Restoration of Burgundy in 19th century

[Strategos' Risk]

The path to this thread:

1. [Low Butterfly zone] What if World War I had nations that didn't exist at the time, such as Bavaria, Brittany, Burgundy, Byzantine Greece, or someplace not named with B?

2. hm, that's too diffuse and high concept, What if just Burgundy was in WWI?

3. What kind of Burgundy would even be reestablished in time for the fight? Let's just talk about that.

In the vein of this older, but helpful thread I am tempted to resurrect, what could have led to the formation of a Burgundian identity in the 19th century, amidst all of the other Romantic waves of nationalism that arose then, some of which led to the creation of new nations intended to revive older identities?

Resurrecting ancient nations in the 19th centuries

Greece was created as an independent state in the 1820s. Maybe it's not really resurrecting an ancient nation since it's not as if Byzantines were in power, but they restored an ancient identity that had previously been subsumed by a larger state. This is similar to the creation of modern Israel...

www.alternatehistory.com

 

[Evil Crusader]

The only path I can see is through some kind of Prussia screw that makes them fail so horribly, something new gets propped up in the Rheinland to act as France-box-in.
Such a polity could definitely want to tap into the ancient Burgundian name.

 

[Mildtryth]

The path to this thread:

1. [Low Butterfly zone] What if World War I had nations that didn't exist at the time, such as Bavaria, Brittany, Burgundy, Byzantine Greece, or someplace not named with B?

2. hm, that's too diffuse and high concept, What if just Burgundy was in WWI?

3. What kind of Burgundy would even be reestablished in time for the fight? Let's just talk about that.

In the vein of this older, but helpful thread I am tempted to resurrect, what could have led to the formation of a Burgundian identity in the 19th century, amidst all of the other Romantic waves of nationalism that arose then, some of which led to the creation of new nations intended to revive older identities?

Resurrecting ancient nations in the 19th centuries

Greece was created as an independent state in the 1820s. Maybe it's not really resurrecting an ancient nation since it's not as if Byzantines were in power, but they restored an ancient identity that had previously been subsumed by a larger state. This is similar to the creation of modern Israel...

www.alternatehistory.com

I figure that would probably require France to be more comprehensively defeated after the Napoleonic wars, to the point of losing large chunks of its territory, but by the 19th century, this hypothetical Burgundy would have to deal with the same problems regarding national cohesion that the United Kingdom of the Netherlands had to deal with before 1830, except with a even larger Catholic Francophone population, and a hostile France in its borders.

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Oh I thought you meant the kingdom of burgundy/Arles- that would be a lot harder to manage, but I guess you’re almost there if you give the Savoyards Provence in exchange for certain Italian territories.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Oh I thought you meant the kingdom of burgundy/Arles- that would be a lot harder to manage, but I guess you’re almost there if you give the Savoyards Provence in exchange for certain Italian territories.

I think a challenge to this would be an actual neo-Burgundy that stretches from Low Countries down to Arles (a non-contiguous union between the two seems too unwieldy; vaguely Hapsburg). But a sort of super-Savoy that has a revived Burgundian identity would be neat too.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Another thought- the Holy Roman Empire was traditionally made up of the lands of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy (according to the original Crusader Kings). What if a Burgundian state underwent unification a la Germany or Italy? This is sort of a restatement of the original premise, but I want to frame it like how we think of the unification of those other nations, where a lot of different statelets some with disparate governments or religions, were unified after turmoil and conflict.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I typed "revival of Burgundian identity" into a search engine and interestingly, a non-AH link popped up:

"Burgundian Afterlives. Appropriating the Dynastic Past(s) in the Habsburg Netherlands"

Plagued by discord and violence, the subjects of the late sixteenth-century Netherlands looked back upon the reign of the Burgundian dukes with ‘tears in their eyes’. They recalled their former overlords as the ‘founders and benefactors of [their] beautiful trading cities [merctyen] and free privileges’. Recent oppression, resulting in rebellion against princely authority, made people long for the return of what had been more prosperous times.Footnote1 At least, by invoking this rather emotional vision, an anonymous pamphleteer tried to justify in 1579 the rebels’ appeal for aid to the Duke of Anjou, the French king’s youngest brother, at the height of the Dutch Revolt. Hailed as a direct descendant of the Valois dukes who had ruled most of the Low Countries in the fifteenth century, the text urged Anjou to emulate the political virtues of his Burgundian ancestors, as opposed to the divisive actions of the Spanish king.Footnote2 Obviously, not everyone in the rebellious provinces subscribed to a dynastic re-creation in the figure of Anjou. Many opposed the French overtures, which in 1582 resulted in the formal, yet ultimately unsuccessful, appointment of Anjou as new lord of the Netherlands, and royal supporters still advocated the ancestral rights of the Spanish king. What the pamphlet’s claim reveals, however, is a topical reinterpretation of the Burgundian dynasty. Its idealized appraisal of a once ‘native’ rule upholding the liberties of the political community reflected present disagreements about the extent of princely authority. A Burgundian golden age, built upon the combination of princely virtue and civic consent, became the touchstone of equitable government.