Riley Aslaugssen

GERH122

Professor Theodore Brauning

9 December 2013

German History 122: Corona, Arendelle, and the North German Federation Midterm Paper 1

"The forces of nature and the powers of magic have always served the Norse well. That is why your Christian men will always falter." - Torg Shincracker, shortly before his head was chopped off

Torg was not necessarily wrong, though. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Norse were indeed blessed with mystic powers, allowing to conquer and raid other peoples, and even drive their boats to the Americas. Some myths trace these powers to the Aesir and Vanir. The one most relevant to German history is the Scylding tale.

The Scyldings, a legendary Danish royal dynasty are descended from Sceaf, who washed ashore at Scania. They are allegedly descended from Woden/Odin, and Skadi eventually married and had much issue with Odin, and it's not inconceivable that some of that divine blood wormed its way into a Danish noble house. When Elsa's ancestors took over, they would've likely married into local families for legitimacy, in the process acquiring some of that now very dilute divine blood. For what's it's worth, the Rurikids allegedly descend from the Scyldings, and so the icy conquest of Russia may have been a similar event.

The story begins in the early 1520s with the dissolution of the Kalmar Union. The rebels, heartened by strings of crushing victories, and looking back to Magnus Eriksson, who was King of Sweden and Norway, decide that Norway is the natural territory of Sweden. The war drags on a few years more, ending with the crowning of Gustav Vasa as King of Sweden-Norway. Denmark stood alone.

The troubles did not end there. In 1533, an uprising occurred in Denmark seeking the return of Christian II. The Holy Roman Emperor, hoping to aid the cause of his sister, who was Christian's wife (although she grew very sick after the Swedish revolt, she barely survived), pledged his assistance. Although successful at first, the war does not end quickly as hoped, as Gustav I intervenes on the side of Danish loyalists. It soon becomes a bloody quagmire, but Christian II, who hoped to reform the Danish monarchy towards absolutism, is all too eager to press it further. Finally, Charles V, disgusted with the human cost of the affair, Christian's desire for an absolute crown, and the money it is costing, promised to divide Denmark into its three traditional duchies and deny Christian the absolute crown he had hoped for. When Sweden sued for peace, Christian became King of Sjaelland, not King of Denmark, a kingdom that would heretoafter be referred to as the Southern Isles.

A loyal and successful commander from a minor house is granted Jutland. In one of the battles, the captured enemy nobles spat at him and called him a weasel. In response, he said, "Weasel I may be, but do you see all the men behind me? If I am a weasel, I am duke of an entire weasel town." Thus, Jutland would be jokingly (and eventually seriously) referred to by the Germans as Weaseltown. Aaron Hohenzollern, hailing from a cadet branch of the family, lands in Bergen, erecting a fortress nearby to defend it. After defeating the Swedish forces sent to reclaim it, they agree to cede Hordaland, Rogaland, and much of Ostlandet in the peace treaty, which becomes the new Grand Duchy of Hordaland. A town grows near the castle, called Aaron's Dale, and eventually merges with metropolitan Bergen. When the time comes to assume royal dignity, the kingdom is not named Hordaland, but Arendelle, after the faithful castle.

Almost a hundred years later, tensions were mounting in the Holy Roman Empire between the Protestant north and Catholic south. It is no surprise, then, that war breaks out when Emperor Matthias tries to name his successor. The Bohemians rebel, and almost immediately, the Hohenzollerns of Prussia and Arendelle join them, seeking to take more independence and power from Austria. They lead a coalition of other German states in the north, including the Southern Isles and Weselton.

It goes disastrously.

Although the rebels win some battles at first, the ability of the Emperor to draw upon Spanish allies soon grinds the rebels down. The Prussian Hohenzollerns are forced from the ancestral home, then forced from Germany, then forced from even their fortifications in Prussia, fleeing to a small fishing town named Corona. Desperate, the rebels send envoys throughout Europe. They hope to secure Swedish aid, but Sweden declines. Instead, help comes from an unlikely source-the Ottomans. The Turks open up a second front near Hungary, which eats up enough Imperial troops to allow the rebels to halt the advance in the north. But the war dragged on. Isolated from the rest of Germany, the northern states and former Danish kingdoms began to form tight-knit relations with each other, and the Prussian Hohenzollerns adopted more of the mannerisms and architecture of their Polish hosts. The Bohemians, cut off from both their northern allies and their Ottoman supporters, are brought back into line. But the war does not end, the northerners stubbornly holding out. Finally, their prayers are answered in 1635, with French intervention. This would begin a long, powerful, and enduring friendship between the northern German kings and France, along which would be exchanged goods, culture, and military aid.

Thus the Holy Roman Empire became more and more divided between the growing strength and wealth of Hohenzollern Corona and its protestant allies and Austria. The Greater German question would not be over Austria, but over Corona, with its subtly different culture and influence over northern German and Danish states that no longer quite belonged fully in a united German nation, but did not belong anywhere else either.

Grade: C+

Although you did an admirable job summarizing the history, you failed to address the prompt fully. You need to analyze explicitly how these events led to the formation of the North German Federation. Furthermore, Wikipedia is not considered a good source for this class. It's a good start though, and you could definitely do something better. Remember this is only 15% of your grade.

Author Notes: Cover image by maddigonzalez on tumblr.

Don't take this too seriously. I'm not a historian, professional or amateur. This story was born out of an idea swapping session on a web forum, not some academic panel. The history here is not necessarily ironclad accurate, or even mostly accurate. At best, consider it vaguely plausible and reasonable enough for me to slap together some semblance of a plot. If you ever think I'm doing something stupid and totally wrong, I probably am. This is my hobby, and I make plenty of mistakes all the time. If it sounds pretentious, remember that I'm trying to imitate a certain kind of tone to suggest this as some alternate universe's boring textbook. I realize that I am highly fallible.