AHC: No Switzerland
- Thread starter SavoyTruffle
- Start date
No concrete idea about "not forming", but history is full of opportunities of the "Confederation" to fall apart.
Basically, I'd say let the key members (actual and potential) of OTL's Confederation enter different alliances with other powers (Bavaria, Bade, Savoy, Milan, Burgundy, ...).
Moreover, to eliminate the "trigger" for the formation of the Confederation, let the Helvetian Habsburg territory be split, either among different family branches or between other dynasties.
And finally, it is very easy to remove the name "Switzerland" for the Confederation from history: "Schwyz/Schweiz" was a derogatory name by the end of the Swabian War 1499.
Basically, I'd say let the key members (actual and potential) of OTL's Confederation enter different alliances with other powers (Bavaria, Bade, Savoy, Milan, Burgundy, ...).
Moreover, to eliminate the "trigger" for the formation of the Confederation, let the Helvetian Habsburg territory be split, either among different family branches or between other dynasties.
And finally, it is very easy to remove the name "Switzerland" for the Confederation from history: "Schwyz/Schweiz" was a derogatory name by the end of the Swabian War 1499.
Among different branches is a doable option, because of the treaty of Rheinfelden or at least with a slight alteration. Originally one of the conditions on which king of the Romans Rudolph I of Habsburg could give Austria, Styria and the Windic March to a member of his dynasty was, that he had to give it jointly to his sons Albert I and Rudolph II. With the treaty of Rheinfelden the elder Albert I got all Austrian lands on the condition, that his younger brother would receive lands in what would become Further Austria or the old ancestral lands. Rudolph II was also appointed as duke of Swabia, however he never got these western territories, which in part was because of his early death in 1290.
If Rudolph would have been alive upon the death of his father king Rudolph, you might have seen a division in two branches. Albert I keeps the new Habsburg lands Austria, Styria and the Windic march and Rudolph II remains duke of Swabia and receives all the old western ancestral lands Habsburg territories (in Aargau, Sundgau, Breisgau, like the county of Habsburg etc.).
Basically a split in a Eastern (Austrian) and a Western (Swabian) branch of the house of Habsburg. With a surviving Rudolph II as a local ruler, means that the rule of the house of Habsburg won't weaken, as IOTL when Albert I got in conflict, but ITTL this branch will remain a present local power.
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