the South German states to Prussia and North German Confederation through an offensive and defensive military alliance (on top of the substantial economic ties of the decades-old Zollverein) The Luxembourg crisis had gotten Prussia out of Luxembourg and establish the small Duchy as a neutral state.

Would consolidation of the North German Confederation and the South German states into a Second German Reich in the 1870s, and possibly 1880s or 1890s, continue in the absence of a Franco-Prussian war, or stand still at the status quo of 1866 (economic and military alliances).

Would Austro-Prussian rapprochement proceed as OTL?

Without a Franco-Prussian War, Russia will not have the occasion it had to repudiate the Black Sea clauses of the post-Crimean War Treaty of Paris. However, disturbance in the Balkans is probably inevitable, and could easily draw in Serbia, Montenegro, and then Russia. The Black Sea clauses being formally in effect actually wouldn't matter much because even in OTL the Russians neglected to build a Black Sea fleet between their repudiation and the start of their war with Ottoman Turkey (1876).

How would Prussian/North German Confederation (NGC), and French Imperial (vice French Republican) strategy and diplomacy towards that war and the Eastern Question differ in this ATL sans an actual Hohenzollern 2nd Reich and Franco-Prussian war and Three Emperor's League?

Supposing that Germany still consists during the 1880s era of 'new colonialism' and 'high imperialism' of the North German Confederation and a few aligned but independent southern German states, would NGC take overseas colonies, or not? On the one hand, 'German issues' will still be 'unresolved' in the minds of unification advocates and could consume a great deal of strategic and diplomatic attention. On the other hand, the NGC has all of the 2nd Reich's historic coastline, shipping industry, and a healthy share of its industry.
 

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