Challenge Queen Isabelle and Ferdinand reunites the Roman Empire

[kasumigenx]

How possible is it?

[von Adler]

They need to take on the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, go through an entirely hostile and not too weak Barbaresk coast, take on Mameluk Egypt that is not too shabby in power, take on both grand power France and almost grand power Britain, go after Habsburg holdings in both the Netherlands and Italy, take out all the various Italian states AND the Papal States, and then they have to go up against Hungary, the primary power of the Balkans - in decline, sure, but still a large power.

ASBish to say the least. Spain was recently united and had enemies on its peninsula to fight, was behind Venice, England and Portugal in naval power (as well as a few other Italian states), was a rather poor country with a small and backwards army (the Swiss and Scottish pikemen and German landsknechts were the best soldiers of the time).

[MNP]

von Adler, it didn't take long for the Tercios to be better than the Swiss and they were almost always better than the landsknechts - Fernandez de Cordoba is still born here.

Originally Posted by mimeyo

How possible is it?

It's not totally impossible for them to begin a process.
1) Title, IOTL one of the Byzantine exiles sold the Imperial Title to Spain. They've never used it but they could here.
2) Ottomans for some reason don't take an interest in the Maghreb states until after Spain takes them. The only reason IOTL Spain didn't, was that the Ottomans had started to aid them. On possibility is to weaken or redirect the Ottomans. Say Selim decides against executing his family and dies after his conquest of Syria. It might be a free-for-all and Sulemein is still rather young.
3)France - This I think, needs to be the focus. If somehow or other the Spaniards can come to rule both France and the Peninsula, the land-based contiguous nature of the empire is going to be a big help and it's not too late to meld burgeoning national consciousness into something that MIGHT be stable.
4)Religion - hard! They need to not be so slavishly devoted. Since they just completed a 700 year Holy War (really a 450 year Holy War but w/e) this is going to be very hard to overcome.

If they can come to some sort of agreement with the Hapsburgs about Italy, they might be able to revive what is essentially the WRE sans Northern Italy and Brittania.

I think something like this is remotely (very remotely) possible by 1600.

[Rakhasa]

Originally Posted by von Adler

ASBish to say the least. Spain was recently united and had enemies on its peninsula to fight, was behind Venice, England and Portugal in naval power (as well as a few other Italian states), was a rather poor country with a small and backwards army (the Swiss and Scottish pikemen and German landsknechts were the best soldiers of the time).

While a lot of this is true, Spain's army at 1492 was one of the, if not the, most modern and professional armies at the time.

Queen Isabella, if one is to be honest, was an usurper queen than took the throne from her niece thanks to allinaces with the nobles (and their private armies). That's why the first thing she and her husband did was to centralize a riyoal amry and break the noble¡s power; then King Ferdinand spend the war againt Granada (which lasted ten years, 1482-1492) organinzing the army into modern(ish) professional lines.

Note than it was only a generation later that the Tercios appeared, and King Charles did not find then in a cereal box.

And Spain was not poor. It was a rich nation, mainly tnaks to the castillian wool industry. It did go form well off to filthy rich when the american gold ebgan to arrive, but wit was not poor before.

[Cicero the Younger]

Originally Posted by Rakhasa

And Spain was not poor. It was a rich nation, mainly tnaks to the castillian wool industry. It did go form well off to filthy rich when the american gold ebgan to arrive, but wit was not poor before.

If their goal is to reunite the Roman Empire, I don't think they're going to be able to rake in any of that American gold. They'll really have their work cut out for them in Europe, and expeditions to the New World would be a distraction they can't afford, it seems to me.

[kasumigenx]

Originally Posted by Cicero the Younger

If their goal is to reunite the Roman Empire, I don't think they're going to be able to rake in any of that American gold. They'll really have their work cut out for them in Europe, and expeditions to the New World would be a distraction they can't afford, it seems to me.

Eastern Europe has gold mines as well..

[Falastur]

Militarily they might have the strength to defeat any opponent, but I don't think people are considering that other European rulers might not want them to be successful. If they tried something like this, they're going to have something of a WW2 monologue. I mean, look at the trouble when the French tried to take small parts of Italy in the same era. They had huge alliances forming against them that even included the English who were both peripheral powers and had absolutely nothing to do with Italy. There wasn't a theory of Balance of Power at this point, but there was a distinct feeling of ganging up on those who tried to dominate one region - they'd smack them back down, then let things lie, which was why in such examples, Italy being a very good one, the defeated power would simply try again a few years later (and inevitably fail). Ferdinand and Isabella aren't going to be able to take France, if they try it they're going to get in a world of trouble. They have no claim to France whatsoever, and conquering the entire country is going to be a massive effort - the English had some massively successful campaigns before this and only ever took parts of France until 1420, and that was because Henry V had a genuine claim to the crown which was recognised.

I hate to be the one to have to say this stuff, but really there's a reason that this kind of thing didn't happen in that era; this really wouldn't work, it's a monumental ask. And that's not to mention that "recreating the Roman Empire" was not in this era something that was aimed for, except for aging Papal claims of a united Christendom under Papal control...

[Typo]

Originally Posted by mimeyo

How possible is it?

No, the Hapsburgs tried European dominance for centuries and couldn't do it

[Grey Wolf]

Aragon already has something of a historical advantage which Spain went on to use in OTL

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Rakhasa]

Originally Posted by Falastur

Militarily they might have the strength to defeat any opponent, but I don't think people are considering that other European rulers might not want them to be successful. If they tried something like this, they're going to have something of a WW2 monologue. I mean, look at the trouble when the French tried to take small parts of Italy in the same era. They had huge alliances forming against them that even included the English who were both peripheral powers and had absolutely nothing to do with Italy.

In fact that's what basically happened OTL in the seventeenth century. Every european nation allied against the Spain/Hapsburg hegemony, biting the empire piece by piece until it fell.