AH question on Bavaria following the Napoleonic War

Analytical Engine

Given Bavaria was pro-French for much of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (mostly for pragmatic reasons), how likely would it be for it to end up smaller than IOTL following the Congress of Vienna? Assume Napoleon still gets defeated, more or less per IOTL, if that helps.

Saxony was trimmed down due to not jumping ship quickly enough.

Obviously, Bavaria lost Salzburg and Tyrol (including Vorarlberg) to Austria IOTL.

Would it be possible for Bavaria to, say, not receive any additional territory other than getting the Palatinate back in exchange for giving Salzburg to Austria? Would it be possible for it to lose any more territory than it did IOTL?

How might this affect the territories everyone else receives in the Congress of Vienna?
 

Admiral Spaun

If Bavaria didn't betray Napoleon as IOTL they could very well get the Saxony treatment. Either outright annexed by their neighbors or severely weakened.
 
Comte de Dordogne

Comte de Dordogne

It would be interesting if the Saxon-Polish crisis ended with Prussia getting Saxony and to calm the Ostrich they get Bavaria from before the revolutionary wars. The Wettins and Witelsbachs would be compensated by obtaining land in the Rhine valley (however, there is no longer a buffer against France in the Rhineland, with the addition of pro-French monarchs).
 

Iserlohn

Admiral Spaun said:
Probably an Austrian puppet state. The Grand Duchy of Wurzburg might continue ITTL.
Click to expand...

Something which would complicate this however was that Würzburg itself was created as compensation for Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, after losing his territory, so unless there can be an arrangement made where either he agrees to forget about Tuscany or a replacement is found for him in Würzburg, he'd be ruling two very distant territories and that honestly wouldn't fly for very long.

And, for the record, Ferdinand only had one male heir, so it's not like he could've split his holdings.

It is very likely though that a surviving Grand Duchy of Würzburg would fall within Austria's sphere of influence.
 

Perfidious Albion

Crown Prince Ludwig, the future King Ludwig I of Bavaria (not the Ludwig you're probably thinking of, crazy castle guy, that was Ludwig II), was an important voice of the anti-Napoleonic-France faction in Bavaria. Nonetheless, he had to fight for his more pro-French father. If he'd died in the Battle of Abensberg he fought in, Bavaria without his influence would likely have been slower to switch sides against Napoleon, if at all. That could plausibly have had some very severe consequences for the Kingdom of Bavaria at the Congress of Vienna.

Bavaria is old but Bavaria with borders as we know it is actually quite a recent invention. Just look at a map: the Electorate of Bavaria was, like, maybe half the size of the Kingdom of Bavaria. It gained much of its land in the mediatisation of Germany. In an ATL it's not at all inconceivable that this change in borders, like so many other changes made by Napoleon Bonaparte, could have been reversed and forgotten. The idea of Bavaria anywhere near as large as OTL's could have been consigned to the realm of weird bits of history that delight alternate-history nerds but never lasted more than a brief handful of years.
 

Analytical Engine

Iserlohn said:
Something which would complicate this however was that Würzburg itself was created as compensation for Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, after losing his territory, so unless there can be an arrangement made where either he agrees to forget about Tuscany or a replacement is found for him in Würzburg, he'd be ruling two very distant territories and that honestly wouldn't fly for very long.

And, for the record, Ferdinand only had one male heir, so it's not like he could've split his holdings.

It is very likely though that a surviving Grand Duchy of Würzburg would fall within Austria's sphere of influence.
Click to expand...

Maybe one of the other minor Habsburgs get it? It's not like Francis II of Austria and Grand Duke Ferdinand have a shortage of brothers.
 

Admiral Spaun

Comte de Dordogne said:
would be interesting if the Saxon-Polish crisis ended with Prussia getting Saxony and to calm the Ostrich they get Bavaria from before the revolutionary wars. The Wettins and Witelsbachs would be compensated by obtaining land in the Rhine valley
Click to expand...
It would be interesting to see how this would play out. I assume the Wittlesbachs would get Rhineland/ Palatinate and the Wettins would nab Westphalia. It would be fun if the smaller kingdoms decided to band together against the Prussians and Austrians in the German confederation. If Westphalia, Rhineland, Hanover, and Wurttemburg all got together they would be a force to be reckoned with.
 
GauchoBadger

GauchoBadger

Alternatively, Franconia could be detached from Bavaria and acquire a Hohenzollern prince as ruler. The Hohenzollerns had fiefs in the area prior to Napoleon, and the Prussians might approve of it in order to weaken Bavaria and gain a foothold in the south.
 
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