- Location
- North Solihull
- Pronouns
- she/her
Crown Prince Wilhelm, who was raised by his grandfather's appointed men, having been taken away from his parents due to their liberalism, will still be the extremist reactionary waiting in the wings who will reverse course on anything his father does that he possibly can the second he gets on the throne, meaning that the conservative and reactionary Junkers will always have good reason to resist -- because they have the prospect of one of their own taking back the throne as long as they're patient and headstrong.
This is always the elephant in the room with the more utopian FredIII scenarios isn't it? A shadow court forming around the heir to the throne is the rule rather than the exception, and a healthier Frederick who lives as exceptionally long as either his father (90) or his son (82) is still dead by 1921 latest - with a brooding and aging Crown Prince in a hurry waiting to take over.
The counter scenario, of William I dying sooner opens up a lot of possibilities, and its odd that longer reign scenarios for Frederick seem to always focus on extending the end date.
Okay, let's not ruin ourselves building a Navy, they'll keep the sea lanes open and they will chase off the French or the Russians if they interfere with our trade.
It seems to me that the problem with this is that enough cruisers to realistically defend the sea lanes between Germany, her overseas markets, and her colonial possessions from Namibia to Samoa and Tsingtao looks - from a British perspective - like enough cruisers to threaten British sea lanes and bombard colonial possessions from Newfoundland to Dunedin. Some of that will be entirely paranoia on the British part, but some will just reflect that defense = potential projected offense in the naval warfare of the era.
Unless the German Navy is limited to nothing more than patrol boats, torpedo boats, mines, and coastal batteries; it feels to me like its build up to an effective defense force will be perceived as a threat in relative terms, and that anything less will require ceding supremacy over the Baltic to Russia.