Author's Note: I have had a very stressful day (week!) so that's why I'm uploading this (that and it took me only two days to write it). Probably the shortest chapter I've written for this story so far! And yay! We're finally away from Napoleonic Europe! Enter Germany to the world stage! ! !

Germany

"I now present the youngest brother of yours truly, the Awesome Prussia, Germany!" Prussia declared boldly to all present in the Hall of Mirrors of France's Versailles Palace. "Raised by the Awesome me, his is a crown not dragged out of the gutter!" Prussia added proudly, more to his boss than to anyone else.

The doors to the Hall opened and a young man dressed in a ceremonial German soldier's uniform entered the room with a crown clasped gently in his hands. He was tall! Not quite as tall as Russia, from what France could judge, but obviously taller than Prussia by nearly a head and so very robust and broad, a physique of which only Sweden or America (possibly Russia, but it was hard to say with those long, thick coats he wore) could match! He would have deceived himself about the young man's age were it not for his face. His face looked young and thin and he walked with an awkward shyness that only confident adulthood could train out of adolescence. He'd put the lad's age at around... seventeen years or so. This was Germany, or so Prussia had introduced him as...

The young Germany strode straight to where Prussia's king stood beside the albino nation, who, France noted, was grinning with undisguised pride in his red eyes. Germany knelt before William I, the crown held out to the monarch. "By the Grace of God, I implore thee to accept the crown of the German realm, mein Kaiser (1)."

In April of 1849, William I's older brother, Frederick William IV (both sons of Frederick William III who had reigned during the Napoleonic Wars) had been offered the very same crown and it had been refused. This time, with this monarch, it was accepted. The German Empire was now officially proclaimed and Prussia immediately abandoned dignity to go tackle the young Germany. This was perhaps a crowning moment for the German people, but c'était une grande insulte (2) to France, especially here, in Versailles's prized and treasured Galerie des Glaces (3), a personal addition by King Louis XIV. Prussia thought he was so très malin (4), choosing this room, the pride of the former French monarchy, for the coronation of the German Emperor and the début of this new upstart German nation, but he would get back at him for this someday. Both of them. January 18, 1871. He wouldn't forget this insult for a long time.

But there would be time enough for that later. He was too weak (and certainly not stupid enough) to try something while Germany and Prussia were at the height of their power. Napoleon III just wasn't the same kind of man his uncle was not to mention the fact that his Third Republic was still pretty new. Instead, he focused on the younger of the two Germans (who he didn't really know anything about because this was his first time seeing him), who looked mildly annoyed as he attempted to pull Prussia off of him. Ce jeune homme… cette Allemagne… (5) was he the new youngest brother, German Confederation, that Prussia and Austria had been keeping hidden away from the other countries until now? He had to be! He couldn't possibly be anyone else.

He looked like someone, France was sure of it. Someone that he had known a long tie ago, back when he was still a young nation. Bon Dieu (6), that was a thousand years ago! But his belle adolescence (7) aside, there was something about Germany that just looked familiar. Something in the hair and the hair and the eyes that reminded him of someone...

"Bruder (8), knock it off already, or I'll hit you!" Germany said loudly with an irritated scowl.

Germania!

"Aw, come on, don't be like that, West! I'm only your best older brother in the whole world and today you've become as awesome as me! My baby brother's now an empire, I'm allowed to be happy and annoy the crap out of you for your own equal awesomeness!"

It was so obvious!

"You know, you're not my only older brother," Germany put in.

"But I am the most awesome one!" Prussia added with a cheeky grin.

That was why Germany looked so familiar! He looked just like Germania! Dieu, that was even further back in his history then he'd thought! He'd known Germania back in his petite enfance (9)! Even when Wisabada was East Francia and he was still Ouest (10)! Sa pauvre sœur (11). But this new German brother, this Germany, he was like Germania reincarnated! The slick, pale blond hair and the light blue eyes even down to the deep, gruff voice and characteristic frown; they were all Germania! Germany even had a similar name. The latter was probably planned, but the others things weren't so easily changed. He remembered Germania and not only his reputation, all of which he heard from his papa, but also his incredible strength. He wondered, and he worried, just how strong this new country would prove to be and if his strength would match anywhere close to his sire's.

()()()()()()()()()()

In the many thoughts that France had that day, it did not once cross his mind that Germany even slightly resembled the deceased Holy Roman Empire, his sister's son. It was too long since he'd stabbed him for the Latin country to even make the giant leap to such a connection. Countries don't last long after they've been dissolved if they don't have a population of people to carry them along until they can claim a new name and continue living.

()()()()()()()()()()

For many decades, France only saw Germany as the physical reincarnation of Germay and an increasingly-powerful threat in Europe. Not only was he a big country, but he had a strong military influence, no doubt thanks to his older brother, Prussia, and was a supremely-efficient power that no longer had the weakness of being a conglomerate of over 500 (or some other extremely huge and ridiculous number) German states thanks to the ever-growing unified nationalism of the German people that had sadly been aided by his own conquest of Europe through Napoleon within the same century when he'd begun the consolidation of the fragmented German states into the Confederation of the Rhine. Tensions had become so high in Europe that France had signed a defensive pact with fuzzy sourcils (12) Britain and creepy Russia just in case Germany or Prussia got any... funny ideas towards the idea of trying to conquer Europe which, at their current strength, would not be that difficult if the other countries were caught off-guard and were unprepared.

Then the Great War came...

It was not the longest war that Europe, or even France, had seen. Not by a long shot, and yet it was probably one of the greatest catastrophes that the world, especially Europe, had ever taken part in. When it was finally over, France, having just spent nearly four years straight in the trenches and being in a particularly vindictive mood as a result of the war, was only too happy to suggest that the peace conference take place at his house in the Gallerie des Glaces du Château de Versailles (13) on January 18, 1919. He was completely justified in his own mind that it was only fitting and proper that Germany's power be broken in the very same room where it had started exactly 48 years ago.

Aaaand once again, because I wrote France, I have a bunch of translations to write (I fail).

(1) mein Kaiser (German) - my Emperor

(2) c'était une grande insulte (French) - this was a huge insult

(3) Gallerie des Glaces (French) - Hall of Mirrors (one of the most famous rooms of Versailles and a personal addition by King Louis XIV, who was one of the very few French monarchs [if not the only one] who ever had true absolute power over everything, including the nobles. The fact that the Germans used that room to crown William I really stung deeply-embedded French pride).

(4) très malin (French) - very clever

(5) Ce jeune homme… cette Allemagne… (French) - This young man... this Germany... (yes, in French, Germany is a feminine word, just like with most countries).

(6) Bon Dieu (French) - Good God

(7) belle adolescence (French) - beautiful adolescence (lol, adolescence is just pronounced a little different in French, but it's spelled exactly the same).

(8) Bruder (German) - brother

(9) petite enfance (French) - early childhood

(10) Ouest (French) - West

(11) Sa pauvre sœur (French) - His (or her) poor sister

(12) sourcils (French) - eyebrows

(13) Gallerie des Glaces du Château de Versailles (French) - Hall of Mirrors of the Versailles Palace (yes, the French DID purposefully hold the peace conference in the very same room of the exact anniversary when William I was crowned German Emperor.

Once again, I have no idea how a coronation ceremony goes, much less how THAT one went, so I just picked something to get the point and flew with it.

Frederick Willaim IV's exact words regarding the (very ineffective) Frankfurt Parliament offering him the crown of Germany on April 3, 1849 (in their attempt to try and get some power back after the German uprisings of 1848 and their resulting failness) was that he would never accept "a crown from the gutter", which is what Prussia was referring back to in the very first paragraph when speaking to William I.

I don't think there's really much else to add that I didn't already explain. Napoleon III was Napoleon I's nephew and he was the Emperor of the Second French Empire which had replaced the Second French Republic (lol, France was on a trend for a while there: Monarchy - Revolution - Republic - Empire - (Constitutional) Monarchy - Revolution (x2) - Republic - Empire) right in the middle of the Franco-Prussian War after news of the French surrender at the Battle of Sedan reached Paris on September 4, 1870.