What if austria, not prussia, united Germany? What would change?

>>2977823
There wouldn't have been any world war or shoah

>>2977823
They probably would have had to abandon their Balkan ambitions. The Hapsburgs downplayed ethnic nationalism because the AH Empire was so multiethnic that it would cause issues.

>>2977843
The reason why the Austrian empire was so unstable was because germans were a minority in it. If Austria had unified with the rest of Germany they probably would have colonized and germanized the balkans.

>>2977890
I suppose that's a possibility. What kind of timeline are we looking at? Perhaps Austria allying with Napoleon early on and becoming de facto German Hegemon?

>>2977829
Prussia wasn't responsible for either World War or the holocaust, Shlomo. In fact, all of that can technically rest on Austria's shoulders.

>>2977899
The non-German ethnicities living inside the empire would've all risen in revolt if unification was announced because they knew it would leave them in an even worse position.

>>2977947
They would have been crushed.

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>>2977823
We would have seen a much different standard language, probably based upon the Viennese dialect instead of one based on the Hanoverian pronunciation of the literary language. Higher prestige associated with Austro-Bavarian dialects. Low German might have remained an independent "minority" language and survived to the modern day. Everything north of the Benrath line would have been considered backwater and not really Germany.

>>2977953
If they united in the borders of the German Confederacy, they probably could've handled Poles, Czechs, Slovenes, Croats and Italians but there's no way they'd be able to handle the situation if Transleithania and Galicia were part of the equation.

>>2978000
Austria defeated Hungary with Russia's help during their revolution in 1848, they could have done the same with north german support.

>>2978019
I don't think it would be that simple. During the revolutions of 1848, there were several factions fighting against Vienna as well as each other but in this scenario, they've got a great reason to band together. I don't think a war to contain this great empire would be out of the question because the historical Little Germany solution disturbed the balance of power quite enough but this would create an even more powerful formation right in the middle of Europe. This might just lead to an early WW1, except in this one, the enemies of Germany are bolstered by a lot of rebels.

Russia, the UK and France would just let this upheaval of balance of force happen and would in no way support any kind of sedition, right?

>>2977829
Austria literally started WWI and Hitler was Austrian.

Austria is Belgium-tier evil.

>>2977980
>instead of one based on the Hanoverian pronunciation of the literary language.
Facepalming hard over here.
It's not based on that. They traditionally speak Low German. They simply have no dialect anymore. The pronunciation of standard German was already well established by the 19th century.
Stop posting.

>Austria
>uniting Germany

Don't make me laugh.

>>2978080
>It's not based on that.
Yes it is. Look up Theodor Siebs and the history of Standard German. I can feed you all the facts in 1 or 2 hours if you speak it yourself.
>They traditionally speak Low German.
Exactly. Literary German was a compromise of several High German dialects. It's most prestigious pronunciation was Upper Saxon in the 17th and 18th centuries.
>They simply have no dialect anymore.
Statements like this show that you have no idea how language works. If you have no dialect, you are literally unable to speak.

>>2978118
>Exactly. Literary German was a compromise of several High German dialects. It's most prestigious pronunciation was Upper Saxon in the 17th and 18th centuries.
...and the most prestigious pronunciation had shifted to that of the area around Hannover by 1898. This was partially due to the fact that the people in the area quickly acquired a seemingly clean and superregional pronunciation of High German that was very close to the written word. Theodor Siebs picked up on that and enforced a High German standard with Low German-based pronunciation with his books.

Would this country be called germany or austria?

>>2978282
germany

the reich wasn't called prussia after 1871 either

>>2978313
This. Deutschland and Germany are umbrella terms for political entities spanning the continental west-Germanic dialect continuum.

>>2977953
Not if Russia, France and the UK all say "Hey, maybe we shouldn't let Austria become utterly fucking dominant on the continent". Prussia would of course also just have to go along with the unification.

The world would be a better place. There would be a larger Germany dedicated to Austrian values such as culture and civilization, rather than Prussian ones, such as massacres and autism.

>>2978711
Austrians are the true war criminals. Prussians were the scapegoat.

I think the union would be even weaker.

The Austrian Empire from 1860 to 1910 was hated by pretty much all subjects in it except maybe the Austrians themselves and some rich jews.

There was no way in hell for that to succeed unless maybe, Austria gets Saxony, Württemberg & Bavaria. North Rhineland, Hesse-Nassau ,Westphalia, Saarland and Luxembourg could form an independent nation. And Prussia gets everything else in northern Germany.

There was some sort of German ballance of power even before Napoleon made th Rhineland confederation, but it vanished with Prussian ascendancy, had Austria and France ganged up on Prussia sometime before the Franco-Prussian war, the above might have happened.