What is the German's Fatherland?
Is it Prussia? Is it Austria?
Those great and noble Empires of Old?
Is it the North, where Protestants rave?
Or is it the Catholic South, the land of Bishops?
No!
The resounding no rippled throughout Middle-Europe in 1848. Germans took to the streets in open defiance of the Holy Roman Emperor, demanding a true unification of the German Nation under a German King - not a pretender who still wore the garb of a Medieval Emperor. As the Holy Roman Emperor Francis saw Hungary, Ruthenia, and Dalmatia fall through his fingers in the wake of the Magyar Uprising, he was forced to the table with the King of Prussia and the other German nobles.
Some of those Kings and Princes were genuinely motivated by the desire to unite the Germans, while others sought to dismantle the powerful influence of the Hapsburger in Vienna. Others still feared the rebels in their streets deposing them and putting their heads on pikes. Whatever their motivation, the agreements made at Frankfurt on that winter day in December of 1848 led to the formation of the Deutscher Bund, the German Confederation, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.
A loose union of the German states which had formerly been a part of the HRE, it won its first military victory in an expedition into Danish Schleswig-Holstein, seizing the territory that was German in spirit and adding another German territory into the union. But it also exposed the cracks that would plague the Confederation for decades to come. Austria and the Southern states opposed the adventure, fearing a tipping of balance in favor of the Prussian-led North with the introduction of another Protestant state into the Confederation.
The following decades of internal pressure have done nothing to alleviate this. Growing tensions between the North, which has become the dominant industrial power with the Rhineland boom in the 1870s, and the South, which still clings to its trappings of Hapsburg glory and prestige, have led the Confederation down the route to eventual war. The North is currently plotting and scheming to drag the Confederation into a war with the Kingdom of France, to reunify the Germans in the Elsaß-Lothringen, under the rule of the French Crown, with their brothers in the Confederation. The South, hearing of this plot, has pledged secret loyalty with the French if Prussia and its allies invade them.
The Confederation is at a cross-roads, and it appears the only way for it to survive is if one side - North or South - wins out over each other in combat. All of Europe looks towards Germany, to the place where the Seven Years' War more than a hundred and fifty-years ago began, with apprehension and dread as the cloud of War looms over the world.
In this roleplay we will play a cohort of noblemen within the Kingdom of Prussia on the eve of the Confederation War (Der Bundeskrieg). Young, foppish, a bit deviant nobles who have grown up in the Grand Age, knowing only the Confederation. The beginning of the roleplay will set the stage for the War, which will then break out and we'll set about joining the Prussian Army. We can take this many different ways, so we'll cross that bridge when the time comes but consider this a mix between a military roleplay and a life-style roleplay.
My expectations are that the quality of posts resemble something advanced, obviously. I'm not concerned with length so much as quality. I don't really mind if the post is only one paragraph, so long as it gives everyone something to build off of. Other things that I'd like to see are a commitment to the world-building and a serious approach to the characters we create. Nothing ridiculous, nothing fantastical. I would prefer if people sought out portraits and photographs of the era to visually represent their characters, so as to add to the atmosphere and make things a little more interesting.
The roleplay will begin in the castle home of Friedrich von der Austerwald, who has gathered his friends together to celebrate his birthday on the eve of the outbreak of the greatest war man has ever known.
Everything else is pretty self-explanatory, I think. This is a military RP that sort of takes on more than that, since it isn't necessarily about the combat but rather the individual characters. If anyone has any questions, I'll be pleased to answer them.
