Donnacona's Dream
- Thread starter telynk
- Start date
Nice map. It looks like, territory-wise at least, the Free Netherlands are in a somewhat stronger position at the kickoff of the alt-30 years war, while Spain is a bit weaker, but different leadership will count for a lot. And perhaps Poland might get involved on the Catholic side this throw of the inter dimensional dice...
Yup, stronger but more divided since they have a larger number of Catholic subjects
Smaller, but not weaker. TTL's Spain has been made into a single Kingdom over 100 years earlier than OTL, which will help them maintain approximately the same degree of power as they had at this time OTL. However, TTL's Spain in 1625 is more exhausted, having just fought a long war in the British Isles.
You'll just have to wait for update #34
Update 33 - War in the Empire 1624-1628
Update 33 - War in the Empire 1624-1628
The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
War in the Empire 1624 – 1628:
While many historians mark the Imperial Election of 1624 as the beginning of the First Schismatic War, it is noteworthy that the year following the Election was, if anything, more peaceful than the year preceding it. There were no great clashes of armies in 1625 as there had been outside of Budweis and Prague in 1624. Both claimants to the Imperial throne were too pre-occupied with building alliances to launch any major campaigns. Moreover, neither Charles or Christian had an army immediately available with which to fight an offensive campaign. Much of Christian's field army had been destroyed outside of Budweis [1], while Charles' mostly Bavarian army had been sent to deal with Hungarian rebels for fear that the Bavarians couldn't be trusted. Thus, both claimant Emperors looked to their allies for military support.
Christian almost immediately won the support of most of the League of Dresden in recognizing him as Emperor-elect. The Electors of Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatinate had already shown their support by voting for Christian, and the neighbours of these three powerful Princes soon followed. Those members of the League of Dresden who did not immediately declare their support for Christian were those that were located in the South or West of the Empire, far from the powerful Electors who could protect them from the Hapsburgs. Württemberg was the last of the League of Dresden to declare its support for Christian in July of 1625.
Charles, meanwhile, was able to secure the support of many of the Catholic Princes of the Empire. Certainly, the various Prince-Bishops and Prince-Archbishops of the Empire (but not Administrators of Prince-Bishoprics and Prince-Archbishoprics which were held by Protestants) held fast to their position that no man could call himself Emperor unless he was a Catholic, and therefore condemned Christian as an illegitimate usurper. The Italian Princes of the Empire, many of whom had close relations with the Pope, also were quick to declare their support for Charles. However, these same Italian Princes were unwilling to lend money or troops to support the Austrian war effort, as they saw the conflict as a German affair that didn't concern them. Despite the lack of direct support in Italy, it soon became clear that Charles' support was strong in the South and Christian's was strong in the North.
While the division of the Empire between the supporters of Christian and those of Charles fell roughly along religious lines, there were some exceptions. The Archbishop of Mainz, notably, declared that Christian's Election had been legitimate, although he claimed that the Empire was in a state of interregnum until Christian would accept Papal authority. Many Catholic Princes surrounded by Protestants (such as the Duke of Westphalia) and Protestants surrounded by Catholics (such as the Princes of Ansbach and Bayeruth) attempted to maintain neutrality, with varying degrees of success. The Swiss Confederation and the Free Netherlands, both confederations containing both Catholic and Protestant members, maintained neutrality for the time being. The Duchy of Bavaria, now firmly under the control of Duke Maximilian, would take a notable stand of recognizing Charles as Emperor, but refusing to let any Hapsburg armies pass through its territory, threatening to declare support for Christian if Charles would attempt such a move.
However, as the First Schismatic War entered its second year, the two sides would each become more clearly defined. Christian's supporters and the League of Dresden would become one and the same, as all those Protestants who supported Christian joined the League, and those were unwilling to support him were forced out. On the other side, Charles' supporters in the West (led by the Archbishop of Trier and the Duke of Lorraine) would soon form the Alliance of the Rhine, which would carry on the war in the Western Theatre while Charles' own Austrian forces would do most of the fighting in the East.
The First Schismatic War was, for at least the first few years, clearly divided into Eastern and Western theatres. The Eastern theatre would see localized fighting in Bohemia, Moravia, and Franconia, and would pit Austria against Denmark, Saxony, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania. The Western theatre would see fighting along the entire length of the Rhine and as far North as Westphalia, and would pit the Alliance of the Rhine against Jülich, Hesse, the Palatinate, Württemberg, and Brunswick-Lüneburg. It was largely Bavaria's hostility towards Charles that maintained this division into separate theatres by preventing Austrian troops from reaching the Rhineland.
Many of the first battles of the First Schismatic War would occur not in the East, where the War of the Bohemian Succession had been fought, but in the West, which had not yet seen any action. Quickly after declaring his support for Christian, William Frederick, the new Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg [2] would invade the Prince-Archbishopric of Cologne. Cologne, surrounded by William Frederick's lands, would quickly fall, and William Frederick's brother John would soon be made Administrator of the Prince-Archbishopric.
With the fall of Cologne, the war in the West would only grow. The Archbishop of Trier and the Bishop of Liège would soon attempt a counter-invasion of Jülich. While Aachen would fall and Jülich would be beseiged in 1626, the Catholic armies would not make it far enough to liberate Cologne. Once reinforcements arrived from Hesse, the seige of Jülich would be lifted, and it would now be the armies of the League of Dresden who occupied the lands of the Archbishop of Trier.
Farther South, the Duke of Lorraine would lead a coalition of Catholic Princes from the Rhineland and Swabia in an attack on the Electoral Palatinate. The Alliance of the Rhine would come to occupy much of the Western Palatinate in the summer of 1625, but again, the arrival of reinforcements would prevent a decisive victory. While the Duke of Württemberg had always been expected to come to the aid of Elector Frederick, it was the Archbishop of Mainz, [3] one of the few belligerents who fought against the Alliance of the Rhine but was not a member of the League of Dresden, who would turn the tide.
In Westphalia, it was the League of Dresden on the offensive, as Oldenburg and Brunswick-Lüneburg attempted to take control of the Bishoprics of Osnabrück and Münster. The Bishopric of Osnabrück and the Northern half of the Bishopric of Münster would be occupied in 1625. However, in 1626 a dispute between Oldenburg and Brunswick-Lüneberg over the division of the spoils would give a chance for the Bishop of Münster to retake some occupied territory. In the end, the Bishop of Münster would declare neutrality in the conflict, and the League of Dresden would force its members to respect this neutrality. The Bishopric of Osnabrück, on the other hand, would be secularized by Brunswick-Lüneberg as compensation for the withdrawal from Münster.
While this series of local conflicts consumed the Rhineland and Westphalia, both Charles and Christian were preparing for a new conflict in Bohemia. Both claimant Emperors had had active armies in Moravia during the truce, and these two armies did come into conflict in the summer of 1625. The Battle of Olomouc would be an Austrian victory, and Christian was soon forced to give up Moravia. However, the Austrians would be too consumed with holding down Bohemia and Moravia to consider an invasion of Silesia in 1625 or 1626.
Having been pushed out of Moravia, Christian joined forces with his allies in Saxony and Brandenburg with the hopes of building a large enough army to re-enter Bohemia and re-take Prague. By the Spring of 1626, the combined army was ready, and it soon began marching up the River Elbe from Dresden. While much of Northern Bohemia would fall easily, the Austrian army that met the Protestants outside of the town of Leitmeritz would be larger than expected. The Battle of Leitmeritz would again be an Austrian victory and the League of Dresden was forced to withdraw to Aussig. While Aussig and much of Northern Bohemia would continue to be occupied by the League of Dresden throughout 1627, by the beginning of 1628 the League would be permanently driven out of Bohemia.
The credit for the Austrian victories in Moravia and Bohemia can be at least partially attributed to Albert von Waldstein [4] who had assumed a prominent role in the Austrian occupation of Bohemia after the death of Emperor Ferdinand. Waldstein was a Bohemian Utraquist who had served in the Imperial armies in Hungary in the War of the Great Holy League. However, with the election of Christian as King of Bohemia, Waldstein had come to support the Protestant King, and had served in the 1623 attack on Vienna, where he had been taken prisoner by the Austrians.
It was while he was imprisoned in Vienna that Waldstein had convinced the Austrians that he could be useful for them. He had already become known as somewhat of a logistical genius, and was soon put in charge of the logistical division of the Austrian army which invaded Bohemia in 1624. During the Sack of Prague, Waldstein, as one of the few Czech-speakers amongst the Austrian leadership, had a pivotal role in keeping the peace between the Austrian troops and the people of Prague. Waldstein was soon appointed to a key role on the council, led by the Archbishop of Prague, which governed Bohemia on the Hapsburgs' behalf.
Through his role on the governing council of Bohemia, Waldstein had been instrumental in ensuring that the Austrian occupation would be profitable in the long run. Rather than following the Archbishop's plan of forcing the remaining Utraquist nobles to convert to Catholicism, Waldstein allowed Utraquists to maintain their faith if they agreed to pay a new tax to support the Austrian occupation. [5] This not only provided large sums of money that Waldstein then spent on recruiting a new army, but also allowed the Bohemian Utraquists to adjust peacefully to Hapsburg rule.
Thus, it was largely due to Waldstein's efforts that the Austrians had been able to field a large enough army to defeat the League forces in the Battle of Leitmeritz, and it was also largely to his credit that Bohemia had not risen up in revolt against the Austrians. In 1626, after the last of Christian's supporters had been driven out of Moravia, Waldstein was granted the title of Margrave of Moravia, forever splitting the Moravian territories from their personal union with Bohemia. While this division of the Bohemian Crown was supposedly an acceptance of the demands of the Moravian revolt of 1623-1624, its real effect was to weaken the power of the Bohemian Diet in order to prevent further revolts against the Hapsburgs. Moreover, by giving the Margravate of Moravia to a man who owed everything to the Austrians, the Hapsburgs hoped to prevent Moravia from every again pursuing an independent foreign policy. [6]
After their victory at the Battle of Leitmeritz, the Austrians were ready to make an offensive against the Protestant supporters of Christian as Emperor-elect. However, rather than move North towards Dresden or Breslau, the Austrians, under Waldstein's influence, instead turned West to launch an attack on the Upper Palatinate. Waldstein felt that an attack on well-defended Saxony or Silesia would simply cost too much in lives and money, while the Upper Palatinate was poorly defended and contained rich mines which could bring in much money for the Austrian occupiers.
Elector Palatine Frederick was not prepared for an attack on the Upper Palatinate. He had moved most of his forces to the Lower Palatinate to aid his own war against the Alliance of the Rhine. The Upper Palatinate had been initially considered safe, as it was not directly accessible from Austria. Bavaria lay in between, and the Duke of Bavaria would still not permit Austrian troops to move through his land. However, Bohemia did border the Upper Palatinate, and the Austrian armies in Bohemia were not as occupied with the Danish-Saxon invasion as Frederick had hoped.
So, in the Spring of 1627, the Austrian army entered the Upper Palatinate, and took control of almost all of the territory in a matter of months. This act didn't go completely unopposed by the League of Dresden, as Saxony and Brandenburg had deployed an army in the area in the hopes of exerting influence on the Bishoprics of Bamberg and Wurzberg. However, the Saxon-Brandenburger force wouldn't be able to meet the Austrians in battle until after most of the Upper Palatinate had been taken. Despite this, Saxony and Brandenburg would soon be backed up by troops from Brunswick-Lüneberg and Hessen-Kassel, and would soon threaten to retake the Upper Palatinate.
While the League of Dresden would win a number of battles in the Franconian Campaign (as this theatre of the war would be known), the Austrians would prove more resilient. By the fall of 1627, the League of Dresden was left with only a weak occupation of the Easternmost part of the Bishopric of Bamberg. In October, they were defeated in a decisive battle outside of Coburg, and were forced to retreat to the North. By the Spring of 1628, the fear of the Austrian armies was such that the Princes of Ansbach and Bayeruth, both Protestants, declared their support for Charles as Emperor.
Meanwhile, things had gone well for the League of Dresden in the Western theatre. William Frederick had pushed the armies of the Bishop of Liège completely out of his Duchy of Jülich, although a Spanish army prevented him from following up with an invasion of the Bishopric. At the same time, the armies of Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau had taken Koblenz from the Archbishop of Trier, giving the League of Dresden (and its ally the Archbishop of Mainz) control of the Rhine from Cleves to Speyer. In the North, Brunswick-Lüneberg had completed its secularization of the Bishopric of Osnabrück and had contributed forces to the Franconian campaign.
However, it was in the Southern Rhineland where the most decisive campaigns would be fought. Elector Palatine Frederick and his allies in Württemberg and Mainz had, with the support of Hessian reinforcements, defeated the Alliance of the Rhine in a number of key battles. By the end of 1626, the League of Dresden had taken control the Rhineland as far South as Strassburg. In 1627, the League allies would advance into Lorraine proper, threatening the strongest member of the Alliance of the Rhine.
It was in 1627, as Lorraine was under attack, that a Spanish army of Italian mercenaries arrived in the region. This army was travelling up the Spanish Road, [7] and it had originally been destined for Hainaut, where the Spanish forces still held out against the ever-advancing French occupation. However, upon arriving in Lorraine, Count Romboldo of Collalto [8], in command of the Spanish troops, discovered how precarious the situation in Lorraine really was. Unwilling to let Protestants take control of the part of the Spanish Road that passed through Lorraine, he decided not to continue on to Hainaut, but to remain in Lorraine to fight the forces of the League of Dresden.
While the Count of Collalto is often credited with the entry of the Spanish into the First Schismatic War, the reality is that Spain had already been a part of the war. Spain had recognized Charles as Emperor, and had condemned the League of Dresden; Spanish money was already supporting the Austrian war effort; and the Spanish Imperial territories of Luxemburg and Franche-Comté had supported the Alliance of the Rhine. However, the Count of Collalto was the first general in Spanish employ to lead a mostly-Spanish army in battle against the League of Dresden.
The entry of the Spanish army under the Count of Collalto into the war in the Rhineland succeeded at driving the forces of Württemberg and the Palatinate out of Lorraine. The Count of Collalto's army was better trained than that of the League of Dresden, and the troops of Württemberg and the Palatinate had already suffered much from three years of war. By the end of 1627, Strassburg, and its bridge over the Rhine, had fallen back into Catholic hands. The armies of Württemberg retreated across the Rhine, while those of the Palatinate were trapped on the West bank of the Rhine, separating the two allies from each other.
With the opening of the 1628 campaign season, Württemberg found itself in a precarious position. The army of the Count of Collalto was ready to invade Württemberg from the West, while the Austrian army in Franconia had made it as far as the monastary of Ellwangen on Württemberg's Eastern border. Meanwhile, an army under Archduke Francis of Tirol [9] was active in the Swabian lands to the South. The Duke of Württemberg knew he would be unable to defend against attack from three sides, and his ally the Elector Palatine had most of his troops trapped on the far side of the Rhine. Thus, in May of 1628, Duke Ernest sued for peace, offering to recognize Charles as Emperor and withdraw from the remaining occupied territories on the East bank of the Rhine in exchange for retaining control of all of the Duchy of Württemberg.
The defection of Württemberg meant that the remaining lands of the Palatinate were now vulnerable to attack. For the remainder of the 1628, the Elector Palatine would fight a defensive action on the West bank of the Rhine, forcing the Count of Collalto to beseige first Hagenau, then Landau, and then Speyer. Once Speyer fell, it would only be a matter of time before the Catholic forces could transport their army over the Rhine in order to attack the Electoral Capital of Heidelberg. The plan was to transport the army over the Rhine in the winter of 1628-29 in order advance to Heidelberg in the Spring. [10]
While the Count of Collalto was making great victories in the Rhineland, Waldstein was attempting a corresponding offensive in the Eastern theatre. With Franconia secure, the Austrian leaders now felt that the weakest link in the League of Dresden was Silesia itself. An Austrian army, led by Margrave Waldstein himself [11], was to advance from Königgrätz into Silesia in order to take control of Breslau, the de facto capital of Emeperor-elect Christian, as quickly as possible. With the Austrians in control of Silesia, they would control almost all of the lands of the former Bohemian Crown; the hope was that Christian would no longer seen as a credible emperor and the League of Dresden would soon fall apart.
However, the Silesian Campaign would not proceed as quickly as Waldstein would have hoped. The population of Silesia, unlike that of Bohemia and Moravia, was primarily Lutheran rather than Utraquist and felt a stronger kinship to Saxony or Brandenburg than it did to Bohemia or Moravia. The people had enjoyed having a resident monarch in Breslau, and did not want to be ruled from Prague or Vienna. Thus, the towns of Silesia held out longer than expected, and Waldstein had great difficulty in procuring supplies and billets.
Thus, by the time Waldstein reached the vicinity of Breslau in August of 1628, reinforcements had already arrived from Saxony and Brandenburg. Waldstein had lost his opportunity to take the city quickly, and was soon defeated in battle by the League forces. However, rather than retreating immediately back to Bohemia, Waldstein withdrew to the Southeast up the River Oder, hoping to get Polish help in taking control of Upper Silesia.
While Waldstein failed in his attack on Breslau, he was successful in preventing the most powerful members of the League of Dresden (Denmark, Saxony, and Brandenburg) from sending any aid to the Elector Palatine. By doing so, he maintained the division between the Eastern and Western theatres in the First Schismatic War. This division between the theatres, and the lack of aid the Palatinate received from its so-called allies in the East, contributed to the rift that was already forming between the Eastern and Western members of the League of Dresden.
Thus, as the Elector Palatine was faced with the potential loss of Heidelberg, his most desperate pleas for help were not sent to Saxony and Brandenburg, but abroad to France and the Netherlands. It was largely due to these pleas that we would see foreign intervention in the First Schismatic War. The year 1628 would be in many ways the last year in which the First Schismatic War would primarily be an Imperial conflict, as 1629 would see the expansion of the war to include many of the surrounding countries.
For the time being, I will take a break from telling a history of the war itself, and will instead study the Empire's neighbours, both those that did intervene and those that abstained. France, Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands were all courted at various times by various factions in the First Schismatic War, and these four countries will be the subject of the next two chapters.
Footnotes:
[1] The author is oversimplifying things here. As in the OTL 30 years' war,most of the troops engaged in TTL's War of the Bohemian Succession and First Schismatic War are occupied with holding down territory and collecting money and supplies for the war effort. The troops engaged in pitched battles are only a small minority of either side's total strength. However, King Christian of Denmark (and Bohemia) has been engaging a larger portion of his army in battle than his Austrian enemies, as he has a more stable source of income with which to pay his troops in the form of Sound Tolls, and Bohemia was (mostly) welcoming to his troops. Christian's defeats outside of Vienna in 1623 and Budweis in 1624 actually did destroy a good portion of his army, although the new army he is building in Breslau is mostly not raw recruits, but garrison troops from Silesia and Lusatia.
[2] Wilhelm Friedrich (William Frederick) is the son of Karl Friedrich of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. Karl Friedrich died of smallpox in OTL, leaving the United Duchies to his disabled younger brother. In TTL, Karl Friedrich survived, and thus Jülich-Cleves-Berg has survived as the most powerful state in the Lower Rhine.
[3] Remember, the current Archbishop of Mainz is the former Duke of Bavaria who was deposed by the Hapsburgs. While his Catholic sensibilities are preventing him from recognizing a Protestant Emperor, his natural alliance is with whomever opposes the Hapsburgs.
[4] This is an ATL 'brother' of the general known in OTL as Albrecht von Wallenstein. It appears that OTL Wallenstein's family name was originally 'Waldstein', but he became known as 'Wallenstein' because spelling was less strict at the time. For whatever reason, TTL he has kept the name 'Waldstein'.
[5] This religious tax is partially inspired by the Ottoman jizya, as Waldstein did serve in formerly-Tukish Hungary. However, OTL's Wallenstein did also have a number of ideas of how to implement new taxes to better support military occupations, so this isn't coming completely out of left field.
[6] I'm not yet sure how, but I plan on creating an independent Kingdom of Moravia at some point in this TL. My grandparents on my dad's side are ethnic Moravians who are very adamant that they are not Czech. I think I've inherited a bit of a feeling of Moravian nationalism from them, so the separation of Moravia from Bohemia is very much intentional....
[7] In TTL, unlike OTL, Savoy is still a Spanish ally, so the Spanish Road is still open. While Spain is no longer at war with the Free Netherlands, they are at war with the French over the Spanish Netherlands, and are using the Spanish Road to transport armies that can be used against the French.
[8] Again, not the same man as OTL, but an ATL brother. To be perfectly honest, I know very little about OTL's Count Romboldo other than the fact that he was a minor captain in the Spanish army. I just needed a name, and picked his.
[9] This Archduke Francis (i.e. Franz) is not the current ruler of Tirol but his second son. He will become ruler of Tirol in his own time. I have not really sketched out the various branches of the House of Hapsburg in too much detail, but I will say that, in TTL, they will not die out like they did OTL.
[10] I'm having a hard time finding information online about when the various crossings of the Rhine were built. I know the bridge at Strasbourg (known as Strassburg in TTL) was used much during OTL's 30 years' war, but I'm not sure whether there were any bridges between Strassburg and Speyer at the time. I'm pretty confident there was no bridge yet at Speyer, but I could be proven wrong. My assumption is that, if there were any other bridges at the beginning of the war, they have since been burnt, which is why the Elector Palatine's army has been 'trapped'.
[11] TTL's Waldstein is not much of a battlefield tactician, but his successful logistical reforms have given him a fair bit of prestige. He has been put in command of the Austrian army because this prestige in turn boosts the morale of those troops under his command.
The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
War in the Empire 1624 – 1628:
While many historians mark the Imperial Election of 1624 as the beginning of the First Schismatic War, it is noteworthy that the year following the Election was, if anything, more peaceful than the year preceding it. There were no great clashes of armies in 1625 as there had been outside of Budweis and Prague in 1624. Both claimants to the Imperial throne were too pre-occupied with building alliances to launch any major campaigns. Moreover, neither Charles or Christian had an army immediately available with which to fight an offensive campaign. Much of Christian's field army had been destroyed outside of Budweis [1], while Charles' mostly Bavarian army had been sent to deal with Hungarian rebels for fear that the Bavarians couldn't be trusted. Thus, both claimant Emperors looked to their allies for military support.
Christian almost immediately won the support of most of the League of Dresden in recognizing him as Emperor-elect. The Electors of Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatinate had already shown their support by voting for Christian, and the neighbours of these three powerful Princes soon followed. Those members of the League of Dresden who did not immediately declare their support for Christian were those that were located in the South or West of the Empire, far from the powerful Electors who could protect them from the Hapsburgs. Württemberg was the last of the League of Dresden to declare its support for Christian in July of 1625.
Charles, meanwhile, was able to secure the support of many of the Catholic Princes of the Empire. Certainly, the various Prince-Bishops and Prince-Archbishops of the Empire (but not Administrators of Prince-Bishoprics and Prince-Archbishoprics which were held by Protestants) held fast to their position that no man could call himself Emperor unless he was a Catholic, and therefore condemned Christian as an illegitimate usurper. The Italian Princes of the Empire, many of whom had close relations with the Pope, also were quick to declare their support for Charles. However, these same Italian Princes were unwilling to lend money or troops to support the Austrian war effort, as they saw the conflict as a German affair that didn't concern them. Despite the lack of direct support in Italy, it soon became clear that Charles' support was strong in the South and Christian's was strong in the North.
While the division of the Empire between the supporters of Christian and those of Charles fell roughly along religious lines, there were some exceptions. The Archbishop of Mainz, notably, declared that Christian's Election had been legitimate, although he claimed that the Empire was in a state of interregnum until Christian would accept Papal authority. Many Catholic Princes surrounded by Protestants (such as the Duke of Westphalia) and Protestants surrounded by Catholics (such as the Princes of Ansbach and Bayeruth) attempted to maintain neutrality, with varying degrees of success. The Swiss Confederation and the Free Netherlands, both confederations containing both Catholic and Protestant members, maintained neutrality for the time being. The Duchy of Bavaria, now firmly under the control of Duke Maximilian, would take a notable stand of recognizing Charles as Emperor, but refusing to let any Hapsburg armies pass through its territory, threatening to declare support for Christian if Charles would attempt such a move.
However, as the First Schismatic War entered its second year, the two sides would each become more clearly defined. Christian's supporters and the League of Dresden would become one and the same, as all those Protestants who supported Christian joined the League, and those were unwilling to support him were forced out. On the other side, Charles' supporters in the West (led by the Archbishop of Trier and the Duke of Lorraine) would soon form the Alliance of the Rhine, which would carry on the war in the Western Theatre while Charles' own Austrian forces would do most of the fighting in the East.
The First Schismatic War was, for at least the first few years, clearly divided into Eastern and Western theatres. The Eastern theatre would see localized fighting in Bohemia, Moravia, and Franconia, and would pit Austria against Denmark, Saxony, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania. The Western theatre would see fighting along the entire length of the Rhine and as far North as Westphalia, and would pit the Alliance of the Rhine against Jülich, Hesse, the Palatinate, Württemberg, and Brunswick-Lüneburg. It was largely Bavaria's hostility towards Charles that maintained this division into separate theatres by preventing Austrian troops from reaching the Rhineland.
Many of the first battles of the First Schismatic War would occur not in the East, where the War of the Bohemian Succession had been fought, but in the West, which had not yet seen any action. Quickly after declaring his support for Christian, William Frederick, the new Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg [2] would invade the Prince-Archbishopric of Cologne. Cologne, surrounded by William Frederick's lands, would quickly fall, and William Frederick's brother John would soon be made Administrator of the Prince-Archbishopric.
With the fall of Cologne, the war in the West would only grow. The Archbishop of Trier and the Bishop of Liège would soon attempt a counter-invasion of Jülich. While Aachen would fall and Jülich would be beseiged in 1626, the Catholic armies would not make it far enough to liberate Cologne. Once reinforcements arrived from Hesse, the seige of Jülich would be lifted, and it would now be the armies of the League of Dresden who occupied the lands of the Archbishop of Trier.
Farther South, the Duke of Lorraine would lead a coalition of Catholic Princes from the Rhineland and Swabia in an attack on the Electoral Palatinate. The Alliance of the Rhine would come to occupy much of the Western Palatinate in the summer of 1625, but again, the arrival of reinforcements would prevent a decisive victory. While the Duke of Württemberg had always been expected to come to the aid of Elector Frederick, it was the Archbishop of Mainz, [3] one of the few belligerents who fought against the Alliance of the Rhine but was not a member of the League of Dresden, who would turn the tide.
In Westphalia, it was the League of Dresden on the offensive, as Oldenburg and Brunswick-Lüneburg attempted to take control of the Bishoprics of Osnabrück and Münster. The Bishopric of Osnabrück and the Northern half of the Bishopric of Münster would be occupied in 1625. However, in 1626 a dispute between Oldenburg and Brunswick-Lüneberg over the division of the spoils would give a chance for the Bishop of Münster to retake some occupied territory. In the end, the Bishop of Münster would declare neutrality in the conflict, and the League of Dresden would force its members to respect this neutrality. The Bishopric of Osnabrück, on the other hand, would be secularized by Brunswick-Lüneberg as compensation for the withdrawal from Münster.
While this series of local conflicts consumed the Rhineland and Westphalia, both Charles and Christian were preparing for a new conflict in Bohemia. Both claimant Emperors had had active armies in Moravia during the truce, and these two armies did come into conflict in the summer of 1625. The Battle of Olomouc would be an Austrian victory, and Christian was soon forced to give up Moravia. However, the Austrians would be too consumed with holding down Bohemia and Moravia to consider an invasion of Silesia in 1625 or 1626.
Having been pushed out of Moravia, Christian joined forces with his allies in Saxony and Brandenburg with the hopes of building a large enough army to re-enter Bohemia and re-take Prague. By the Spring of 1626, the combined army was ready, and it soon began marching up the River Elbe from Dresden. While much of Northern Bohemia would fall easily, the Austrian army that met the Protestants outside of the town of Leitmeritz would be larger than expected. The Battle of Leitmeritz would again be an Austrian victory and the League of Dresden was forced to withdraw to Aussig. While Aussig and much of Northern Bohemia would continue to be occupied by the League of Dresden throughout 1627, by the beginning of 1628 the League would be permanently driven out of Bohemia.
The credit for the Austrian victories in Moravia and Bohemia can be at least partially attributed to Albert von Waldstein [4] who had assumed a prominent role in the Austrian occupation of Bohemia after the death of Emperor Ferdinand. Waldstein was a Bohemian Utraquist who had served in the Imperial armies in Hungary in the War of the Great Holy League. However, with the election of Christian as King of Bohemia, Waldstein had come to support the Protestant King, and had served in the 1623 attack on Vienna, where he had been taken prisoner by the Austrians.
It was while he was imprisoned in Vienna that Waldstein had convinced the Austrians that he could be useful for them. He had already become known as somewhat of a logistical genius, and was soon put in charge of the logistical division of the Austrian army which invaded Bohemia in 1624. During the Sack of Prague, Waldstein, as one of the few Czech-speakers amongst the Austrian leadership, had a pivotal role in keeping the peace between the Austrian troops and the people of Prague. Waldstein was soon appointed to a key role on the council, led by the Archbishop of Prague, which governed Bohemia on the Hapsburgs' behalf.
Through his role on the governing council of Bohemia, Waldstein had been instrumental in ensuring that the Austrian occupation would be profitable in the long run. Rather than following the Archbishop's plan of forcing the remaining Utraquist nobles to convert to Catholicism, Waldstein allowed Utraquists to maintain their faith if they agreed to pay a new tax to support the Austrian occupation. [5] This not only provided large sums of money that Waldstein then spent on recruiting a new army, but also allowed the Bohemian Utraquists to adjust peacefully to Hapsburg rule.
Thus, it was largely due to Waldstein's efforts that the Austrians had been able to field a large enough army to defeat the League forces in the Battle of Leitmeritz, and it was also largely to his credit that Bohemia had not risen up in revolt against the Austrians. In 1626, after the last of Christian's supporters had been driven out of Moravia, Waldstein was granted the title of Margrave of Moravia, forever splitting the Moravian territories from their personal union with Bohemia. While this division of the Bohemian Crown was supposedly an acceptance of the demands of the Moravian revolt of 1623-1624, its real effect was to weaken the power of the Bohemian Diet in order to prevent further revolts against the Hapsburgs. Moreover, by giving the Margravate of Moravia to a man who owed everything to the Austrians, the Hapsburgs hoped to prevent Moravia from every again pursuing an independent foreign policy. [6]
After their victory at the Battle of Leitmeritz, the Austrians were ready to make an offensive against the Protestant supporters of Christian as Emperor-elect. However, rather than move North towards Dresden or Breslau, the Austrians, under Waldstein's influence, instead turned West to launch an attack on the Upper Palatinate. Waldstein felt that an attack on well-defended Saxony or Silesia would simply cost too much in lives and money, while the Upper Palatinate was poorly defended and contained rich mines which could bring in much money for the Austrian occupiers.
Elector Palatine Frederick was not prepared for an attack on the Upper Palatinate. He had moved most of his forces to the Lower Palatinate to aid his own war against the Alliance of the Rhine. The Upper Palatinate had been initially considered safe, as it was not directly accessible from Austria. Bavaria lay in between, and the Duke of Bavaria would still not permit Austrian troops to move through his land. However, Bohemia did border the Upper Palatinate, and the Austrian armies in Bohemia were not as occupied with the Danish-Saxon invasion as Frederick had hoped.
So, in the Spring of 1627, the Austrian army entered the Upper Palatinate, and took control of almost all of the territory in a matter of months. This act didn't go completely unopposed by the League of Dresden, as Saxony and Brandenburg had deployed an army in the area in the hopes of exerting influence on the Bishoprics of Bamberg and Wurzberg. However, the Saxon-Brandenburger force wouldn't be able to meet the Austrians in battle until after most of the Upper Palatinate had been taken. Despite this, Saxony and Brandenburg would soon be backed up by troops from Brunswick-Lüneberg and Hessen-Kassel, and would soon threaten to retake the Upper Palatinate.
While the League of Dresden would win a number of battles in the Franconian Campaign (as this theatre of the war would be known), the Austrians would prove more resilient. By the fall of 1627, the League of Dresden was left with only a weak occupation of the Easternmost part of the Bishopric of Bamberg. In October, they were defeated in a decisive battle outside of Coburg, and were forced to retreat to the North. By the Spring of 1628, the fear of the Austrian armies was such that the Princes of Ansbach and Bayeruth, both Protestants, declared their support for Charles as Emperor.
Meanwhile, things had gone well for the League of Dresden in the Western theatre. William Frederick had pushed the armies of the Bishop of Liège completely out of his Duchy of Jülich, although a Spanish army prevented him from following up with an invasion of the Bishopric. At the same time, the armies of Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau had taken Koblenz from the Archbishop of Trier, giving the League of Dresden (and its ally the Archbishop of Mainz) control of the Rhine from Cleves to Speyer. In the North, Brunswick-Lüneberg had completed its secularization of the Bishopric of Osnabrück and had contributed forces to the Franconian campaign.
However, it was in the Southern Rhineland where the most decisive campaigns would be fought. Elector Palatine Frederick and his allies in Württemberg and Mainz had, with the support of Hessian reinforcements, defeated the Alliance of the Rhine in a number of key battles. By the end of 1626, the League of Dresden had taken control the Rhineland as far South as Strassburg. In 1627, the League allies would advance into Lorraine proper, threatening the strongest member of the Alliance of the Rhine.
It was in 1627, as Lorraine was under attack, that a Spanish army of Italian mercenaries arrived in the region. This army was travelling up the Spanish Road, [7] and it had originally been destined for Hainaut, where the Spanish forces still held out against the ever-advancing French occupation. However, upon arriving in Lorraine, Count Romboldo of Collalto [8], in command of the Spanish troops, discovered how precarious the situation in Lorraine really was. Unwilling to let Protestants take control of the part of the Spanish Road that passed through Lorraine, he decided not to continue on to Hainaut, but to remain in Lorraine to fight the forces of the League of Dresden.
While the Count of Collalto is often credited with the entry of the Spanish into the First Schismatic War, the reality is that Spain had already been a part of the war. Spain had recognized Charles as Emperor, and had condemned the League of Dresden; Spanish money was already supporting the Austrian war effort; and the Spanish Imperial territories of Luxemburg and Franche-Comté had supported the Alliance of the Rhine. However, the Count of Collalto was the first general in Spanish employ to lead a mostly-Spanish army in battle against the League of Dresden.
The entry of the Spanish army under the Count of Collalto into the war in the Rhineland succeeded at driving the forces of Württemberg and the Palatinate out of Lorraine. The Count of Collalto's army was better trained than that of the League of Dresden, and the troops of Württemberg and the Palatinate had already suffered much from three years of war. By the end of 1627, Strassburg, and its bridge over the Rhine, had fallen back into Catholic hands. The armies of Württemberg retreated across the Rhine, while those of the Palatinate were trapped on the West bank of the Rhine, separating the two allies from each other.
With the opening of the 1628 campaign season, Württemberg found itself in a precarious position. The army of the Count of Collalto was ready to invade Württemberg from the West, while the Austrian army in Franconia had made it as far as the monastary of Ellwangen on Württemberg's Eastern border. Meanwhile, an army under Archduke Francis of Tirol [9] was active in the Swabian lands to the South. The Duke of Württemberg knew he would be unable to defend against attack from three sides, and his ally the Elector Palatine had most of his troops trapped on the far side of the Rhine. Thus, in May of 1628, Duke Ernest sued for peace, offering to recognize Charles as Emperor and withdraw from the remaining occupied territories on the East bank of the Rhine in exchange for retaining control of all of the Duchy of Württemberg.
The defection of Württemberg meant that the remaining lands of the Palatinate were now vulnerable to attack. For the remainder of the 1628, the Elector Palatine would fight a defensive action on the West bank of the Rhine, forcing the Count of Collalto to beseige first Hagenau, then Landau, and then Speyer. Once Speyer fell, it would only be a matter of time before the Catholic forces could transport their army over the Rhine in order to attack the Electoral Capital of Heidelberg. The plan was to transport the army over the Rhine in the winter of 1628-29 in order advance to Heidelberg in the Spring. [10]
While the Count of Collalto was making great victories in the Rhineland, Waldstein was attempting a corresponding offensive in the Eastern theatre. With Franconia secure, the Austrian leaders now felt that the weakest link in the League of Dresden was Silesia itself. An Austrian army, led by Margrave Waldstein himself [11], was to advance from Königgrätz into Silesia in order to take control of Breslau, the de facto capital of Emeperor-elect Christian, as quickly as possible. With the Austrians in control of Silesia, they would control almost all of the lands of the former Bohemian Crown; the hope was that Christian would no longer seen as a credible emperor and the League of Dresden would soon fall apart.
However, the Silesian Campaign would not proceed as quickly as Waldstein would have hoped. The population of Silesia, unlike that of Bohemia and Moravia, was primarily Lutheran rather than Utraquist and felt a stronger kinship to Saxony or Brandenburg than it did to Bohemia or Moravia. The people had enjoyed having a resident monarch in Breslau, and did not want to be ruled from Prague or Vienna. Thus, the towns of Silesia held out longer than expected, and Waldstein had great difficulty in procuring supplies and billets.
Thus, by the time Waldstein reached the vicinity of Breslau in August of 1628, reinforcements had already arrived from Saxony and Brandenburg. Waldstein had lost his opportunity to take the city quickly, and was soon defeated in battle by the League forces. However, rather than retreating immediately back to Bohemia, Waldstein withdrew to the Southeast up the River Oder, hoping to get Polish help in taking control of Upper Silesia.
While Waldstein failed in his attack on Breslau, he was successful in preventing the most powerful members of the League of Dresden (Denmark, Saxony, and Brandenburg) from sending any aid to the Elector Palatine. By doing so, he maintained the division between the Eastern and Western theatres in the First Schismatic War. This division between the theatres, and the lack of aid the Palatinate received from its so-called allies in the East, contributed to the rift that was already forming between the Eastern and Western members of the League of Dresden.
Thus, as the Elector Palatine was faced with the potential loss of Heidelberg, his most desperate pleas for help were not sent to Saxony and Brandenburg, but abroad to France and the Netherlands. It was largely due to these pleas that we would see foreign intervention in the First Schismatic War. The year 1628 would be in many ways the last year in which the First Schismatic War would primarily be an Imperial conflict, as 1629 would see the expansion of the war to include many of the surrounding countries.
For the time being, I will take a break from telling a history of the war itself, and will instead study the Empire's neighbours, both those that did intervene and those that abstained. France, Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands were all courted at various times by various factions in the First Schismatic War, and these four countries will be the subject of the next two chapters.
Footnotes:
[1] The author is oversimplifying things here. As in the OTL 30 years' war,most of the troops engaged in TTL's War of the Bohemian Succession and First Schismatic War are occupied with holding down territory and collecting money and supplies for the war effort. The troops engaged in pitched battles are only a small minority of either side's total strength. However, King Christian of Denmark (and Bohemia) has been engaging a larger portion of his army in battle than his Austrian enemies, as he has a more stable source of income with which to pay his troops in the form of Sound Tolls, and Bohemia was (mostly) welcoming to his troops. Christian's defeats outside of Vienna in 1623 and Budweis in 1624 actually did destroy a good portion of his army, although the new army he is building in Breslau is mostly not raw recruits, but garrison troops from Silesia and Lusatia.
[2] Wilhelm Friedrich (William Frederick) is the son of Karl Friedrich of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. Karl Friedrich died of smallpox in OTL, leaving the United Duchies to his disabled younger brother. In TTL, Karl Friedrich survived, and thus Jülich-Cleves-Berg has survived as the most powerful state in the Lower Rhine.
[3] Remember, the current Archbishop of Mainz is the former Duke of Bavaria who was deposed by the Hapsburgs. While his Catholic sensibilities are preventing him from recognizing a Protestant Emperor, his natural alliance is with whomever opposes the Hapsburgs.
[4] This is an ATL 'brother' of the general known in OTL as Albrecht von Wallenstein. It appears that OTL Wallenstein's family name was originally 'Waldstein', but he became known as 'Wallenstein' because spelling was less strict at the time. For whatever reason, TTL he has kept the name 'Waldstein'.
[5] This religious tax is partially inspired by the Ottoman jizya, as Waldstein did serve in formerly-Tukish Hungary. However, OTL's Wallenstein did also have a number of ideas of how to implement new taxes to better support military occupations, so this isn't coming completely out of left field.
[6] I'm not yet sure how, but I plan on creating an independent Kingdom of Moravia at some point in this TL. My grandparents on my dad's side are ethnic Moravians who are very adamant that they are not Czech. I think I've inherited a bit of a feeling of Moravian nationalism from them, so the separation of Moravia from Bohemia is very much intentional....
[7] In TTL, unlike OTL, Savoy is still a Spanish ally, so the Spanish Road is still open. While Spain is no longer at war with the Free Netherlands, they are at war with the French over the Spanish Netherlands, and are using the Spanish Road to transport armies that can be used against the French.
[8] Again, not the same man as OTL, but an ATL brother. To be perfectly honest, I know very little about OTL's Count Romboldo other than the fact that he was a minor captain in the Spanish army. I just needed a name, and picked his.
[9] This Archduke Francis (i.e. Franz) is not the current ruler of Tirol but his second son. He will become ruler of Tirol in his own time. I have not really sketched out the various branches of the House of Hapsburg in too much detail, but I will say that, in TTL, they will not die out like they did OTL.
[10] I'm having a hard time finding information online about when the various crossings of the Rhine were built. I know the bridge at Strasbourg (known as Strassburg in TTL) was used much during OTL's 30 years' war, but I'm not sure whether there were any bridges between Strassburg and Speyer at the time. I'm pretty confident there was no bridge yet at Speyer, but I could be proven wrong. My assumption is that, if there were any other bridges at the beginning of the war, they have since been burnt, which is why the Elector Palatine's army has been 'trapped'.
[11] TTL's Waldstein is not much of a battlefield tactician, but his successful logistical reforms have given him a fair bit of prestige. He has been put in command of the Austrian army because this prestige in turn boosts the morale of those troops under his command.
Hey folks, this is not an update. Just letting everyone know that my goal of an update a week will not be met this week because I'm moving. I do have the next update about 2/3 done, and it should be ready by the weekend.
Just to keep you folks posted on what's coming up:
Update 34 covers Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands during the First Schismatic War
Update 35 covers France during the First Schismatic War and the final years of the war.
Update 36 covers the truce that ends the First Schismatic War
Then updates 37, 38, 39, 40 we will move back to North America and see what's going on in the 1620s, 1630s, and maybe into the 1640s there....
Just to keep you folks posted on what's coming up:
Update 34 covers Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands during the First Schismatic War
Update 35 covers France during the First Schismatic War and the final years of the war.
Update 36 covers the truce that ends the First Schismatic War
Then updates 37, 38, 39, 40 we will move back to North America and see what's going on in the 1620s, 1630s, and maybe into the 1640s there....
Thanks for the reminder. To be honest, using AH "siblings" is a cop-out on my part because it's easier for me to take an OTL name and invent a character to go along with it than to come up with a fictional name which is plausible for the time period and region where the character comes from. This is especially true for nobility, who only have a finite number of last names in any particular realm.
But maybe I just need to start making up names and then if someone says "but there was no count of xxxx OTL", then I just argue that such a title was created for thE character'a father after the POD.
The reverse jizya system also existed to certain extent in either Angevin or Norman control of southern Italy. But likely that, as you mentioned, this comes from his experience in Ottoman Hungary. More diffusion is always a great thing! I've been keeping up reading this TL even while not logged in, just wanted to say, I'm still enjoying it.
This is a lovely piece of work (the piece about the transexual was really lovely) but it's recent updates does rather illustrate my problem with the 'maximum butterflies' crowd of alt history.
Timelines have the dual purpose, imo, of being both an intellectual exercise 'what would happen next if this happened' and a story.
Here the intellectual exercise is 'if the St. Lawrence Iroquoians had different realtions with the french what kind of culture would evolve and how that would change history' and the story is 'follow an indian tribe and it's struggles in the early years of colonisation'.
By instead mapping out an alternative europe where things have gone different just because it's a different timeline so things will go different, you don't really do either of those things any more.
The intellectual exercise isn't there as what's different isn't the french do this so in response the spanish do that and the mohawk do this etc. so canada is different but the author randomly decided that this would happen in poland so russia is different. The 'if this then what' mental fun only works if you have a straight line to compare it with if you see how our hsitory is altered, how the same drivers play out differently due to the wrinkle. Once butterflies pop up that aspect is lost.
And instead of getting a coherent streamlined story about your protagonists, the narrative jumps all over the place desperately trying to cover the entire world.
Now I think the writing is good enough that I still enjoy reading it but I do feel like it would be more satisfying a piece of fiction if the whole butterfly idea was rejected and we just stuck to reading about st lawrence with the assumption that anything not directly affected by the pod is the same and then we wouldn't need to go on a victor hugoish diversion from the main story to talk about poland. When you know there are no poles in st lawrence and it's just not relevant to the actual story.
Timelines have the dual purpose, imo, of being both an intellectual exercise 'what would happen next if this happened' and a story.
Here the intellectual exercise is 'if the St. Lawrence Iroquoians had different realtions with the french what kind of culture would evolve and how that would change history' and the story is 'follow an indian tribe and it's struggles in the early years of colonisation'.
By instead mapping out an alternative europe where things have gone different just because it's a different timeline so things will go different, you don't really do either of those things any more.
The intellectual exercise isn't there as what's different isn't the french do this so in response the spanish do that and the mohawk do this etc. so canada is different but the author randomly decided that this would happen in poland so russia is different. The 'if this then what' mental fun only works if you have a straight line to compare it with if you see how our hsitory is altered, how the same drivers play out differently due to the wrinkle. Once butterflies pop up that aspect is lost.
And instead of getting a coherent streamlined story about your protagonists, the narrative jumps all over the place desperately trying to cover the entire world.
Now I think the writing is good enough that I still enjoy reading it but I do feel like it would be more satisfying a piece of fiction if the whole butterfly idea was rejected and we just stuck to reading about st lawrence with the assumption that anything not directly affected by the pod is the same and then we wouldn't need to go on a victor hugoish diversion from the main story to talk about poland. When you know there are no poles in st lawrence and it's just not relevant to the actual story.
My two cents: personally, I am a big believer in butterflies and find the European bits as interesting as the American parts (although keeping track of who is fighting who in an alt-30-years war is a bit of a job ) but I do wonder if you are biting off more than you can chew, telynk, by going into this level of detail from Lake Superior to the Black Sea. It's a lot of balls to keep in the air.
) but I do wonder if you are biting off more than you can chew, telynk, by going into this level of detail from Lake Superior to the Black Sea. It's a lot of balls to keep in the air.I'm really excited to see actually discussion going on in my thread! I'm also excited to see that my readership is wrestling with some of the same meta-issues that I am....
However, I do think it might help for me to offer an explanation of the decisions that I've made with regards to butterflies.
The first thing I want to mention is that, for me, AH is mostly an intellectual exercise. I'm not interested in ever creating anything that's publishable fiction, and am more interesting in engaging the creative parts of my brain which frankly aren't challenged in my day job. However, as someone who is an intellectual, and is employed at a university, my values are heavily skewed in favour of intellectual plausibility at the expense of gripping story arcs. I am a firm believer in the most extreme version of the butterfly theory, as I do understand the mathematics of chaos and don't see any reason why it should not apply to historical events. So, not having butterflies crop up immediately after the POD requires a sort of cognitive dissonance that I would rather avoid.
I should also mention that my personal geek when it comes to AH is the world-building aspect of it. I get much more excited about the idea of an alternate universe then exactly what stories will take place within it. I initially chose to include a number of narrative updates here in order to 'zoom in' on the POD, but as the butterflies ramp up, I'm finding it harder and harder to focus on individual characters, and would much rather focus on cultures, nations, and ideas, which, to me, are the more interesting part of writing this. This is also one of the reasons that I chose to incorporate many early butterflies: because it allowed me to do more 'interesting' world-building early on in the TL.
However, what's been happening is that, as butterflies have been cropping up in Europe, I have gotten a little TOO excited about what's going on there. I have noticed that sometimes I sit down to write what I expect to be one update, but it ends up filling pages and pages more than I've planned, so I split it into two, or sometimes three or four. Part of what's going on is that I'm not planning ahead enough to think about what aspects of an update will be really important in the long run and what aspects will not, and so I end up putting everything in there. Another part of what's going on is that, since I'm doing this primarily for myself, I'm not doing a good enough job of self-editing to keep my updates shorter and more to the point.
I do think that the level of detail is a problem. I was originally planning to take this TL to at least 1800, and it's taken me a year and a half to make it from 1540 to 1630, so maybe, if I keep the level of detail down, I can make it to 1700 within a year. The problem is that keeping the level of detail down requires a degree of self-control that I'd rather not exert when I'm doing something primarily for fun.
I also should mention that the point folks have been making about the butterflies distracting from the main protagonist, etc. is not something I'm that concerned about. I am writing this for my own enjoyment, and right now I'm enjoying Europe more than I am the St. Lawrence Valley, although I will come back there shortly. When I first wrote this I also felt that I enjoyed using a character-centered narrative structure, and so focused on individual protagonists. I don't feel like I'm really in that 'mood' right now, mostly because I don't have any good ideas for interesting character-based stories (ok, I have one or two, some of which will be coming up soon).
However, I am coming to terms with the fact that, at some point in the future, I will have to reduce the level of detail. Especially because I DO want to cover the rest of the world outside of North America at some point. I think this means that I'm going to have to re-visit my writing process, and spend more time making notes and planning and less time writing actual updates. The problem is that making notes and planning is, again, less enjoyable than writing updates. However, without it I'm going to get lost....
So, I am going to think long and hard about how I'm going to restructure this to make it a little better. I have a couple options, and I'm curious what folks think about them (I think I'll create a poll in a separate thread, I'll post the link below once I've done it).
A: I could continue with the TL from where it's at, but do my best to keep the level of detail down outside of the St. Lawrence Valley.
B: I could reboot the whole thing and start again from the beginning:
B1: I could start again from the beginning, but employ some sort of butterfly net (which I personally object to as being improbable and hence implausible, but is not ASB), so that Europe goes as OTL until the 30 years' war. The alternate 30 years' war and the 'Schisms' that will result from it are an important idea that I want to incorporate either way. In this option, to be consistent with my employment of the butterfly net earlier, I would somehow create a causal link between events in North America and events in Germany (maybe a Jesuit who has North American experience arrives in Bohemia??)
B2: I could start again from the beginning, maintaining the full butterfly effect but keep the level of detail down.
C: I could reboot in a new thread, keeping all the North America updates the same with minor edits, but editing down the Europe updates to a much lower level of detail.
D: I could abandon this project entirely and come up with an idea for a new TL.
However, I do think it might help for me to offer an explanation of the decisions that I've made with regards to butterflies.
The first thing I want to mention is that, for me, AH is mostly an intellectual exercise. I'm not interested in ever creating anything that's publishable fiction, and am more interesting in engaging the creative parts of my brain which frankly aren't challenged in my day job. However, as someone who is an intellectual, and is employed at a university, my values are heavily skewed in favour of intellectual plausibility at the expense of gripping story arcs. I am a firm believer in the most extreme version of the butterfly theory, as I do understand the mathematics of chaos and don't see any reason why it should not apply to historical events. So, not having butterflies crop up immediately after the POD requires a sort of cognitive dissonance that I would rather avoid.
I should also mention that my personal geek when it comes to AH is the world-building aspect of it. I get much more excited about the idea of an alternate universe then exactly what stories will take place within it. I initially chose to include a number of narrative updates here in order to 'zoom in' on the POD, but as the butterflies ramp up, I'm finding it harder and harder to focus on individual characters, and would much rather focus on cultures, nations, and ideas, which, to me, are the more interesting part of writing this. This is also one of the reasons that I chose to incorporate many early butterflies: because it allowed me to do more 'interesting' world-building early on in the TL.
However, what's been happening is that, as butterflies have been cropping up in Europe, I have gotten a little TOO excited about what's going on there. I have noticed that sometimes I sit down to write what I expect to be one update, but it ends up filling pages and pages more than I've planned, so I split it into two, or sometimes three or four. Part of what's going on is that I'm not planning ahead enough to think about what aspects of an update will be really important in the long run and what aspects will not, and so I end up putting everything in there. Another part of what's going on is that, since I'm doing this primarily for myself, I'm not doing a good enough job of self-editing to keep my updates shorter and more to the point.
I do think that the level of detail is a problem. I was originally planning to take this TL to at least 1800, and it's taken me a year and a half to make it from 1540 to 1630, so maybe, if I keep the level of detail down, I can make it to 1700 within a year. The problem is that keeping the level of detail down requires a degree of self-control that I'd rather not exert when I'm doing something primarily for fun.
I also should mention that the point folks have been making about the butterflies distracting from the main protagonist, etc. is not something I'm that concerned about. I am writing this for my own enjoyment, and right now I'm enjoying Europe more than I am the St. Lawrence Valley, although I will come back there shortly. When I first wrote this I also felt that I enjoyed using a character-centered narrative structure, and so focused on individual protagonists. I don't feel like I'm really in that 'mood' right now, mostly because I don't have any good ideas for interesting character-based stories (ok, I have one or two, some of which will be coming up soon).
However, I am coming to terms with the fact that, at some point in the future, I will have to reduce the level of detail. Especially because I DO want to cover the rest of the world outside of North America at some point. I think this means that I'm going to have to re-visit my writing process, and spend more time making notes and planning and less time writing actual updates. The problem is that making notes and planning is, again, less enjoyable than writing updates. However, without it I'm going to get lost....
So, I am going to think long and hard about how I'm going to restructure this to make it a little better. I have a couple options, and I'm curious what folks think about them (I think I'll create a poll in a separate thread, I'll post the link below once I've done it).
A: I could continue with the TL from where it's at, but do my best to keep the level of detail down outside of the St. Lawrence Valley.
B: I could reboot the whole thing and start again from the beginning:
B1: I could start again from the beginning, but employ some sort of butterfly net (which I personally object to as being improbable and hence implausible, but is not ASB), so that Europe goes as OTL until the 30 years' war. The alternate 30 years' war and the 'Schisms' that will result from it are an important idea that I want to incorporate either way. In this option, to be consistent with my employment of the butterfly net earlier, I would somehow create a causal link between events in North America and events in Germany (maybe a Jesuit who has North American experience arrives in Bohemia??)
B2: I could start again from the beginning, maintaining the full butterfly effect but keep the level of detail down.
C: I could reboot in a new thread, keeping all the North America updates the same with minor edits, but editing down the Europe updates to a much lower level of detail.
D: I could abandon this project entirely and come up with an idea for a new TL.
If you're doing this pirmarily for your own enjoymenet and you're enjoying the way the tl is currently going, I see no reason to reboot it.
It is an interesting and well written timeline and it would be a shame to not see your ideas fully mapped out.
I kind of feel bad that my comment has made you doubt your whole timeline. I do still enjoy it, it's just my personal taste is for something a little more focused.
It is an interesting and well written timeline and it would be a shame to not see your ideas fully mapped out.
I kind of feel bad that my comment has made you doubt your whole timeline. I do still enjoy it, it's just my personal taste is for something a little more focused.
To be honest, there are some (minor) things in early updates that I'd like to change, so I was planning on doing a rewrite in the "Finished Timelines and Scenarios" section at some point. However, that point was originally planned to be a couple years in the future (once I've made it to at least 1800). Also, my plan was to restructure the reboot in such a way that the threads of the story become more clear (right now, the order of my updates is mostly based upon "what do I feel like writing about now" rather than "what makes the most sense to move the story forward"). I was willing to do the reboot earlier than planned if that was what reader's wanted, but it already sounds like that's NOT the case....
Update 34 - the Bystanders
Update 34 - the Bystanders
The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
The Bystanders: Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands in the First Schismatic War
Compared to the Second Schismatic War and the subsequent Rhineland Wars, the First Schismatic War saw surprisingly little foreign intervention. Denmark, of course, was closely involved in the War of the Bohemian Succession from the start. However, a number of other neighbouring powers, who were courted by one or both sides during the First Schismatic War, failed to intervene decisively in the conflict in the Empire. In this chapter we will study those powers and their reasons for staying out of the First Schismatic War.
Poland-Lithuania had been a close ally of Austria for much of the 16th century, and the Polish-Austrian alliance continued into the 17th. Poland-Lithuania had also been a regular adversary of Denmark in the Baltic: the Polish-Swedish alliance of the mid-to-late 16th century [1] was as much an alliance against Denmark as it was against Russia. Once the First Schismatic War began, Austria repeatedly sent emissaries to Poland requesting aid against the League of Dresden. However, this aid never materialized until it was too late.
Poland-Lithuania stayed out of the First Schismatic War not because the country was unwilling to go to war against the League of Dresden, but simply because it was unable to spare the resources due to its ongoing struggles elsewhere. The first of these ongoing struggles was the domestic unrest which beset the Polish-Lithuanian state for the first quarter of the 17th century. This time is known in Poland as the 'First Great Reform'. However, while Polish historiography glorifies this time, the reality was that it was a period of rebellion and unrest that threatened the Jagellonian monarchy more than once. While the 'First Great Reform' was technically over by the time that the First Schismatic War began, it had drained Poland-Lithuania to the extent that it was not able to intervene.
To understand the background for the First Great Reform, we must recognize that the Polish state at the time consisted of three principle political forces: the King and Royal family, the Magnates who controlled much of Poland-Lithuania's land, and the middle and lower nobility, or Szlachta. [2] Unlike the nobility of other 16th-century realms, much of the Polish Szlachta had little or no land of their own, but their noble status still gave them the right to participate in the Polish political system to a larger degree than the equally-poor subjects of other Kingdoms. The Magnates and Szlachta together were more powerful than the King, so most Polish Kings had courted either the Magnates or the Szlachta for support.
King Sigismund I had courted the Szlachta when he empowered the Polish House of Deputies at the expense of the Magnate-dominated Senate [3], and his son Sigismund II, to a lesser degree, had continued his father's initiatives. However, King Sigismund III, who reigned from 1573 to 1605, had instead made an alliance with the powerful Magnates. The First Polish-Lithuanian Union, which created the United Sejm to oversee the joint Polish-Lithuanian military, had originally promised to empower the middle and lower Szlachta. However, it soon became apparent that the deputies sent to the United Sejm answered more to the Magnates than they did to the Szlachta: the smaller size of the United Sejm made it more easily dominated by the Magnates than the larger Polish House of Deputies.
This growth in the power of the Magnates over the last quarter of the 16th century led to the birth of the Executionist Movement. The Executionist Movement called for the King to take a stronger stance against the Magnates: empowering the Szlachta to make laws through Sejmiks (which were meetings of Szlachta themselves, rather than their deputies), and requiring the Magnates to return Royal land that had been leant to them in exchange for services. King Sigismund III gave little heed to the Executionist Movement, preferring to use the Magnates' support to continue to fight wars abroad in Livonia and the Carpathian Principalities. However, his son, who took the throne in 1605 as King John II, was much more sympathetic to the Executionist Movement, and soon the Magnates' dominance would come to an end. [4]
The 'First Great Reform' would begin with initiatives by King John II to clear the corruption which surrounded the election of deputies to the Polish House of Deputies and the United Sejm. In doing so, the Magnates lost the power they held over these two legislative bodies, and their influence was now largely confined to the Senate (of course, Magnates still participated in the various sejmiks, but their ability to control which deputies were elected were now reduced). In 1611, King John went further and began the process of requiring the Magnates to return the Royal land that had been loaned to them. While many Magnates complied with this request, many others didn't, requiring the use of the Polish-Lithuanian army to force them to relinquish the land.
In 1614, a crucial moment was reached when Jan Zbigniew Ossolinski, a Polish Senator from a powerful magnate family, attempted to block King John's intiatives. Poland's legislature had customarily followed the rule of unanimous consent, although dissenters in the past had almost always been convinced to consent to new legislation once appropriate modifications had been made. However, Jan Ossolinski took things farther than this. He used the principle of librerum veto to block any attempt by King John to raise taxes or implement new legislation, refusing to consent to any legislation until all lands were returned to the Magnates. While Jan Ossolinski was soon removed from the Senate, allowing King John's reforms to continue, his objections had set a precedent. Soon those few members of the House of Deputies who were still controlled by the Magnates began to use the principle of librerum veto themselves, blocking the passage of any legislation, and paralyzing the Polish Sejm.
In 1617, King John II declared that the right of librerum veto would be abolished, and that any future vetos could be overruled by a two-thirds majority vote. This constitutional change, while announced as a Royal decree, was supported by most of the Szlachta, and would be ratified by a two-thirds majority in the House of Deputies. However, according to most of the Magnate class, this two-thirds majority was not enough, and this Royal decree was illegal according to the principle of nihil novi. The Magnate class soon rose up in open armed revolt, and a civil war known as the 'veto war' would begin.
The 'veto war' would pit the King and the Royal Polish-Lithuanian military on one side and the various magnate families with their private armies on the other. Amongst these magnate families were the Dukes of Prussia and Courland, who, while being Polish vassals, had enjoyed a great deal of autonomy. King John's reforms to the United Sejm had stripped the two Dukes of their rights to appoint deputies directly, instead requiring these deputies to be elected by the lesser nobility of the two Duchies. This had angered the two Dukes, but they had not had a occasion on which to rise up in revolt until the outbreak of the 'veto war'.
While the 'veto war' would ultimately be won by the Polish King, it would not be an easy fight. The defeat of the revolt would cost much in the form of lives and money, and would take three years. However, the Royal victory gave King John the opportunity to strip the revolting Magnates of their remaining land, and to bring an end to the autonomy of the Duchies of Prussia and Courland. In order to determine the new form of government in Prussia and Courland, and to help settle the constitutional questions brought up by the abolishment of librerum veto, King John called Poland-Lithuania's first Great Sejm, to be made up of hundreds of deputies from across all of Poland-Lithuania. These deputies would spend three years working out a new constitution, which would create the Second Polish-Lithuanian Union in the year 1624.
To understand the nature of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Union, we must understand the struggles that were going on on Poland-Lithuania's Eastern border. King John II of Poland had reigned in Moscow as Czar before being recalled to Poland, and still claimed the Russian throne. In 1608, two years after the death of John's regent in Moscow, and the crowing of the new Czar Theodore, King John, at the request of his Russian wife, mounted an invasion of Russia, with the attempt of retaking Moscow. This invasion would falter, and ultimately end in disaster, but would scare Czar Theodore enough that he agreed to let Poland-Lithuania keep the territories around Smolensk and Chernigov in the 1610 Russian-Polish peace.
These newly-acquired territories, while they had been claimed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for quite some time, were still populated with Orthodox people who saw themselves as Russian. These people, like the population throughout much of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's Ruthenian lands, were prone to frequent revolt. Much of the Orthodox population of Russia had blamed the famine of the early 1600s on the reign of their King John of Poland as Czar, and the new Czar Theodore had become idealized as a Saint sent to overthrow all non-Orthodox rulers. This legend only served to incite further revolt, and the time of the First Great Reform saw much unrest in Ruthenia.
The unrest in Ruthenia was accompanied by outright warfare with the Cossacks who lived on the Steppe of Poland-Lithuania's Southeastern border. These Cossacks at the time were organized into two Hosts: the Zaporozhian Cossacks along the lower Dniepr, who had traditionally been allied with Poland-Lithuania, and the Don Cossacks along the Don River who had traditionally been allied with Russia. However, with the arrival of Czar Theodore, who had been raised amongst the Don Cossacks, to the Russian throne, and the descent of the Ottoman Empire into civil war, the Zaporozhian Cossacks had the opportunity to join with the Don Cossacks in war against Poland-Lithuania. The Zaporozhian Cossacks hoped to capture the cities of Kiev and Chernigov, and to rule them as the Don Cossacks ruled Kursk and Voronezh.
Thus, while King John II was fighting the 'Veto War' in the North and West, he was also fighting the 'Cossack War' in the Southeast. The 'Cossack War' was, if anything more of a threat to King John's authority than the 'Veto War' was, as the entire population of Lithuanian Ruthenia threatened to rise up and join the Cossacks. Moreover, the fact that both wars were being fought simultaneously overstretched the Polish-Lithuanian military and made each of them more of a threat.
In the end, while he dealt with the 'Veto War' himself, King John would entrust the fight against the Cossacks to his younger brother Alexander and his second son Vladislav. Alexander, as second son, had long pursued a military career, and was a capable general. However, it was Vladislav who proved indispensable in the war effort against the Cossacks. Vladislav had been born in Moscow, and had been baptised and raised Orthodox. As a child, he had been groomed to succeed to the Russian throne while King John's elder son Sigismund would succeed to the Polish Throne. Vladislav, as an Orthodox Prince who spoke perfect Russian, was able to maintain order in Chernigov and Kiev to the extent that the Cossacks never gained a foothold in either city. When the Cossack War would come to an end in 1622, the Polish-Lithuanian authority in Ruthenia would be stronger than it had ever been.
Having seen the power of his Orthodox son in restoring order to Ruthenia, King John II resolved to make this arrangement permanent. The Ruthenian lands would soon be separated from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Vladislav would be soon be appointed as the first Grand Duke of Ruthenia. This new Grand Duchy would only be one of many new constituents of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Union.
The Second Polish-Lithuanian Union would be a federal state consisting of five different constituents: the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchies of Lithuania, Ruthenia, and Livonia [5], and the Duchy of Prussia. Each constituent would have its own monarch and and its own House of Deputies which would regularly meet it its capital city [6], but the central government and United Sejm in Warsaw would control the military and foreign policy. Power would thus be shared jointly between the monarch and nobility (Szlachta) of each constituent.
The Second Polish-Lithuanian Union would also follow traditions of Polish religious tolerance in allowing each constituent to shape its own religious policy. The Grand Duchy of Ruthenia would soon be officially Orthodox, while Prussia and Livonia would adopt Lutheranism. While the Duchy of Prussia had been allowed to maintain its Lutheran Duke, the Grand Duchy of Livonia, while officially Lutheran, was still in personal union with the Catholic Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was only in 1532 that King John would convince his fourth son Albert to convert to Lutheranism in order to serve as Grand Duke of Livonia.
While the Second Polish-Lithuanian Union would create a more stable and lasting constitutional settlement than the First Polish-Lithuanian Union, the 'First Great Reform' that had established this Union had drained the Polish treasury and exhausted its military. Thus, when the First Schismatic War broke out in 1625, the Polish King could do little more than declare his diplomatic support for Charles as Emperor.
By 1628, the Silesian campaign of Waldstein passed close enough to the Polish border that John felt he could offer some support. However, he refrained from sending troops into the Empire for fear of attracting the wrath of the League of Dresden and his own Lutheran subjects (especially the Duke of Prussia who was a cousin of the Elector of Brandenburg [7]). Instead, he simply provided Waldstein with supplies for his troops, allowing him to supply his army through Poland when his supply train from Bohemia and Moravia was cut.
This aid would simply not be enough to make a difference in the long run, and Waldstein would soon be forced to withdraw from Silesia. With the end of the Silesian campaign there would be no more opportunity for indirect Polish intervention. While the Polish-Austrian alliance would continue, there would be little King John II could do without directly attacking the territory of the League of Dresden. Any such direct attack would be off the table until King John felt that his domestic situation was more stable, and by the time Poland-Lithuania entered a period of greater stability, the First Schismatic War would be over.
Sweden was another power which was sought out as an ally in the First Schismatic War. Unlike Poland, Sweden was courted by both the League of Dresden as well as the Hapsburgs. Many amateur historians assume that Sweden, as a Lutheran power, would have jumped at the chance of supporting a movement aimed at placing a Lutheran on the Imperial throne. However, such an assumption overlooks the fact that the First Schismatic War took place during the reign of Kings John IV and Gustav II, two of the few Kings of Sweden who wer overtly Catholic.
John IV was the eldest surviving son of King John III of Sweden. John III had succumbed to the pro-Catholic influence of his Polish wife, and had attempted a number of reforms of the Swedish Church to make it more Catholic. However, these reforms had caused much unrest amongst the Swedish people, and, upon the death of Catherine Jagiellon, King John II was forced to take a Lutheran second wife. His new wife, Sigrid Brahe, did her best to encourage Lutheran beliefs in her husband John III and step-son John IV.
While Queen Sigrid did succeed at drawing her husband away from Catholicism, her efforts were much less successful with the future John IV. Prince John resented his stepmother's attempts to convert him, and detested his arranged marriage to the Lutheran Maria Hedwig of Pomerania. Efforts by his family to bring him back to the Lutheran fold only made John's Catholic tendencies stronger. Many members of the Swedish court began to suggest that John might be passed over in the line of succession in favour of his Lutheran half-brother Peter. However, when King John III died in 1601, Peter was only 8 years old, so there was little choice but for the Riksdag to elect John IV to the throne.
The reign of John IV is known as a time of much unrest in Sweden. While it was established early on that John could only expect to keep his crown if Lutheranism remained the official religion of Sweden, John did much to try to bring the Swedish Church closer to the Catholic model. While John III had given up on Church reforms in order to expand Swedish territory into Estonia, Ingria and Karelia, John IV was pre-occupied with religious matters, and gave little attention to anything East of the Gulf of Bothnia. The expansion and development of the newly-acquired Swedish Karelia was entrusted to John's half-brother Peter, who, as Duke of Finland, was put in charge of all of Sweden's Eastern territories.
John IV's first marriage would remain loveless and barren, and King John eagerly awaited the day when he could take a younger, Catholic, bride. While John was unwilling to have his marriage annulled or his Queen killed, he neglected and mistreated her, and Queen Maria Hedwig's death in 1613 is thought by many to have been a suicide. With the death of his first wife, King John was able to secure a marital alliance with Austria, and, in 1615, Archduchess Cecilia of Upper Austria (the older sister of the future Emperor Charles II) became his second wife. While the new Catholic Queen was unpopular with the Swedish people, Sweden had already grown used to having a Catholic King, and begrudgingly tolerated their Catholic monarchs.
Queen Cecilia would soon turn the attention of King John to affairs beyond his borders. With the outbreak of the War of the Bohemian Succession, Austria began looking for allies against Denmark, and Sweden was at the top of the list. Austria promised King John support if he was to declare war against Denmark. With much of the Danish armies distracted in Bohemia, it was thought that Sweden could easily retake Älvsborg (the former Swedish possession which would give Sweden access to the Skaggerak and North Sea) and maybe even take control of Scania.
While King John was convinced of the need for war by 1622, convincing the Swedish Riksdag proved a lot more difficulty. It was only when the Imperial Election of 1624 threatened to place the Danish King on the Imperial throne that the Riksdag was finally willing to support a war. In April of 1625, Sweden declared war on Denmark, and Swedish troops marched to Älvsborg to begin a siege that would last most of the summer.
While the Danes had much improved the fortifications at Älvsborg since they had taken control at the end of the Älvsborg War, these improvements only served to lengthen the siege. The Danes did attempt to relieve the fortress, but were defeated in battle, and were forced to give up Älvsborg by August. However, John, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, the younger brother of King Christian IV who ruled Denmark while Christian was busy in the Empire, was determined not to let the Swedes make use of Älvsborg's harbour. The docks and other facilities were burned, and two ships were sunk in the entrance to the port to prevent Swedish ships from entering the harbour. Thus, by the time the Swedes took control of Älvsborg, its strategic value had been much reduced.
Denmark's strategy for the remainder of the war would be to deny Sweden access to the North Sea trade at all costs. There were a number of staples (such as salt) which had to be imported to Sweden either via the Danish Straits or overland via Scania or Norway. Armies in both Scania and Norway were sent to cut off overland trade, and the tolls on the Danish Straits were increased. The hope was to drive up prices in Sweden in order to force them to break off the war effort.
Thus, Sweden spent the rest of the war desperately trying to gain access to a port in Halland. Because of this, this theatre of the First Schismatic War is often known as the 'Halland War'. After the capture of Älvsborg, the Swedish armies would move South in order to attempt to take control of the town of Kungsbacka. Kungsbacka would fall easily, but the Swedes would soon discover that its river was quite silted up and unusable as a port. Thus, the Swedish armies would be forced to continue further South to attack Varberg and to try to take control of the port there.
The Battle of Varberg would be the first Danish victory in the Halland War. While it would not be a decisive victory - it would simply bring a halt to the Swedish advance - it would force the Swedes to retreat for the time being, and would bring an end to the 1625 campaign season. While the Swedes planned for a renewed attack on Varberg in 1626, their plans would prove fruitless when King John IV, already 60 years old, would succumb to illness over the winter. His young son would soon be crowned King Gustav II, and Queen Cecilia would be made Regent, but this Regency would soon be challenged.
Duke Peter of Finland, King John III's second surviving son, had long felt that the Swedish throne should be his. He was a devoted Lutheran, and had been, in the eyes of many, more successful than his elder half-brother. It was Peter who had established the town of St. Petersburg [8] on the White Sea coast of Swedish Karelia, and had developed the trade route through Lakes Ladoga and Onega from the Gulf of Finland to the White Sea. However, by the time Peter had come of age, his half-brother's rule had been firmly established, so Peter had had little reason to challenge it.
In 1626, with the death of John IV and the crowning of his young son as King, Peter finally felt that it was now time to act. He raised an army in Finland, and sailed across the Gulf of Bothnia. His arrival in Sweden at the head of an army was a surprise to many, and Queen Cecilia and the boy-King Gustav were forced to flee Stockholm. While the Swedish army in Halland was loyal to Cecilia, most of the Swedish nobles cared little for their Austrian Catholic Queen. It didn't help that Cecilia was not the only Queen in Sweden, as Queen Sigrid, wife of John III and mother of Peter, was fully supporting Peter's claim to the throne. Peter was quickly able to gain the loyalty of much of the court, but was soon threatened by the Swedish army, which was now on its way home from Halland.
While few Swedish nobles came to the aid of Queen Cecilia, even fewer came to the aid of Peter, largely out of fear that they would be punished if Peter's claim was to end in defeat. Thus, Peter was forced to turn to Denmark to help him secure his position on the throne. He agreed to return Älvsborg and the occupied areas of Halland to Denmark if Danish troops would come to his aid against Cecilia's army. Duke John of Schleswig-Holstein, eager to have a pro-Danish monarch on the Swedish throne, soon dispatched aid to Peter. In the late summer of 1626 the combined forces of Finand and Denmark would defeat the Swedish army in battle, securing Peter's place on the throne, and leading to his coronation as King in the fall.
Thus, while Sweden did intervene in the First Schismatic War, their intervention was less decisive than intended. Swedish troops were not able to cripple Denmark, nor were they able to force Danish troops to withdraw from Silesia. The one effect that the Swedish intervention had was to force Denmark to spend more money on the mercenaries used to defend Halland, thus making the Danish debt crisis worse than it otherwise would have been.
During the early years of the First Schismatic War, there was much hope by various members of the League of Dresden that they could convince the Navarrese Netherlands to join the war on their side. The Netherlands possessed both a strong experienced army and a good position to intervene in the Western Theatre. Much speculation has been made as to whether a decisive intervention by the Netherlands could have provided the leadership necessary to direct troops from Jülich and Hesse Southwards in order to defend the beleaguered Palatinate. However, history would have it that the Netherlands would not join the League of Dresden. While Dutch troops would fight in the Rhineland, they would not fight for the defence of the League of Dresden, but would instead simply promote the Netherland's more local interests in the region.
To understand why Dutch intervention could not be as simple as supporting the League of Dresden, we must consider two factors. The first is religion. While the Navarrese Netherlands is often described as a Calvinist state in simplistic histories, the reality is that Calvinism was simply the religion of the Dutch Princes (and later Kings) rather than the official religion of the Netherlands. The Netherlands had a strong and vocal Catholic minority, and was constitutionally committed to the principle of religious pluralism. While King Anthony of Navarre, Prince of the Free Netherlands may have wanted to intervene on the Protestant side of the First Schismatic War, he could not expect to get the approval of the States-General in the adoption of such a purely confessional foreign policy.
Unlike the rest of the Empire which followed the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, the Netherlands followed the principle that is popularly referred to as cuius provincio, eius religio. This meant that the States of each province of the Netherlands, rather than the Prince, had the right to determine the official religion of that province. Some provinces, such as Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, Overijssel and Lower Guelders were officially Calvinist, while Brabant, Limburg, and Upper Guelders [9] were officially Catholic. Groningen, always the exception to the rule, adopted Lutheranism as its official religion in 1606. The Free City of Antwerp, as the only part of the Netherlands which was not part of any Province, adopted all three Churches as official religions of the city.
While each Province had an official religion, religious minorities were protected: anyone in the Netherlands could chose to worship according to the Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist traditions although religious minorities would be organized only on the congregational level with each congregation financially responsible for hiring ministers and maintaining church buildings. The only religious policies that were adopted throughout the Navarrese Netherlands were a general requirement of tolerance, and the adopting of a single official Dutch translation of the Bible which had been commissioned by Hendrik I in 1609. This religious pluralism, which had been arrived at in the Antwerp Agreement just after the Netherlands had gained its de jure independence from Spain, was considered essential for maintaining the peace in the Netherlands. It was inconceivable that the Netherlands at this time could adopt any policy – including foreign policy - which would promote one faith at the expense of the others.
The other factor that prevented the Netherlands from joining the League of Dresden was the personality of King Anthony, who led the Netherlands through the Schismatic Wars. While Anthony's father, Henry, had seen himself as a defender of Calvinism in France and the Netherlands, Anthony had a much more ecumenical outlook. Anthony may have been one of the few monarchs of his time who truly believed in the equality of all faiths. He had married the Catholic Princess Louise of France, and had allowed his children to attend both Calvinist and Catholic services. While Henry had been one of the founding members of the League of Dresden (back when it had been the League of Utrecht), Anthony had withdrawn the Netherlands from of the League of Dresden due to objections from his Catholic subjects.
Anthony, while a principled believer in religious pluralism, was very much a pragmatist when it came to foreign policy. He had been present in Navarre during the Spanish occupation of 1597-1598, and had experienced first hand how dangerous war against a more powerful foe could be. He had no desire to antagonize France or Spain, either of which could easily overrun his Navarrese possessions. At the same time, he was ambitious on the regional stage, hoping to bring the Navarrese Netherlands to a position where it could dominate its neighbours in the same way that the Burgundian and Hapsburg Netherlands had done.
One of the local struggles in which the Navarrese Netherlands was involved was a three-way struggle for influence over the Bishopric of Liège . The Dukes of Jülich-Cleves-Berg had had a number of their cousins made Bishop of Liège over the centuries, and they desired to control the Bishopric again, and eventually secularize it and incorporate it into their domains. At the same time the Catholics of the Bishopric had turned to the governors of the Spanish Netherlands to protect them against Protestant aggression, and had chosen a series of Bishops who were very much pro-Spanish in their outlook. However, with the occupation of much of the Spanish Netherlands by France beginning in 1622, the people of Liège began to fear that they would be drawn into the conflict. Thus, in 1624, the cathedral chapter of Liège would now choose Robert de Borchegrave d'Altena, a Catholic noble from Brabant, as the new Prince-Bishop. In doing so, the Prince-Bishopric looked to the Navarrese Netherlands as its new protector.
However, before the end of the year, the Imperial Election would cause a rift between the Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Prince-Bishop Robert, like most other Prince-Bishops of his time, formally declared his support for Archduke Charles of Austria as the new Emperor. However, King Anthony was unwilling to accept the idea that a Protestant would be ineligible for the Imperial throne, did his best to remain neutral in the conflict. With the outbreak war between Bishop Robert of Liège and Duke William Frederick of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, both sides would call for the aid of the Navarrese Netherlands.
By the beginning of 1627, the Archbishopric of Cologne and half of the Archbishopric of Trier would be completely under occupation by Jülich-Cleves-Berg. While the Spanish armies still defended the Western part of the Bishopric of Liège where the Spanish road was located, the Eastern part was falling to William Frederick, who had declared his intention to secularize it and add it to his domains. These Eastern territories lay between the Dutch Provinces of Upper Guelders and Limburg, which made it imperative that the Navarrese Netherlands not allow this secularization to take place. After a brief attempt to bring the war to an end through diplomacy, it became clear that Prince Anthony had no choice but to enter the war – on the side of Prince-Bishop Robert.
The ensuing conflict between the Navarrese Netherlands and the United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg is sometimes described as part of the First Schismatic War, but is more often thought of as its own conflict. This 'Liège War', as it is called, is often described as the first sign of fracture within the Protestant powers of the Empire. However, those who refer to it as 'the beginning of the end of the League of Dresden' go a little too far, as this conflict was not fought between two members of the League of Dresden but between one member and a neutral power.
However it is described, the 'Liège War' was a great victory for the Navarrese Netherlands. The armies of King Anthony were larger and fresher than those of Duke William Frederick. Moreover, the decades of conflict against Spain had given the Dutch army the experience necessary to develop superior training and doctrine. By the end of 1627, all of the Bishopric of Liège had been liberated, and, in 1628, the war continued into William Frederick's own lands, where his capital city of Jülich would fall to a Dutch army. The Liège War would come to an end in 1628 when King Anthony would return Jülich to William Frederick in exchange for Cologne, where the Archbishopric of Cologne would be re-established under Anthony's protection.
The end result of the Liège War would be neutral toward the First Schismatic War as a whole. Certainly, the League of Dresden was weakened by the destruction of much of the army of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. However, the Alliance of the Rhine was equally weakened as the Bishopric of Liège and Archbishopric of Cologne would be forced to leave the Alliance and come under the protection of the King of Navarre. While the ecclesiastical Princes of these two states would be returned to power, the continued occupation of their lands by Dutch armies would make their foreign policies subservient to that of the Navarrese Netherlands. The fact that the next Archbishop of Cologne would be none other than Anthony's own younger brother Henry (who converted to Catholicism to take the post) would underline how much influence the Navarrese Netherlands had secured.
Thus, while Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, and the Navarrese Netherlands would all be involved in the First Schismatic War in one form or another, none would be able to make a decisive contribution to the conflict. Poland-Lithuania was too preoccupied with its internal reforms to provide anything more than logistical support. Sweden did intervene with a declaration of war on Denmark, but would be taken out of the war by its own succession crisis before it could make a substantial difference. The Navarrese Netherlands would intervene, but would do so as a neutral opportunist rather than as a supporter of either side.
Footnotes:
[1] The Polish-Swedish alliance that is being referred to is the one that was current during the Livonian War. This is the same Polish-Swedish Alliance which resulted in the marriange of Duke John of Finland to Catherine Jagellion.
[2] While, in OTL, the term 'Szlachta' is used to refer to ALL the Polish-Lithuanian nobility, in TTL, it has the specific connotation of the middle and lower nobility. This is partly because TTL will see much vilification of the Polish Magnates, and the Szlachta will make a point of excluding the Magnates from their history.
[3] The Polish House of Deputies is the elected house of the Polish legislature (or Sejm), while the Senate can be thought of as a sort of 'upper house'. Historically (in both OTL and TTL), the Polish Sejm went from being dominated by the Senate to having two equally-powerful houses, to being dominated by the House of Deputies.
[4] The Executionist Movement did exist OTL, but in TTL, it's much more successful. The term 'executionist' refers to the movement's call for the 'execution' of already-existing laws in order to require the Magnates to return land that had only been leant to them, but which they were treating as their own.
[5] The Grand Duchy of Livonia is made up of the former Duchy of Courland and the former Polish Livonia. The Duke of Courland had been stripped of his autonomy at the end of the 'veto war'.
[6] The capital city of each constituent is as follows: the Kingdom of Poland – Krakow, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – Vilnius, the Grand Duchy of Ruthenia – Kiev, the Grand Duchy of Livonia – Riga, the Duchy of Prussia – Konigsberg.
[7] In TTL, the Duchy of Prussia will continue to be held by a separate branch of the Hohezollerns and will never be inherited by Brandenburg. Thus, there will be no 'Kingdom of Prussia'.
[8] I did not plan to create a St. Petersburg when I first named John III's second son Peter. However, it seemed appropriate that a city founded in TTL by Sweden on land captured from Russia should bear the same name as one founded OTL by Russia on land captured from Sweden. TTL's St. Petersburg is on the site of OTL Belomorsk.
[9] In TTL, Guelders has been divided into Lower Guelders (consisting of the Zutphen, Veluwe and Nijmegen Quarters) and Upper Guelders (consisting of the quarter of Roermond).
The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
The Bystanders: Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands in the First Schismatic War
Compared to the Second Schismatic War and the subsequent Rhineland Wars, the First Schismatic War saw surprisingly little foreign intervention. Denmark, of course, was closely involved in the War of the Bohemian Succession from the start. However, a number of other neighbouring powers, who were courted by one or both sides during the First Schismatic War, failed to intervene decisively in the conflict in the Empire. In this chapter we will study those powers and their reasons for staying out of the First Schismatic War.
Poland-Lithuania had been a close ally of Austria for much of the 16th century, and the Polish-Austrian alliance continued into the 17th. Poland-Lithuania had also been a regular adversary of Denmark in the Baltic: the Polish-Swedish alliance of the mid-to-late 16th century [1] was as much an alliance against Denmark as it was against Russia. Once the First Schismatic War began, Austria repeatedly sent emissaries to Poland requesting aid against the League of Dresden. However, this aid never materialized until it was too late.
Poland-Lithuania stayed out of the First Schismatic War not because the country was unwilling to go to war against the League of Dresden, but simply because it was unable to spare the resources due to its ongoing struggles elsewhere. The first of these ongoing struggles was the domestic unrest which beset the Polish-Lithuanian state for the first quarter of the 17th century. This time is known in Poland as the 'First Great Reform'. However, while Polish historiography glorifies this time, the reality was that it was a period of rebellion and unrest that threatened the Jagellonian monarchy more than once. While the 'First Great Reform' was technically over by the time that the First Schismatic War began, it had drained Poland-Lithuania to the extent that it was not able to intervene.
To understand the background for the First Great Reform, we must recognize that the Polish state at the time consisted of three principle political forces: the King and Royal family, the Magnates who controlled much of Poland-Lithuania's land, and the middle and lower nobility, or Szlachta. [2] Unlike the nobility of other 16th-century realms, much of the Polish Szlachta had little or no land of their own, but their noble status still gave them the right to participate in the Polish political system to a larger degree than the equally-poor subjects of other Kingdoms. The Magnates and Szlachta together were more powerful than the King, so most Polish Kings had courted either the Magnates or the Szlachta for support.
King Sigismund I had courted the Szlachta when he empowered the Polish House of Deputies at the expense of the Magnate-dominated Senate [3], and his son Sigismund II, to a lesser degree, had continued his father's initiatives. However, King Sigismund III, who reigned from 1573 to 1605, had instead made an alliance with the powerful Magnates. The First Polish-Lithuanian Union, which created the United Sejm to oversee the joint Polish-Lithuanian military, had originally promised to empower the middle and lower Szlachta. However, it soon became apparent that the deputies sent to the United Sejm answered more to the Magnates than they did to the Szlachta: the smaller size of the United Sejm made it more easily dominated by the Magnates than the larger Polish House of Deputies.
This growth in the power of the Magnates over the last quarter of the 16th century led to the birth of the Executionist Movement. The Executionist Movement called for the King to take a stronger stance against the Magnates: empowering the Szlachta to make laws through Sejmiks (which were meetings of Szlachta themselves, rather than their deputies), and requiring the Magnates to return Royal land that had been leant to them in exchange for services. King Sigismund III gave little heed to the Executionist Movement, preferring to use the Magnates' support to continue to fight wars abroad in Livonia and the Carpathian Principalities. However, his son, who took the throne in 1605 as King John II, was much more sympathetic to the Executionist Movement, and soon the Magnates' dominance would come to an end. [4]
The 'First Great Reform' would begin with initiatives by King John II to clear the corruption which surrounded the election of deputies to the Polish House of Deputies and the United Sejm. In doing so, the Magnates lost the power they held over these two legislative bodies, and their influence was now largely confined to the Senate (of course, Magnates still participated in the various sejmiks, but their ability to control which deputies were elected were now reduced). In 1611, King John went further and began the process of requiring the Magnates to return the Royal land that had been loaned to them. While many Magnates complied with this request, many others didn't, requiring the use of the Polish-Lithuanian army to force them to relinquish the land.
In 1614, a crucial moment was reached when Jan Zbigniew Ossolinski, a Polish Senator from a powerful magnate family, attempted to block King John's intiatives. Poland's legislature had customarily followed the rule of unanimous consent, although dissenters in the past had almost always been convinced to consent to new legislation once appropriate modifications had been made. However, Jan Ossolinski took things farther than this. He used the principle of librerum veto to block any attempt by King John to raise taxes or implement new legislation, refusing to consent to any legislation until all lands were returned to the Magnates. While Jan Ossolinski was soon removed from the Senate, allowing King John's reforms to continue, his objections had set a precedent. Soon those few members of the House of Deputies who were still controlled by the Magnates began to use the principle of librerum veto themselves, blocking the passage of any legislation, and paralyzing the Polish Sejm.
In 1617, King John II declared that the right of librerum veto would be abolished, and that any future vetos could be overruled by a two-thirds majority vote. This constitutional change, while announced as a Royal decree, was supported by most of the Szlachta, and would be ratified by a two-thirds majority in the House of Deputies. However, according to most of the Magnate class, this two-thirds majority was not enough, and this Royal decree was illegal according to the principle of nihil novi. The Magnate class soon rose up in open armed revolt, and a civil war known as the 'veto war' would begin.
The 'veto war' would pit the King and the Royal Polish-Lithuanian military on one side and the various magnate families with their private armies on the other. Amongst these magnate families were the Dukes of Prussia and Courland, who, while being Polish vassals, had enjoyed a great deal of autonomy. King John's reforms to the United Sejm had stripped the two Dukes of their rights to appoint deputies directly, instead requiring these deputies to be elected by the lesser nobility of the two Duchies. This had angered the two Dukes, but they had not had a occasion on which to rise up in revolt until the outbreak of the 'veto war'.
While the 'veto war' would ultimately be won by the Polish King, it would not be an easy fight. The defeat of the revolt would cost much in the form of lives and money, and would take three years. However, the Royal victory gave King John the opportunity to strip the revolting Magnates of their remaining land, and to bring an end to the autonomy of the Duchies of Prussia and Courland. In order to determine the new form of government in Prussia and Courland, and to help settle the constitutional questions brought up by the abolishment of librerum veto, King John called Poland-Lithuania's first Great Sejm, to be made up of hundreds of deputies from across all of Poland-Lithuania. These deputies would spend three years working out a new constitution, which would create the Second Polish-Lithuanian Union in the year 1624.
To understand the nature of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Union, we must understand the struggles that were going on on Poland-Lithuania's Eastern border. King John II of Poland had reigned in Moscow as Czar before being recalled to Poland, and still claimed the Russian throne. In 1608, two years after the death of John's regent in Moscow, and the crowing of the new Czar Theodore, King John, at the request of his Russian wife, mounted an invasion of Russia, with the attempt of retaking Moscow. This invasion would falter, and ultimately end in disaster, but would scare Czar Theodore enough that he agreed to let Poland-Lithuania keep the territories around Smolensk and Chernigov in the 1610 Russian-Polish peace.
These newly-acquired territories, while they had been claimed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for quite some time, were still populated with Orthodox people who saw themselves as Russian. These people, like the population throughout much of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's Ruthenian lands, were prone to frequent revolt. Much of the Orthodox population of Russia had blamed the famine of the early 1600s on the reign of their King John of Poland as Czar, and the new Czar Theodore had become idealized as a Saint sent to overthrow all non-Orthodox rulers. This legend only served to incite further revolt, and the time of the First Great Reform saw much unrest in Ruthenia.
The unrest in Ruthenia was accompanied by outright warfare with the Cossacks who lived on the Steppe of Poland-Lithuania's Southeastern border. These Cossacks at the time were organized into two Hosts: the Zaporozhian Cossacks along the lower Dniepr, who had traditionally been allied with Poland-Lithuania, and the Don Cossacks along the Don River who had traditionally been allied with Russia. However, with the arrival of Czar Theodore, who had been raised amongst the Don Cossacks, to the Russian throne, and the descent of the Ottoman Empire into civil war, the Zaporozhian Cossacks had the opportunity to join with the Don Cossacks in war against Poland-Lithuania. The Zaporozhian Cossacks hoped to capture the cities of Kiev and Chernigov, and to rule them as the Don Cossacks ruled Kursk and Voronezh.
Thus, while King John II was fighting the 'Veto War' in the North and West, he was also fighting the 'Cossack War' in the Southeast. The 'Cossack War' was, if anything more of a threat to King John's authority than the 'Veto War' was, as the entire population of Lithuanian Ruthenia threatened to rise up and join the Cossacks. Moreover, the fact that both wars were being fought simultaneously overstretched the Polish-Lithuanian military and made each of them more of a threat.
In the end, while he dealt with the 'Veto War' himself, King John would entrust the fight against the Cossacks to his younger brother Alexander and his second son Vladislav. Alexander, as second son, had long pursued a military career, and was a capable general. However, it was Vladislav who proved indispensable in the war effort against the Cossacks. Vladislav had been born in Moscow, and had been baptised and raised Orthodox. As a child, he had been groomed to succeed to the Russian throne while King John's elder son Sigismund would succeed to the Polish Throne. Vladislav, as an Orthodox Prince who spoke perfect Russian, was able to maintain order in Chernigov and Kiev to the extent that the Cossacks never gained a foothold in either city. When the Cossack War would come to an end in 1622, the Polish-Lithuanian authority in Ruthenia would be stronger than it had ever been.
Having seen the power of his Orthodox son in restoring order to Ruthenia, King John II resolved to make this arrangement permanent. The Ruthenian lands would soon be separated from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Vladislav would be soon be appointed as the first Grand Duke of Ruthenia. This new Grand Duchy would only be one of many new constituents of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Union.
The Second Polish-Lithuanian Union would be a federal state consisting of five different constituents: the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchies of Lithuania, Ruthenia, and Livonia [5], and the Duchy of Prussia. Each constituent would have its own monarch and and its own House of Deputies which would regularly meet it its capital city [6], but the central government and United Sejm in Warsaw would control the military and foreign policy. Power would thus be shared jointly between the monarch and nobility (Szlachta) of each constituent.
The Second Polish-Lithuanian Union would also follow traditions of Polish religious tolerance in allowing each constituent to shape its own religious policy. The Grand Duchy of Ruthenia would soon be officially Orthodox, while Prussia and Livonia would adopt Lutheranism. While the Duchy of Prussia had been allowed to maintain its Lutheran Duke, the Grand Duchy of Livonia, while officially Lutheran, was still in personal union with the Catholic Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was only in 1532 that King John would convince his fourth son Albert to convert to Lutheranism in order to serve as Grand Duke of Livonia.
While the Second Polish-Lithuanian Union would create a more stable and lasting constitutional settlement than the First Polish-Lithuanian Union, the 'First Great Reform' that had established this Union had drained the Polish treasury and exhausted its military. Thus, when the First Schismatic War broke out in 1625, the Polish King could do little more than declare his diplomatic support for Charles as Emperor.
By 1628, the Silesian campaign of Waldstein passed close enough to the Polish border that John felt he could offer some support. However, he refrained from sending troops into the Empire for fear of attracting the wrath of the League of Dresden and his own Lutheran subjects (especially the Duke of Prussia who was a cousin of the Elector of Brandenburg [7]). Instead, he simply provided Waldstein with supplies for his troops, allowing him to supply his army through Poland when his supply train from Bohemia and Moravia was cut.
This aid would simply not be enough to make a difference in the long run, and Waldstein would soon be forced to withdraw from Silesia. With the end of the Silesian campaign there would be no more opportunity for indirect Polish intervention. While the Polish-Austrian alliance would continue, there would be little King John II could do without directly attacking the territory of the League of Dresden. Any such direct attack would be off the table until King John felt that his domestic situation was more stable, and by the time Poland-Lithuania entered a period of greater stability, the First Schismatic War would be over.
Sweden was another power which was sought out as an ally in the First Schismatic War. Unlike Poland, Sweden was courted by both the League of Dresden as well as the Hapsburgs. Many amateur historians assume that Sweden, as a Lutheran power, would have jumped at the chance of supporting a movement aimed at placing a Lutheran on the Imperial throne. However, such an assumption overlooks the fact that the First Schismatic War took place during the reign of Kings John IV and Gustav II, two of the few Kings of Sweden who wer overtly Catholic.
John IV was the eldest surviving son of King John III of Sweden. John III had succumbed to the pro-Catholic influence of his Polish wife, and had attempted a number of reforms of the Swedish Church to make it more Catholic. However, these reforms had caused much unrest amongst the Swedish people, and, upon the death of Catherine Jagiellon, King John II was forced to take a Lutheran second wife. His new wife, Sigrid Brahe, did her best to encourage Lutheran beliefs in her husband John III and step-son John IV.
While Queen Sigrid did succeed at drawing her husband away from Catholicism, her efforts were much less successful with the future John IV. Prince John resented his stepmother's attempts to convert him, and detested his arranged marriage to the Lutheran Maria Hedwig of Pomerania. Efforts by his family to bring him back to the Lutheran fold only made John's Catholic tendencies stronger. Many members of the Swedish court began to suggest that John might be passed over in the line of succession in favour of his Lutheran half-brother Peter. However, when King John III died in 1601, Peter was only 8 years old, so there was little choice but for the Riksdag to elect John IV to the throne.
The reign of John IV is known as a time of much unrest in Sweden. While it was established early on that John could only expect to keep his crown if Lutheranism remained the official religion of Sweden, John did much to try to bring the Swedish Church closer to the Catholic model. While John III had given up on Church reforms in order to expand Swedish territory into Estonia, Ingria and Karelia, John IV was pre-occupied with religious matters, and gave little attention to anything East of the Gulf of Bothnia. The expansion and development of the newly-acquired Swedish Karelia was entrusted to John's half-brother Peter, who, as Duke of Finland, was put in charge of all of Sweden's Eastern territories.
John IV's first marriage would remain loveless and barren, and King John eagerly awaited the day when he could take a younger, Catholic, bride. While John was unwilling to have his marriage annulled or his Queen killed, he neglected and mistreated her, and Queen Maria Hedwig's death in 1613 is thought by many to have been a suicide. With the death of his first wife, King John was able to secure a marital alliance with Austria, and, in 1615, Archduchess Cecilia of Upper Austria (the older sister of the future Emperor Charles II) became his second wife. While the new Catholic Queen was unpopular with the Swedish people, Sweden had already grown used to having a Catholic King, and begrudgingly tolerated their Catholic monarchs.
Queen Cecilia would soon turn the attention of King John to affairs beyond his borders. With the outbreak of the War of the Bohemian Succession, Austria began looking for allies against Denmark, and Sweden was at the top of the list. Austria promised King John support if he was to declare war against Denmark. With much of the Danish armies distracted in Bohemia, it was thought that Sweden could easily retake Älvsborg (the former Swedish possession which would give Sweden access to the Skaggerak and North Sea) and maybe even take control of Scania.
While King John was convinced of the need for war by 1622, convincing the Swedish Riksdag proved a lot more difficulty. It was only when the Imperial Election of 1624 threatened to place the Danish King on the Imperial throne that the Riksdag was finally willing to support a war. In April of 1625, Sweden declared war on Denmark, and Swedish troops marched to Älvsborg to begin a siege that would last most of the summer.
While the Danes had much improved the fortifications at Älvsborg since they had taken control at the end of the Älvsborg War, these improvements only served to lengthen the siege. The Danes did attempt to relieve the fortress, but were defeated in battle, and were forced to give up Älvsborg by August. However, John, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, the younger brother of King Christian IV who ruled Denmark while Christian was busy in the Empire, was determined not to let the Swedes make use of Älvsborg's harbour. The docks and other facilities were burned, and two ships were sunk in the entrance to the port to prevent Swedish ships from entering the harbour. Thus, by the time the Swedes took control of Älvsborg, its strategic value had been much reduced.
Denmark's strategy for the remainder of the war would be to deny Sweden access to the North Sea trade at all costs. There were a number of staples (such as salt) which had to be imported to Sweden either via the Danish Straits or overland via Scania or Norway. Armies in both Scania and Norway were sent to cut off overland trade, and the tolls on the Danish Straits were increased. The hope was to drive up prices in Sweden in order to force them to break off the war effort.
Thus, Sweden spent the rest of the war desperately trying to gain access to a port in Halland. Because of this, this theatre of the First Schismatic War is often known as the 'Halland War'. After the capture of Älvsborg, the Swedish armies would move South in order to attempt to take control of the town of Kungsbacka. Kungsbacka would fall easily, but the Swedes would soon discover that its river was quite silted up and unusable as a port. Thus, the Swedish armies would be forced to continue further South to attack Varberg and to try to take control of the port there.
The Battle of Varberg would be the first Danish victory in the Halland War. While it would not be a decisive victory - it would simply bring a halt to the Swedish advance - it would force the Swedes to retreat for the time being, and would bring an end to the 1625 campaign season. While the Swedes planned for a renewed attack on Varberg in 1626, their plans would prove fruitless when King John IV, already 60 years old, would succumb to illness over the winter. His young son would soon be crowned King Gustav II, and Queen Cecilia would be made Regent, but this Regency would soon be challenged.
Duke Peter of Finland, King John III's second surviving son, had long felt that the Swedish throne should be his. He was a devoted Lutheran, and had been, in the eyes of many, more successful than his elder half-brother. It was Peter who had established the town of St. Petersburg [8] on the White Sea coast of Swedish Karelia, and had developed the trade route through Lakes Ladoga and Onega from the Gulf of Finland to the White Sea. However, by the time Peter had come of age, his half-brother's rule had been firmly established, so Peter had had little reason to challenge it.
In 1626, with the death of John IV and the crowning of his young son as King, Peter finally felt that it was now time to act. He raised an army in Finland, and sailed across the Gulf of Bothnia. His arrival in Sweden at the head of an army was a surprise to many, and Queen Cecilia and the boy-King Gustav were forced to flee Stockholm. While the Swedish army in Halland was loyal to Cecilia, most of the Swedish nobles cared little for their Austrian Catholic Queen. It didn't help that Cecilia was not the only Queen in Sweden, as Queen Sigrid, wife of John III and mother of Peter, was fully supporting Peter's claim to the throne. Peter was quickly able to gain the loyalty of much of the court, but was soon threatened by the Swedish army, which was now on its way home from Halland.
While few Swedish nobles came to the aid of Queen Cecilia, even fewer came to the aid of Peter, largely out of fear that they would be punished if Peter's claim was to end in defeat. Thus, Peter was forced to turn to Denmark to help him secure his position on the throne. He agreed to return Älvsborg and the occupied areas of Halland to Denmark if Danish troops would come to his aid against Cecilia's army. Duke John of Schleswig-Holstein, eager to have a pro-Danish monarch on the Swedish throne, soon dispatched aid to Peter. In the late summer of 1626 the combined forces of Finand and Denmark would defeat the Swedish army in battle, securing Peter's place on the throne, and leading to his coronation as King in the fall.
Thus, while Sweden did intervene in the First Schismatic War, their intervention was less decisive than intended. Swedish troops were not able to cripple Denmark, nor were they able to force Danish troops to withdraw from Silesia. The one effect that the Swedish intervention had was to force Denmark to spend more money on the mercenaries used to defend Halland, thus making the Danish debt crisis worse than it otherwise would have been.
During the early years of the First Schismatic War, there was much hope by various members of the League of Dresden that they could convince the Navarrese Netherlands to join the war on their side. The Netherlands possessed both a strong experienced army and a good position to intervene in the Western Theatre. Much speculation has been made as to whether a decisive intervention by the Netherlands could have provided the leadership necessary to direct troops from Jülich and Hesse Southwards in order to defend the beleaguered Palatinate. However, history would have it that the Netherlands would not join the League of Dresden. While Dutch troops would fight in the Rhineland, they would not fight for the defence of the League of Dresden, but would instead simply promote the Netherland's more local interests in the region.
To understand why Dutch intervention could not be as simple as supporting the League of Dresden, we must consider two factors. The first is religion. While the Navarrese Netherlands is often described as a Calvinist state in simplistic histories, the reality is that Calvinism was simply the religion of the Dutch Princes (and later Kings) rather than the official religion of the Netherlands. The Netherlands had a strong and vocal Catholic minority, and was constitutionally committed to the principle of religious pluralism. While King Anthony of Navarre, Prince of the Free Netherlands may have wanted to intervene on the Protestant side of the First Schismatic War, he could not expect to get the approval of the States-General in the adoption of such a purely confessional foreign policy.
Unlike the rest of the Empire which followed the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, the Netherlands followed the principle that is popularly referred to as cuius provincio, eius religio. This meant that the States of each province of the Netherlands, rather than the Prince, had the right to determine the official religion of that province. Some provinces, such as Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, Overijssel and Lower Guelders were officially Calvinist, while Brabant, Limburg, and Upper Guelders [9] were officially Catholic. Groningen, always the exception to the rule, adopted Lutheranism as its official religion in 1606. The Free City of Antwerp, as the only part of the Netherlands which was not part of any Province, adopted all three Churches as official religions of the city.
While each Province had an official religion, religious minorities were protected: anyone in the Netherlands could chose to worship according to the Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist traditions although religious minorities would be organized only on the congregational level with each congregation financially responsible for hiring ministers and maintaining church buildings. The only religious policies that were adopted throughout the Navarrese Netherlands were a general requirement of tolerance, and the adopting of a single official Dutch translation of the Bible which had been commissioned by Hendrik I in 1609. This religious pluralism, which had been arrived at in the Antwerp Agreement just after the Netherlands had gained its de jure independence from Spain, was considered essential for maintaining the peace in the Netherlands. It was inconceivable that the Netherlands at this time could adopt any policy – including foreign policy - which would promote one faith at the expense of the others.
The other factor that prevented the Netherlands from joining the League of Dresden was the personality of King Anthony, who led the Netherlands through the Schismatic Wars. While Anthony's father, Henry, had seen himself as a defender of Calvinism in France and the Netherlands, Anthony had a much more ecumenical outlook. Anthony may have been one of the few monarchs of his time who truly believed in the equality of all faiths. He had married the Catholic Princess Louise of France, and had allowed his children to attend both Calvinist and Catholic services. While Henry had been one of the founding members of the League of Dresden (back when it had been the League of Utrecht), Anthony had withdrawn the Netherlands from of the League of Dresden due to objections from his Catholic subjects.
Anthony, while a principled believer in religious pluralism, was very much a pragmatist when it came to foreign policy. He had been present in Navarre during the Spanish occupation of 1597-1598, and had experienced first hand how dangerous war against a more powerful foe could be. He had no desire to antagonize France or Spain, either of which could easily overrun his Navarrese possessions. At the same time, he was ambitious on the regional stage, hoping to bring the Navarrese Netherlands to a position where it could dominate its neighbours in the same way that the Burgundian and Hapsburg Netherlands had done.
One of the local struggles in which the Navarrese Netherlands was involved was a three-way struggle for influence over the Bishopric of Liège . The Dukes of Jülich-Cleves-Berg had had a number of their cousins made Bishop of Liège over the centuries, and they desired to control the Bishopric again, and eventually secularize it and incorporate it into their domains. At the same time the Catholics of the Bishopric had turned to the governors of the Spanish Netherlands to protect them against Protestant aggression, and had chosen a series of Bishops who were very much pro-Spanish in their outlook. However, with the occupation of much of the Spanish Netherlands by France beginning in 1622, the people of Liège began to fear that they would be drawn into the conflict. Thus, in 1624, the cathedral chapter of Liège would now choose Robert de Borchegrave d'Altena, a Catholic noble from Brabant, as the new Prince-Bishop. In doing so, the Prince-Bishopric looked to the Navarrese Netherlands as its new protector.
However, before the end of the year, the Imperial Election would cause a rift between the Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Prince-Bishop Robert, like most other Prince-Bishops of his time, formally declared his support for Archduke Charles of Austria as the new Emperor. However, King Anthony was unwilling to accept the idea that a Protestant would be ineligible for the Imperial throne, did his best to remain neutral in the conflict. With the outbreak war between Bishop Robert of Liège and Duke William Frederick of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, both sides would call for the aid of the Navarrese Netherlands.
By the beginning of 1627, the Archbishopric of Cologne and half of the Archbishopric of Trier would be completely under occupation by Jülich-Cleves-Berg. While the Spanish armies still defended the Western part of the Bishopric of Liège where the Spanish road was located, the Eastern part was falling to William Frederick, who had declared his intention to secularize it and add it to his domains. These Eastern territories lay between the Dutch Provinces of Upper Guelders and Limburg, which made it imperative that the Navarrese Netherlands not allow this secularization to take place. After a brief attempt to bring the war to an end through diplomacy, it became clear that Prince Anthony had no choice but to enter the war – on the side of Prince-Bishop Robert.
The ensuing conflict between the Navarrese Netherlands and the United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg is sometimes described as part of the First Schismatic War, but is more often thought of as its own conflict. This 'Liège War', as it is called, is often described as the first sign of fracture within the Protestant powers of the Empire. However, those who refer to it as 'the beginning of the end of the League of Dresden' go a little too far, as this conflict was not fought between two members of the League of Dresden but between one member and a neutral power.
However it is described, the 'Liège War' was a great victory for the Navarrese Netherlands. The armies of King Anthony were larger and fresher than those of Duke William Frederick. Moreover, the decades of conflict against Spain had given the Dutch army the experience necessary to develop superior training and doctrine. By the end of 1627, all of the Bishopric of Liège had been liberated, and, in 1628, the war continued into William Frederick's own lands, where his capital city of Jülich would fall to a Dutch army. The Liège War would come to an end in 1628 when King Anthony would return Jülich to William Frederick in exchange for Cologne, where the Archbishopric of Cologne would be re-established under Anthony's protection.
The end result of the Liège War would be neutral toward the First Schismatic War as a whole. Certainly, the League of Dresden was weakened by the destruction of much of the army of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. However, the Alliance of the Rhine was equally weakened as the Bishopric of Liège and Archbishopric of Cologne would be forced to leave the Alliance and come under the protection of the King of Navarre. While the ecclesiastical Princes of these two states would be returned to power, the continued occupation of their lands by Dutch armies would make their foreign policies subservient to that of the Navarrese Netherlands. The fact that the next Archbishop of Cologne would be none other than Anthony's own younger brother Henry (who converted to Catholicism to take the post) would underline how much influence the Navarrese Netherlands had secured.
Thus, while Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, and the Navarrese Netherlands would all be involved in the First Schismatic War in one form or another, none would be able to make a decisive contribution to the conflict. Poland-Lithuania was too preoccupied with its internal reforms to provide anything more than logistical support. Sweden did intervene with a declaration of war on Denmark, but would be taken out of the war by its own succession crisis before it could make a substantial difference. The Navarrese Netherlands would intervene, but would do so as a neutral opportunist rather than as a supporter of either side.
Footnotes:
[1] The Polish-Swedish alliance that is being referred to is the one that was current during the Livonian War. This is the same Polish-Swedish Alliance which resulted in the marriange of Duke John of Finland to Catherine Jagellion.
[2] While, in OTL, the term 'Szlachta' is used to refer to ALL the Polish-Lithuanian nobility, in TTL, it has the specific connotation of the middle and lower nobility. This is partly because TTL will see much vilification of the Polish Magnates, and the Szlachta will make a point of excluding the Magnates from their history.
[3] The Polish House of Deputies is the elected house of the Polish legislature (or Sejm), while the Senate can be thought of as a sort of 'upper house'. Historically (in both OTL and TTL), the Polish Sejm went from being dominated by the Senate to having two equally-powerful houses, to being dominated by the House of Deputies.
[4] The Executionist Movement did exist OTL, but in TTL, it's much more successful. The term 'executionist' refers to the movement's call for the 'execution' of already-existing laws in order to require the Magnates to return land that had only been leant to them, but which they were treating as their own.
[5] The Grand Duchy of Livonia is made up of the former Duchy of Courland and the former Polish Livonia. The Duke of Courland had been stripped of his autonomy at the end of the 'veto war'.
[6] The capital city of each constituent is as follows: the Kingdom of Poland – Krakow, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – Vilnius, the Grand Duchy of Ruthenia – Kiev, the Grand Duchy of Livonia – Riga, the Duchy of Prussia – Konigsberg.
[7] In TTL, the Duchy of Prussia will continue to be held by a separate branch of the Hohezollerns and will never be inherited by Brandenburg. Thus, there will be no 'Kingdom of Prussia'.
[8] I did not plan to create a St. Petersburg when I first named John III's second son Peter. However, it seemed appropriate that a city founded in TTL by Sweden on land captured from Russia should bear the same name as one founded OTL by Russia on land captured from Sweden. TTL's St. Petersburg is on the site of OTL Belomorsk.
[9] In TTL, Guelders has been divided into Lower Guelders (consisting of the Zutphen, Veluwe and Nijmegen Quarters) and Upper Guelders (consisting of the quarter of Roermond).
Update 35 - the Meddler
Update 35 - the Meddler
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
Update 35 - The Meddler: France in The First Schismatic War[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] While Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands barely intervened in the First Schismatic War, France was another story. The entrance of France into the First Schismatic War would drastically turned the tide of the war, bringing it to an end and setting the stage for the Second Schismatic War.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] While France would not enter the First Schismatic War until 1628, its troops had already been fighting in the Netherlands for many years before this. The conflict between France and Spain in the Netherlands would begin in 1622, with the War of the Bohemian Succession already underway. France claimed the provinces of Artois, Hainaut, Namur and Lille [1] according to the Franco-Spanish agreement of 1616, and its troops entered the Netherlands with the goal of securing these territories.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The phase of the conflict from 1622 to 1625 is often known as the “Game of Castles” as both sides attempted to secure control of as many fortresses as possible before a declaration of war would be issued. France argued that the Spanish Netherlands had been handed over by treaty, and therefore, it required no declaration of war to enforce this treaty, while Spain was not willing to declare war until it had a large enough army in the Netherlands to defeat the French in the field. Thus France began a series of drawn-out sieges, attempting to force the various Spanish garrisons to surrender without a fight (as an actual assault or battle outside the walls might trigger a declaration of war), while Spain began moving troops to the Netherlands both by evacuating its armies from England and Ireland, and bringing fresh troops up from Italy via the Spanish Road.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In the end, France would prove to be the winner of the “Game of Castles”. France was able to succeed at securing enough fortresses in Artois to establish a land route from France proper to French Flanders, while cutting off Spanish-occupied Calais (where most of the troops from England and Ireland disembarked) from resupply via the Spanish Road. Spain soon began diplomatic initiatives to try to allow its armies in Calais to pass into Hainaut via the Navarrese Netherlands, but was ultimately unsuccessful as the Kings of France and Navarre were close allies at this time (each was married to the other’s sister). Thus, during the “Game of Castles”, the Spanish 'Army of Britain' [2] in Calais had to be supplied by sea from Ireland at great expense.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] However, by 1625, Spain felt that it had amassed enough of an army in Hainaut to attempt a declaration of war, and the Army of Hainaut began an attack on Lens, which was seen by the Spanish as the weakest point in the line of French fortresses stretching across Artois. Lens did fall before a Spanish onslaught, but the French Army of Flanders engaged the Army of Hainaut only days after the assault on Lens. The Spanish army was still exhausted from the assault, and was not able to hold out long enough for the 'Army of Britain' to come to its relief. [3] While the two armies were able to link up, they were forced to retreat back to Hainaut, allowing France to overrun Calais and Western Artois.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] For the next two years, Spanish troops began a slow withdrawal from the remainder of Artois and Lille. Victories were won against the French, but nothing was decisive enough to take back Artois before the French could reinforce their position. Larger and larger armies were sent over the Spanish road to reinforce Hainaut. Spain also attempted an invasion of Rousillon in 1626 in an attempt to force a withdrawal from the Netherlands, but the French defensive position was too strong for a quick Spanish victory. The war began to draw out, as France slowly but surely gained the advantage.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] As neither side showed a decisive advantage in either the Franco-Spanish War nor the First Schismatic War, it became clear to the French leaders that their best hope for a quick victory would be to intervene in the Empire. King Henry III of France had not yet declared support for either Charles or Christian as Emperor, hoping to use the potential for French intervention as a bargaining chip. However, with no prospects for a quick victory in Hainaut, France thought about cutting off the Spanish Road in Lorraine or Franche-Comté, in the hopes that a decisive victory by France in the Empire could potentially allow for a trade of Imperial territory for the Spanish Netherlands.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] However, before France could intervene, the Spanish army under the Count of Collalto diverted itself from Hainaut to come to the aid of the Duke of Lorraine. This made an invasion of Lorraine that much less tempting for France, but also withdrew needed reinforcements from Hainaut. This allowed the French to defeat the weakened Spanish Army of Hainaut, and continue their advance Eastward. By the end of 1627, much of Hainaut had fallen, and it seemed likely that the remainder would fall in the subsequent year.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] With victory within sight in the Netherlands, France looked for opportunities to press its advantage elsewhere. Some advocated pursuing the Army of Hainaut in their retreat towards Luxemburg, but the Bishopric of Liège, which was now allied with the Navarrese Netherlands, was unwilling to let a French army pass through. At the same time, France was receiving more and more urgent pleas from the Protestant princes of the Rhineland, whose lands were being occupied by the Count of Collalto.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In the end, King Henry felt that a war of liberation in the Rhineland would be much easier to defend diplomatically than a war of conquest in Luxemburg, and declared his support for Emperor-Elect Christian in August of 1628. French troops would soon enter the Empire, and would pass through Metz [4] and across Northern Lorraine to Saarbrucken, where they would enter the Western lands of the Elector Palatine. The French army would descend upon the City of Speyer late in 1628, just as Collalto’s army was making plans to cross the Rhine and besiege Heidelberg.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The French victory at the Battle of Speyer would be a memorable moment in the history of the Rhineland. After this point, it would be France, rather than the League of Dresden, which would be seen as the protector of the Rhineland’s Protestants, and Elector Palatine Frederick would feel indebted to France for the rest of his reign. The Franco-Palatine alliance, agreed in March of 1629, would mark the beginning of a diplomatic shift which would would give France more and more power in the Rhineland, and would soon evolve to become the League of Heidelberg.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The army of the Count of Collalto had largely been destroyed at Speyer, and French troops now had free reign in the region. By the end of 1629, the Duchy of Lorraine would be completely occupied by French troops. The Archbishop of Trier, whose Northern lands had already been overrun by Hessian troops, allowed a French occupation of Trier proper in exchange for a promise to defend the Catholic faith in the region. The Archbishop of Mainz would follow the lead of his ally in the Palatinate and would sign an alliance with France. The remaining members of the Catholic Alliance of the Rhine would seek the protection of either Tirolean troops operating in Breisgau or Spanish troops in Luxemburg.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The rapid advance of France into the Rhineland made it clear that the Austrian Hapsburgs could not hope to decisively win this war, at least not as long as France continued to support Emperor-Elect Christian. However, the decision of France to defend the rights of the Catholics of the Archbishopric of Trier led many to question whether or not the Charbonniste King really had any desire to promote Protestantism in the Empire. Many members of the League of Dresden began to vocally suspect that France had more interest in destabilizing the Empire than in promoting a Lutheran Emperor. [5][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Thus, in 1630 both Christian and Charles came to the agreement that it was time for peace and would meet at Aussig on the Bohemian-Silesian border. The War of the Bohemian Succession was officially ended with Charles receiving Bohemia and Moravia and Christian receiving Silesia and Lusatia. The title 'King of Bohemia' and the corresponding Electoral vote would go to Charles, but in turn Charles promised the creation of a new Electorate of Silesia to be held by Christian. The question of who held the rights to the Imperial Throne was deferred by an agreement that the Empire was currently in a state of interregnum, and that the next Emperor could only be elected by the Imperial Diet as a whole.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Until the Imperial Diet could come to an agreement on the issue of Succession, the Peace of Aussig would place the Empire under the control of a Regency. This Regency would begin the process we now know as the Imperial Schism [6], as the Empire was divided between Christian and Charles. King Christian of Denmark would be Regent of the North with authority over the Upper Saxon, Lower Saxon, Westphalian, and Burgundian Circles while King Charles of Bohemia would be Regent of the South with authority over the Austrian, Bavarian, Franconian, Upper Rhenish, and Electoral Rhenish Circles. An agreement between the Regents allowed the transfer of the Hessian territories from the Upper Rhenish Circle to the Westphalian Circle while the Spanish possessions in Luxembourg and the Franche-Comté were moved from the Burgundian Circle to the Upper Rhenish Circle. [7][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The legitimacy of the Peace of Aussig would be questioned by many of the Imperial Princes, especially the Elector Palatine, who, according to Imperial law, was supposed to govern the South through any period of interregnum. [8] However, the majority of the League of Dresden and the main Catholic powers all supported the peace, and thus France and its allies agreed to cease fighting in the Rhineland for the time being. However, France was unwilling to recognize the authority of the Regents over its occupied territory and would continue to occupy Lorraine, the Spanish Netherlands, and much of the Rhineland until the outbreak of the Second Schismatic War.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Fighting between France and Spain would continue for another year before the Regents could force them to make peace. During this time, France’s troops would enter Luxemburg, although they would be unable to gain a firm foothold, while Spain would be unsuccessful at advancing further into Rousillon. The Franco-Spanish War would come to an end in 1631 when Spain would officially give up control of the Spanish Netherlands while keeping Luxemburg and Franche-Comte while France would keep Rousillon. The newly-acquired territories of Artois, Hainaut, Namur and Lille would be joined with Flanders to form the French Netherlands, which for now would continue to be ruled as an imperial fief.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] While the French armies had been busy fighting in the Netherlands and the Rhineland, King Henry III had been busy solidifying the position of the French Church. His elder brother, Francis II, had appointed the Archbishop of Sens as Patriach of the Eglise Charbonniste in an attempt to bring the Charbonniste Church back under the Roman Catholic umbrella. Henry III had continued his brother’s efforts to merge the two Churches of France, but, rather than trying to make Charbonnisme more Catholic, he began to make Catholicism more Charbonniste.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The French Catholic Church had already moved some distance from Rome since the rejection of the Council of Trent by the French King. Many in the French Catholic Church already resented the influence of the Papacy over Ecclesiastical affairs in France, although few were willing to openly object to the Pope’s position at the head of the Church. In 1614, a number of French Bishops published a pamphlet making the distinction between Papal Primacy and Papal Supremacy. It argued that the Pope’s position as Bishop of Rome gave him a privileged position within the Church, but did not give him any authority over the French Catholic Church. These Bishops were soon excommunicated by the Pope, and were removed from their posts by Francis II, but were in turn welcomed into the hierarchy of the Charbonniste Church.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In the early years of his reign, King Henry III of France had begun efforts to promote the questioning of Papal Supremacy within the French Catholic Church, while at the same time getting the Charbonniste hierarchy used to serving under a Catholic Archbishop. As a Charbonniste ruling over a Catholic-majority Kingdom, he hoped to create a single Church for France which could take in both France’s Catholics as well as its Charbonnistes, and hoped to unite this Church under Royal authority. In 1626, Henry officially merged the two Churches creating the Royal Church of France. The Royal Church of France would remain in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, although it would firmly reject any Papal authority over its affairs, styling itself an Autocephalous Church with the King of France and Patriarch of Sens [9] at its head.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The Pope in Rome would at first dismiss the Royal Church of France as a product of the ongoing Franco-Spanish War. The Pope, firmly aligned with the Hapsburgs, did not expect to hold any influence over France when France was at war with his patron. However, as soon as the Franco-Spanish war ended in 1631, the Pope began diplomatic efforts to try to regain his supremacy over the French Church. While his efforts would not be successful, the Royal Church of France did reiterate its position that it was still, and would always remain, part of the Catholic Church. Sens and Rome would remain on friendly terms, and the issue of Papal Supremacy would be ignored for the time being.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Thus, France would come out in a dominant position at the end of the First Schismatic War. They would have secured a firm victory in their war with Spain and would take up a role as protector of the Rhineland. They would reject Papal supremacy over their Church, thus removing the little remaining indirect influence the Hapsburgs would have over the French Church. Through these acts, France would demonstrate that it was no longer the Hapsburgs who were the power to be feared in Europe. France would go on to be the premier power of Europe throughout much of the rest of the 17th century.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Footnotes:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][1] If you remember, Artois, Hainaut, Namur, and Lille is all that is left of the Spanish Netherlands. In TTL, Luxembourg is also still Spanish, but is not lumped in with the 'Spanish Netherlands'.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][2] It is called the 'Army of Britain' because it is made up of the units that were formerly fighting for the Spanish in England and Ireland.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][3] If Spain had had some way of letting their troops in Calais know about their planned assault on Lens, things might have worked out better, but at this point in time, the troops in Calais had to wait for the Army of Hainaut to break through the French defensive lines before a messenger could be sent to call for aid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][4] I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but, like OTL, the Bishopric of Metz is under French control, although it is still de jure part of the HRE.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][5] Of course France is interested in destabilizing the Empire. They're just trying to do it in such a way as to make them look like a liberator rather than an aggressor.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][6] This war is called the First 'Schismatic' War because it gave rise to the 'Imperial Schism'. The 'Second Schismatic War' will give rise to a Schism of its own.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][7] The idea here is to place most of the land controlled by members of the League of Dresden under Christian's Regency, while the land controlled by the various Hapsburgs armies is now under the Regency of Charles.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][8] In times of interregnum, the Elector Palatine is supposed to govern the South while the Elector of Saxony is supposed to govern the North. The Elector of Saxony is willing to cede his position to King Christian as they are close allies, but the Elector Palatine is very much unwilling to move over for the sake of the Austrian Hapsburgs, who he still sees as enemies.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][9] Henry III has begun a tradition that whoever holds the Archdiocese of Sens will be the highest ecclesiastical authority in the Royal Church of France. He has adapted the Charbonniste title of Patriarch for this position. The structure of the Royal Church of France looks very much like that of OTL's Anglican Church with a Monarch at the top. The Patriarch of Sens is TTL's Archbishop of Canterbury.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
Update 35 - The Meddler: France in The First Schismatic War[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] While Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands barely intervened in the First Schismatic War, France was another story. The entrance of France into the First Schismatic War would drastically turned the tide of the war, bringing it to an end and setting the stage for the Second Schismatic War.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] While France would not enter the First Schismatic War until 1628, its troops had already been fighting in the Netherlands for many years before this. The conflict between France and Spain in the Netherlands would begin in 1622, with the War of the Bohemian Succession already underway. France claimed the provinces of Artois, Hainaut, Namur and Lille [1] according to the Franco-Spanish agreement of 1616, and its troops entered the Netherlands with the goal of securing these territories.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The phase of the conflict from 1622 to 1625 is often known as the “Game of Castles” as both sides attempted to secure control of as many fortresses as possible before a declaration of war would be issued. France argued that the Spanish Netherlands had been handed over by treaty, and therefore, it required no declaration of war to enforce this treaty, while Spain was not willing to declare war until it had a large enough army in the Netherlands to defeat the French in the field. Thus France began a series of drawn-out sieges, attempting to force the various Spanish garrisons to surrender without a fight (as an actual assault or battle outside the walls might trigger a declaration of war), while Spain began moving troops to the Netherlands both by evacuating its armies from England and Ireland, and bringing fresh troops up from Italy via the Spanish Road.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In the end, France would prove to be the winner of the “Game of Castles”. France was able to succeed at securing enough fortresses in Artois to establish a land route from France proper to French Flanders, while cutting off Spanish-occupied Calais (where most of the troops from England and Ireland disembarked) from resupply via the Spanish Road. Spain soon began diplomatic initiatives to try to allow its armies in Calais to pass into Hainaut via the Navarrese Netherlands, but was ultimately unsuccessful as the Kings of France and Navarre were close allies at this time (each was married to the other’s sister). Thus, during the “Game of Castles”, the Spanish 'Army of Britain' [2] in Calais had to be supplied by sea from Ireland at great expense.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] However, by 1625, Spain felt that it had amassed enough of an army in Hainaut to attempt a declaration of war, and the Army of Hainaut began an attack on Lens, which was seen by the Spanish as the weakest point in the line of French fortresses stretching across Artois. Lens did fall before a Spanish onslaught, but the French Army of Flanders engaged the Army of Hainaut only days after the assault on Lens. The Spanish army was still exhausted from the assault, and was not able to hold out long enough for the 'Army of Britain' to come to its relief. [3] While the two armies were able to link up, they were forced to retreat back to Hainaut, allowing France to overrun Calais and Western Artois.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] For the next two years, Spanish troops began a slow withdrawal from the remainder of Artois and Lille. Victories were won against the French, but nothing was decisive enough to take back Artois before the French could reinforce their position. Larger and larger armies were sent over the Spanish road to reinforce Hainaut. Spain also attempted an invasion of Rousillon in 1626 in an attempt to force a withdrawal from the Netherlands, but the French defensive position was too strong for a quick Spanish victory. The war began to draw out, as France slowly but surely gained the advantage.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] As neither side showed a decisive advantage in either the Franco-Spanish War nor the First Schismatic War, it became clear to the French leaders that their best hope for a quick victory would be to intervene in the Empire. King Henry III of France had not yet declared support for either Charles or Christian as Emperor, hoping to use the potential for French intervention as a bargaining chip. However, with no prospects for a quick victory in Hainaut, France thought about cutting off the Spanish Road in Lorraine or Franche-Comté, in the hopes that a decisive victory by France in the Empire could potentially allow for a trade of Imperial territory for the Spanish Netherlands.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] However, before France could intervene, the Spanish army under the Count of Collalto diverted itself from Hainaut to come to the aid of the Duke of Lorraine. This made an invasion of Lorraine that much less tempting for France, but also withdrew needed reinforcements from Hainaut. This allowed the French to defeat the weakened Spanish Army of Hainaut, and continue their advance Eastward. By the end of 1627, much of Hainaut had fallen, and it seemed likely that the remainder would fall in the subsequent year.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] With victory within sight in the Netherlands, France looked for opportunities to press its advantage elsewhere. Some advocated pursuing the Army of Hainaut in their retreat towards Luxemburg, but the Bishopric of Liège, which was now allied with the Navarrese Netherlands, was unwilling to let a French army pass through. At the same time, France was receiving more and more urgent pleas from the Protestant princes of the Rhineland, whose lands were being occupied by the Count of Collalto.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In the end, King Henry felt that a war of liberation in the Rhineland would be much easier to defend diplomatically than a war of conquest in Luxemburg, and declared his support for Emperor-Elect Christian in August of 1628. French troops would soon enter the Empire, and would pass through Metz [4] and across Northern Lorraine to Saarbrucken, where they would enter the Western lands of the Elector Palatine. The French army would descend upon the City of Speyer late in 1628, just as Collalto’s army was making plans to cross the Rhine and besiege Heidelberg.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The French victory at the Battle of Speyer would be a memorable moment in the history of the Rhineland. After this point, it would be France, rather than the League of Dresden, which would be seen as the protector of the Rhineland’s Protestants, and Elector Palatine Frederick would feel indebted to France for the rest of his reign. The Franco-Palatine alliance, agreed in March of 1629, would mark the beginning of a diplomatic shift which would would give France more and more power in the Rhineland, and would soon evolve to become the League of Heidelberg.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The army of the Count of Collalto had largely been destroyed at Speyer, and French troops now had free reign in the region. By the end of 1629, the Duchy of Lorraine would be completely occupied by French troops. The Archbishop of Trier, whose Northern lands had already been overrun by Hessian troops, allowed a French occupation of Trier proper in exchange for a promise to defend the Catholic faith in the region. The Archbishop of Mainz would follow the lead of his ally in the Palatinate and would sign an alliance with France. The remaining members of the Catholic Alliance of the Rhine would seek the protection of either Tirolean troops operating in Breisgau or Spanish troops in Luxemburg.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The rapid advance of France into the Rhineland made it clear that the Austrian Hapsburgs could not hope to decisively win this war, at least not as long as France continued to support Emperor-Elect Christian. However, the decision of France to defend the rights of the Catholics of the Archbishopric of Trier led many to question whether or not the Charbonniste King really had any desire to promote Protestantism in the Empire. Many members of the League of Dresden began to vocally suspect that France had more interest in destabilizing the Empire than in promoting a Lutheran Emperor. [5][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Thus, in 1630 both Christian and Charles came to the agreement that it was time for peace and would meet at Aussig on the Bohemian-Silesian border. The War of the Bohemian Succession was officially ended with Charles receiving Bohemia and Moravia and Christian receiving Silesia and Lusatia. The title 'King of Bohemia' and the corresponding Electoral vote would go to Charles, but in turn Charles promised the creation of a new Electorate of Silesia to be held by Christian. The question of who held the rights to the Imperial Throne was deferred by an agreement that the Empire was currently in a state of interregnum, and that the next Emperor could only be elected by the Imperial Diet as a whole.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Until the Imperial Diet could come to an agreement on the issue of Succession, the Peace of Aussig would place the Empire under the control of a Regency. This Regency would begin the process we now know as the Imperial Schism [6], as the Empire was divided between Christian and Charles. King Christian of Denmark would be Regent of the North with authority over the Upper Saxon, Lower Saxon, Westphalian, and Burgundian Circles while King Charles of Bohemia would be Regent of the South with authority over the Austrian, Bavarian, Franconian, Upper Rhenish, and Electoral Rhenish Circles. An agreement between the Regents allowed the transfer of the Hessian territories from the Upper Rhenish Circle to the Westphalian Circle while the Spanish possessions in Luxembourg and the Franche-Comté were moved from the Burgundian Circle to the Upper Rhenish Circle. [7][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The legitimacy of the Peace of Aussig would be questioned by many of the Imperial Princes, especially the Elector Palatine, who, according to Imperial law, was supposed to govern the South through any period of interregnum. [8] However, the majority of the League of Dresden and the main Catholic powers all supported the peace, and thus France and its allies agreed to cease fighting in the Rhineland for the time being. However, France was unwilling to recognize the authority of the Regents over its occupied territory and would continue to occupy Lorraine, the Spanish Netherlands, and much of the Rhineland until the outbreak of the Second Schismatic War.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Fighting between France and Spain would continue for another year before the Regents could force them to make peace. During this time, France’s troops would enter Luxemburg, although they would be unable to gain a firm foothold, while Spain would be unsuccessful at advancing further into Rousillon. The Franco-Spanish War would come to an end in 1631 when Spain would officially give up control of the Spanish Netherlands while keeping Luxemburg and Franche-Comte while France would keep Rousillon. The newly-acquired territories of Artois, Hainaut, Namur and Lille would be joined with Flanders to form the French Netherlands, which for now would continue to be ruled as an imperial fief.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] While the French armies had been busy fighting in the Netherlands and the Rhineland, King Henry III had been busy solidifying the position of the French Church. His elder brother, Francis II, had appointed the Archbishop of Sens as Patriach of the Eglise Charbonniste in an attempt to bring the Charbonniste Church back under the Roman Catholic umbrella. Henry III had continued his brother’s efforts to merge the two Churches of France, but, rather than trying to make Charbonnisme more Catholic, he began to make Catholicism more Charbonniste.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The French Catholic Church had already moved some distance from Rome since the rejection of the Council of Trent by the French King. Many in the French Catholic Church already resented the influence of the Papacy over Ecclesiastical affairs in France, although few were willing to openly object to the Pope’s position at the head of the Church. In 1614, a number of French Bishops published a pamphlet making the distinction between Papal Primacy and Papal Supremacy. It argued that the Pope’s position as Bishop of Rome gave him a privileged position within the Church, but did not give him any authority over the French Catholic Church. These Bishops were soon excommunicated by the Pope, and were removed from their posts by Francis II, but were in turn welcomed into the hierarchy of the Charbonniste Church.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In the early years of his reign, King Henry III of France had begun efforts to promote the questioning of Papal Supremacy within the French Catholic Church, while at the same time getting the Charbonniste hierarchy used to serving under a Catholic Archbishop. As a Charbonniste ruling over a Catholic-majority Kingdom, he hoped to create a single Church for France which could take in both France’s Catholics as well as its Charbonnistes, and hoped to unite this Church under Royal authority. In 1626, Henry officially merged the two Churches creating the Royal Church of France. The Royal Church of France would remain in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, although it would firmly reject any Papal authority over its affairs, styling itself an Autocephalous Church with the King of France and Patriarch of Sens [9] at its head.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The Pope in Rome would at first dismiss the Royal Church of France as a product of the ongoing Franco-Spanish War. The Pope, firmly aligned with the Hapsburgs, did not expect to hold any influence over France when France was at war with his patron. However, as soon as the Franco-Spanish war ended in 1631, the Pope began diplomatic efforts to try to regain his supremacy over the French Church. While his efforts would not be successful, the Royal Church of France did reiterate its position that it was still, and would always remain, part of the Catholic Church. Sens and Rome would remain on friendly terms, and the issue of Papal Supremacy would be ignored for the time being.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Thus, France would come out in a dominant position at the end of the First Schismatic War. They would have secured a firm victory in their war with Spain and would take up a role as protector of the Rhineland. They would reject Papal supremacy over their Church, thus removing the little remaining indirect influence the Hapsburgs would have over the French Church. Through these acts, France would demonstrate that it was no longer the Hapsburgs who were the power to be feared in Europe. France would go on to be the premier power of Europe throughout much of the rest of the 17th century.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Footnotes:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][1] If you remember, Artois, Hainaut, Namur, and Lille is all that is left of the Spanish Netherlands. In TTL, Luxembourg is also still Spanish, but is not lumped in with the 'Spanish Netherlands'.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][2] It is called the 'Army of Britain' because it is made up of the units that were formerly fighting for the Spanish in England and Ireland.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][3] If Spain had had some way of letting their troops in Calais know about their planned assault on Lens, things might have worked out better, but at this point in time, the troops in Calais had to wait for the Army of Hainaut to break through the French defensive lines before a messenger could be sent to call for aid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][4] I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but, like OTL, the Bishopric of Metz is under French control, although it is still de jure part of the HRE.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][5] Of course France is interested in destabilizing the Empire. They're just trying to do it in such a way as to make them look like a liberator rather than an aggressor.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][6] This war is called the First 'Schismatic' War because it gave rise to the 'Imperial Schism'. The 'Second Schismatic War' will give rise to a Schism of its own.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][7] The idea here is to place most of the land controlled by members of the League of Dresden under Christian's Regency, while the land controlled by the various Hapsburgs armies is now under the Regency of Charles.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][8] In times of interregnum, the Elector Palatine is supposed to govern the South while the Elector of Saxony is supposed to govern the North. The Elector of Saxony is willing to cede his position to King Christian as they are close allies, but the Elector Palatine is very much unwilling to move over for the sake of the Austrian Hapsburgs, who he still sees as enemies.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][9] Henry III has begun a tradition that whoever holds the Archdiocese of Sens will be the highest ecclesiastical authority in the Royal Church of France. He has adapted the Charbonniste title of Patriarch for this position. The structure of the Royal Church of France looks very much like that of OTL's Anglican Church with a Monarch at the top. The Patriarch of Sens is TTL's Archbishop of Canterbury.[/FONT]
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Ok, I feel like I'm getting the hang of writing things with a little less detail. Updates 34 and 35 were originally planned to be the same length, but, through omitting a bunch of detail, I was able to make update 35 only half as long as its predecessor. There's one more update in Europe - update 36 - describing the aftermath of the First Schismatic War. After that will be a narrative set partly in Europe and partly in North America, and then I'll go back to North America for a time.
Update 36 - the Schismatic Peace
Update 36 - the Schismatic Peace
The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
The Schismatic Peace: 1631 – 1641:
The period from 1631 to 1641 is often described as the 'Ten Years' Peace' in histories of the Schismatic Wars. While the two main belligerents in the First Schismatic War – the Hapsburg monarchy and the League of Dresden – maintained peace with each other during this time, the empire was not entirely peaceful, as smaller-scale conflicts in the Rhineland and Bavaria would prove.
There were three main issues arising from the First Schismatic War which were not settled by the Peace of Aussig. The first was the issue of occupied territory: outside of the former Bohemian Crown, the Peace of Aussig had not said one way or the other what would happen to lands that had been captured in the First Schismatic War. The second issue was that of the Imperial Succession: a decision had been made to defer the matter to the Imperial Diet, but for now that meant that there was no man who could indisputably claim all of the the authority of the Imperial Crown. The third issue was the fact that the Peace of Aussig had only been signed by King Christian of Denmark and King Charles of Bohemia [1]: while most of the members of the League of Dresden and most of the Catholic Princes agreed to abide by the Peace of Aussig, there were a number of exceptions, most notably France and many of its Rhineland allies.
The issue of occupied territories mainly revolved around three regions. The various members of the League of Dresden had occupied a number of Bishoprics in the North of the Empire, and had secularized a number of these. These secularizations were of doubtful legality, and the Protestant Princes hoped to obtain a de jure settlement which would match the de facto situation. In Franconia and Swabia, there were a number of Protestant lands which were still under Hapsburg occupation: the most important of these being the Upper Palatinate. The Elector Palatine was willing to agree to the Peace of Aussig on the condition of the return of the Upper Palatinate, but the Upper Palatinate, lying astride the best route around Bavaria [2] from Austria to Franconia, was too important for the Hapsburgs to be surrendered easily. The third continuing occupation was in the Rhineland, where France continued to occupy Lorraine, Trier and a number of other nearby territories. Administration of the occupied lands had been turned over to the Elector Palatine (who France recognized as Regent of the South), but it was still French troops which enforced the occupation.
In order to resolve these outstanding issues, a series of meetings of the Imperial Diet were called. Bayeruth was decided upon as the location for the meetings as it was a Protestant Principality which had sided with the Hapsburgs. The First Diet of Bayeruth would meet in 1633 with the intention of concluding the issue of Succession with the Election of the next Emperor. While it had originally been thought that either Christian or Charles would be able to obtain a majority in the Imperial Diet, both candidates would lose appeal when a rumour began to spread that the two contenders for the throne had been negotiating in secret. Charles had pledged to allow the secularization of the Northern bishoprics by the League of Dresden if Christian would allow the annexation of the Upper Palatinate by the Hapsburgs. Thus, both the Ecclesiastical Princes and the Elector Palatine's Rhineland allies refused to support either candidate as Emperor, leaving neither candidate with a secure majority.
The First Diet of Bayeruth ended with little accomplished, and for a year afterward, it almost seemed that war might resume. Small skirmishes were fought between French and Tirolean armies in the Upper Rhineland, but did not break out into full-scale war. No power was willing to begin the resumption of hostilities, for fear of uniting the rest of the Empire against it, and soon the Second Diet of Bayeruth was called for 1635. The Second Diet would forego the question of succession for the time being in an attempt to settle the questions of occupied territories. The idea of allowing Charles to retain the Upper Palatinate in exchange for the secularization of the Northern Bishoprics was officially put before the Diet, and was approved, with modifications, by the majority. The Archbishoprics of Bremen and Magdeburg, and the Bishoprics of Verden, Hildesheim, Lübeck, and Osnabrück [3] would be allowed to be secularized, but a guarantee was made that any lands in the Southern half of the Empire (i.e. in the lands currently under Charles' Regency) which were currently Catholic would remain Catholic. This proposal was able to gain the support of much the League of Dresden (who gained from the secularizations), of many of the Catholic Southern Princes (who gained from the protection of their lands from Protestantism), and from the Hapsburgs (who gained the Upper Palatinate). However, it was wildly unpopular with the Elector Palatine (whose lands were forfeit), the Bishops of Münster and Paderborn (who were now the sole remaining Prince-Bishops of any importance in the Northern half of the Empire), and the Southern Protestants (who were now destined to be forever surrounded by Catholics).
The results of the Second Diet of Bayeruth would lead to the much-anticipated break between the Eastern and Western members of the League of Dresden. The Elector Palatine and many of his Rhineland allies would leave the alliance to form the League of Heidelberg. The League of Heidelberg, unlike the earlier League of Dresden and Alliance of the Rhine, would consist of both Protestant and Catholic members, and would consist of members who had supported both Charles and Christian's claims to the Imperial throne. The Archbishop of Mainz, the Elector Palatine, and France would be the three most powerful founding members, but they would soon be joined by the Archbishop of Trier, Württemberg, the Bishops of Münster and Paderborn, Ansbach, the Swiss Confederation, and Bavaria.
The League of Heidelberg would see its first challenge with the death of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria in 1635. While Charles had allowed Maximilian to rule Bavaria since the revolt of 1624 that had overthrown the Hapsburg Regency, Maximilian had never recovered from his years spent a prisoner of the Hapsburg Regency. Maximilian had been traumatized by the experience and suffered from paranoid delusions and violent episodes that had prevented him from taking a wife or taking initiative in affairs of state. Thus, much of Bavaria's governance had been trusted to a council made up of the same nobles who had instigated the 1624 revolt. As Duke Maximilian had no children or younger brother, after his early death in 1635 (often believed to be a suicide), Bavaria was left with no obvious heir to the throne.
Maximilian's elder brother, Albert, was now the only remaining male of the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittlesbach. [4] However, Albert was Archbishop of Mainz, and, having taking Holy Orders, was unmarried and ineligible for the Bavarian throne. While some tried to convince him to renounce his Holy Orders or convert to Lutheranism so he could take a wife, Albert refused to do. Thus, Bavaria would have to pass to the Palatinate branch of the House of Wittlesbach, of which Elector Frederick was the most senior member. The council of nobles who adminstered Bavaria would soon offer the Duchy's crown to Frederick, in exchange for a promise to allow Catholicism to remain the official religion of Bavaria.
However, this offer would be challenged by King Charles of Bohemia, who had been set on finding a way to add Bavaria to the Hapsburg domains ever since he had held the reins as Regent of Bavaria. He argued that the guarantee of the Second Diet of Bayeruth that all currently Catholic lands would remain Catholic made the succession of a Calvinist Prince to the Catholic throne illegal. As Regent of the South, he saw it as his duty to enforce this law, and the Hapsburg army soon entered Bavaria.
The resulting War of the Bavarian Succession would last less than a year. The Bavarian defences were no match for the Hapsburg armies, and while Bavaria was able to gain the support of troops from the Palatinate, Württemberg, and Mainz to aid in its defence, French troops were prevented from intervening by a threat that the League of Dresden would enter the war on the side of the Hapsburgs if French troops were to enter Bavaria. The remaining members of the League of Heidelberg were unable to match the Hapsburgs' military strength. By the end of 1636, Charles' firstborn son Matthias, would be crowned Duke of Bavaria. Matthias' claim, which came through his mother, was not strictly legal according to Salic Law, but was accepted anyways.
The threat of the Hapsburgs and the League of Dresden joining together in war against the League of Heidelberg led to much fear throughout the Rhineland. While some of the smaller Swabian and Franconian states left the League of Heidelberg out of fear of being overwhelmed by the Hapsburgs, other states were prompted to join the league. The Navarrese Netherlands, after years of diplomatic persuasion from France, were convinced to join the League of Heidelberg only after the Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and the Spanish armies in Luxembourg launched a failed attempt, in 1637, to end the Netherlands' domination of the Bishopric of Liège. The rough way in which the Hapsburgs had dominated Bavaria convinced Savoy (which had long been contemplating an alliance with France) to abandon its unconditional support for Charles as Emperor and join the League of Heidelberg.
With the joining of the Netherlands and Savoy to the League of Heidelberg, it seemed that the stage would be set for a renewed conflict in the Empire. The League of Heidelberg, with the support of France, was now strong enough to take on both the Hapsburgs and the League of Dresden, and thus could risk a war in the Empire in order to win back Bavaria, the Upper Palatinate, or the secularized Bishoprics of the North. However, war would not break out in 1538 or in 1539, as no one was willing to start one, at least not yet.
The spark that would set the tinderbox of the Empire aflame would be the death of King Christian IV of Denmark in late 1639. King Christian had returned to Denmark after the Peace of Aussig, and had left his son Frederick in charge of Silesia during the peace. However, he had still maintained a presence in the Empire through representatives sent to the Diets in Bayeruth, and had maintained his position as Regent of the North. In his later years, he had largely given up the dream of reigning as Holy Roman Emperor, and had been satisfied with his gain of Silesia and an Electoral vote, although the League of Dresden continued to push for the Election of a Lutheran Emperor.
With Christian's Death, King Charles of Bohemia saw the chance to secure the Imperial throne for himself, and called a Diet to be held in 1640. However, before the Diet could meet, a Imperial Election was called by the Archbishop of Mainz. The Archbishop of Mainz argued that the Peace of Aussig was invalid, and that Christian had been the legitimate Emperor-Elect until his death. According to this position, it was only with his death that the Imperial throne had been made vacant, at thus it was time for a fresh Election. Since the Peace of Aussig was held to be invalid, the Electorate of Silesia was not recognized by the Archbishop of Mainz, meaning that the League of Heidelberg now controlled four of the seven valid Electoral votes (Mainz, Trier, Cologne, and the Palatinate). [5] These four votes would all be cast in favour of King Henry III of France who would soon be crowned Emperor Henry VIII.
The crowning of a French King as Holy Roman Emperor without Papal approval, together with the continuing denial of Papal Supremacy by the Royal Church of France would lead to the 1640 excommunication of King Henry III of France by the Pope. This excommunication would quickly lead to a schism between the French Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Known as the 'Catholic Schism', this break would lead to the use of the term 'Catholic' by both the Roman Church as well as a number of Autocephalous Catholic Churches. The Catholic Schism will be discussed more thoroughly in a subsequent chapter.
While the Election of 1640 threatened to put a French King on the Imperial throne, there was a clear majority of the Princes of the Empire who felt that this election was invalid. Both the Hapsburg's Catholics allies in the South and the League of Dresden in the North supported the validity of the Peace of Aussig, meaning that there were now eight, rather than seven, Electors, and thus four votes were no longer a majority. However, despite the illegality of Henry's claim to the imperial throne, Henry's position as the only ruler who had called himself 'Emperor' in the past ten years gave him prestige and support amongst the people of the Empire. In order to support the invalidity of the Election, the Hapsburgs and the League of Dresden felt compelled to choose an Emperor of their own to challenge the usurper.
Thus, the Third Diet of Bayeruth, like the First, was centred around the question of the Imperial Succession. It soon became clear that Charles' claim to the throne was still not popular enough to gain the support of a majority of the Diet. However, the alternative of maintaining the status quo was unacceptable, as it would allow the usurper to go unchallenged. In a moment of desperation, Charles put forward a proposal to divide the Empire and make the Imperial Schism permanent. After much negotiation, a compromise was reached which was acceptable to a majority of members of the Imperial Diet.
According to the Third Diet of Bayeruth, Charles would now be able to call himself Holy Roman Emperor, although his Empire would only consist of the Southern half of the pre-1640 Holy Roman Empire. In the Southern Empire, the title of Emperor would be made hereditary, although Emperors would still have to be crowned by the Pope. This decision was supported by a Papal Bull, and Charles would travel to Rome for a second Papal coronation in the early months of 1641.
The Northern half of the pre-1640 Empire would be turned over to the League of Dresden. Saxony, Brandenburg, and Silesia would retain their Electoral status, and an additional two Electorates were created for Jülich-Cleves-Berg and Brunswick-Lüneberg, who had both had important roles in the Westphalian theatre of the First Schismatic War. The Electors of the Northern Empire would soon elect Elector Augustus of Saxony as German Emperor (the Emperors of the Northern Empire would drop the words 'Holy' and 'Roman' as the Pope would have no official role in the North). The Northern Empire would soon become an officially Lutheran state, as the five Electors were all Lutherans, and the remaining Calvinist and Catholic Princes of the North would soon find their lands confiscated.
The division of the Empire into Northern and Southern portions [6] would allow the Hapsburgs and the League of Dresden to finally end the disputes between them and join together against the League of Heidelberg and France. The hope of both the League of Dresden and France would be to end the French claim to the Imperial throne, push France out of the Empire once and for all, and to incorporate the various states of the League of Heidelberg into the Northern and Southern Empires. They would go on to accomplish some, but not all, of these goals in the Second Schismatic War.
Footnotes:
[1] Since the Peace of Aussig, Archduke Charles is now King Charles since he has won the Crown of Bohemia. He is known by his highest-ranking title (Bohemia) even though his capital is still in Vienna.
[2] Bavaria is still unwilling to let Austrian troops pass through its territories for fear of a resumption of the Hapsburg Regency.
[3] Magdeburg was secularized by Brandenburg in the 16th century, and Bremen, Verden, and Lübeck had been secularized by Denmark in the early 17th century before the outbreak of the First Schismatic War. Osnabrück and Hildesheim were only secularized by Brunswick-Lüneberg during the course of the First Schismatic War. However, these secularizations had been de facto rather than de jure arrangements. According to the Second Diet of Bayeruth, Bremen will be retained by Denmark (it will be governed as part of Holstein), Osnabrück and Hildesheim by Brunswick-Lüneberg and Magdeburg by Brandenburg, but Lübeck will be given to Mecklenburg, Verden to Oldenburg (this is Christian's way of rewarding his allies). Note there are a number of smaller Imperial abbeys, etc. that have also been secularized but are not included in this list.
[4] Butterflies have killed off the rest of the Bavarian Wittlesbachs.
[5] If you're confused about how France obtained the allegiance of all these Electors, remember that Trier voluntarily accepted French occupation out of fear of the Hessian armies who had occupied Koblenz, Cologne is now controlled by the Navarrese Netherlands, and Mainz and the Palatinate are held by Wittlesbachs who are upset about the Hapsburgs seizure of Bavaria.
[6] If you find the situation in the Empire incredibly confusing, don't worry, I will post a map very very shortly. Also, the situation in the Empire will get simpler in the not-so-distance future, as both 'halves' of the Empire will undergo much consolidation. Most of the tiny states of the Empire will have disappeared by 1700 (as in they will exist as parts of larger whole and will lose their current autonomy).
The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
The Schismatic Peace: 1631 – 1641:
The period from 1631 to 1641 is often described as the 'Ten Years' Peace' in histories of the Schismatic Wars. While the two main belligerents in the First Schismatic War – the Hapsburg monarchy and the League of Dresden – maintained peace with each other during this time, the empire was not entirely peaceful, as smaller-scale conflicts in the Rhineland and Bavaria would prove.
There were three main issues arising from the First Schismatic War which were not settled by the Peace of Aussig. The first was the issue of occupied territory: outside of the former Bohemian Crown, the Peace of Aussig had not said one way or the other what would happen to lands that had been captured in the First Schismatic War. The second issue was that of the Imperial Succession: a decision had been made to defer the matter to the Imperial Diet, but for now that meant that there was no man who could indisputably claim all of the the authority of the Imperial Crown. The third issue was the fact that the Peace of Aussig had only been signed by King Christian of Denmark and King Charles of Bohemia [1]: while most of the members of the League of Dresden and most of the Catholic Princes agreed to abide by the Peace of Aussig, there were a number of exceptions, most notably France and many of its Rhineland allies.
The issue of occupied territories mainly revolved around three regions. The various members of the League of Dresden had occupied a number of Bishoprics in the North of the Empire, and had secularized a number of these. These secularizations were of doubtful legality, and the Protestant Princes hoped to obtain a de jure settlement which would match the de facto situation. In Franconia and Swabia, there were a number of Protestant lands which were still under Hapsburg occupation: the most important of these being the Upper Palatinate. The Elector Palatine was willing to agree to the Peace of Aussig on the condition of the return of the Upper Palatinate, but the Upper Palatinate, lying astride the best route around Bavaria [2] from Austria to Franconia, was too important for the Hapsburgs to be surrendered easily. The third continuing occupation was in the Rhineland, where France continued to occupy Lorraine, Trier and a number of other nearby territories. Administration of the occupied lands had been turned over to the Elector Palatine (who France recognized as Regent of the South), but it was still French troops which enforced the occupation.
In order to resolve these outstanding issues, a series of meetings of the Imperial Diet were called. Bayeruth was decided upon as the location for the meetings as it was a Protestant Principality which had sided with the Hapsburgs. The First Diet of Bayeruth would meet in 1633 with the intention of concluding the issue of Succession with the Election of the next Emperor. While it had originally been thought that either Christian or Charles would be able to obtain a majority in the Imperial Diet, both candidates would lose appeal when a rumour began to spread that the two contenders for the throne had been negotiating in secret. Charles had pledged to allow the secularization of the Northern bishoprics by the League of Dresden if Christian would allow the annexation of the Upper Palatinate by the Hapsburgs. Thus, both the Ecclesiastical Princes and the Elector Palatine's Rhineland allies refused to support either candidate as Emperor, leaving neither candidate with a secure majority.
The First Diet of Bayeruth ended with little accomplished, and for a year afterward, it almost seemed that war might resume. Small skirmishes were fought between French and Tirolean armies in the Upper Rhineland, but did not break out into full-scale war. No power was willing to begin the resumption of hostilities, for fear of uniting the rest of the Empire against it, and soon the Second Diet of Bayeruth was called for 1635. The Second Diet would forego the question of succession for the time being in an attempt to settle the questions of occupied territories. The idea of allowing Charles to retain the Upper Palatinate in exchange for the secularization of the Northern Bishoprics was officially put before the Diet, and was approved, with modifications, by the majority. The Archbishoprics of Bremen and Magdeburg, and the Bishoprics of Verden, Hildesheim, Lübeck, and Osnabrück [3] would be allowed to be secularized, but a guarantee was made that any lands in the Southern half of the Empire (i.e. in the lands currently under Charles' Regency) which were currently Catholic would remain Catholic. This proposal was able to gain the support of much the League of Dresden (who gained from the secularizations), of many of the Catholic Southern Princes (who gained from the protection of their lands from Protestantism), and from the Hapsburgs (who gained the Upper Palatinate). However, it was wildly unpopular with the Elector Palatine (whose lands were forfeit), the Bishops of Münster and Paderborn (who were now the sole remaining Prince-Bishops of any importance in the Northern half of the Empire), and the Southern Protestants (who were now destined to be forever surrounded by Catholics).
The results of the Second Diet of Bayeruth would lead to the much-anticipated break between the Eastern and Western members of the League of Dresden. The Elector Palatine and many of his Rhineland allies would leave the alliance to form the League of Heidelberg. The League of Heidelberg, unlike the earlier League of Dresden and Alliance of the Rhine, would consist of both Protestant and Catholic members, and would consist of members who had supported both Charles and Christian's claims to the Imperial throne. The Archbishop of Mainz, the Elector Palatine, and France would be the three most powerful founding members, but they would soon be joined by the Archbishop of Trier, Württemberg, the Bishops of Münster and Paderborn, Ansbach, the Swiss Confederation, and Bavaria.
The League of Heidelberg would see its first challenge with the death of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria in 1635. While Charles had allowed Maximilian to rule Bavaria since the revolt of 1624 that had overthrown the Hapsburg Regency, Maximilian had never recovered from his years spent a prisoner of the Hapsburg Regency. Maximilian had been traumatized by the experience and suffered from paranoid delusions and violent episodes that had prevented him from taking a wife or taking initiative in affairs of state. Thus, much of Bavaria's governance had been trusted to a council made up of the same nobles who had instigated the 1624 revolt. As Duke Maximilian had no children or younger brother, after his early death in 1635 (often believed to be a suicide), Bavaria was left with no obvious heir to the throne.
Maximilian's elder brother, Albert, was now the only remaining male of the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittlesbach. [4] However, Albert was Archbishop of Mainz, and, having taking Holy Orders, was unmarried and ineligible for the Bavarian throne. While some tried to convince him to renounce his Holy Orders or convert to Lutheranism so he could take a wife, Albert refused to do. Thus, Bavaria would have to pass to the Palatinate branch of the House of Wittlesbach, of which Elector Frederick was the most senior member. The council of nobles who adminstered Bavaria would soon offer the Duchy's crown to Frederick, in exchange for a promise to allow Catholicism to remain the official religion of Bavaria.
However, this offer would be challenged by King Charles of Bohemia, who had been set on finding a way to add Bavaria to the Hapsburg domains ever since he had held the reins as Regent of Bavaria. He argued that the guarantee of the Second Diet of Bayeruth that all currently Catholic lands would remain Catholic made the succession of a Calvinist Prince to the Catholic throne illegal. As Regent of the South, he saw it as his duty to enforce this law, and the Hapsburg army soon entered Bavaria.
The resulting War of the Bavarian Succession would last less than a year. The Bavarian defences were no match for the Hapsburg armies, and while Bavaria was able to gain the support of troops from the Palatinate, Württemberg, and Mainz to aid in its defence, French troops were prevented from intervening by a threat that the League of Dresden would enter the war on the side of the Hapsburgs if French troops were to enter Bavaria. The remaining members of the League of Heidelberg were unable to match the Hapsburgs' military strength. By the end of 1636, Charles' firstborn son Matthias, would be crowned Duke of Bavaria. Matthias' claim, which came through his mother, was not strictly legal according to Salic Law, but was accepted anyways.
The threat of the Hapsburgs and the League of Dresden joining together in war against the League of Heidelberg led to much fear throughout the Rhineland. While some of the smaller Swabian and Franconian states left the League of Heidelberg out of fear of being overwhelmed by the Hapsburgs, other states were prompted to join the league. The Navarrese Netherlands, after years of diplomatic persuasion from France, were convinced to join the League of Heidelberg only after the Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and the Spanish armies in Luxembourg launched a failed attempt, in 1637, to end the Netherlands' domination of the Bishopric of Liège. The rough way in which the Hapsburgs had dominated Bavaria convinced Savoy (which had long been contemplating an alliance with France) to abandon its unconditional support for Charles as Emperor and join the League of Heidelberg.
With the joining of the Netherlands and Savoy to the League of Heidelberg, it seemed that the stage would be set for a renewed conflict in the Empire. The League of Heidelberg, with the support of France, was now strong enough to take on both the Hapsburgs and the League of Dresden, and thus could risk a war in the Empire in order to win back Bavaria, the Upper Palatinate, or the secularized Bishoprics of the North. However, war would not break out in 1538 or in 1539, as no one was willing to start one, at least not yet.
The spark that would set the tinderbox of the Empire aflame would be the death of King Christian IV of Denmark in late 1639. King Christian had returned to Denmark after the Peace of Aussig, and had left his son Frederick in charge of Silesia during the peace. However, he had still maintained a presence in the Empire through representatives sent to the Diets in Bayeruth, and had maintained his position as Regent of the North. In his later years, he had largely given up the dream of reigning as Holy Roman Emperor, and had been satisfied with his gain of Silesia and an Electoral vote, although the League of Dresden continued to push for the Election of a Lutheran Emperor.
With Christian's Death, King Charles of Bohemia saw the chance to secure the Imperial throne for himself, and called a Diet to be held in 1640. However, before the Diet could meet, a Imperial Election was called by the Archbishop of Mainz. The Archbishop of Mainz argued that the Peace of Aussig was invalid, and that Christian had been the legitimate Emperor-Elect until his death. According to this position, it was only with his death that the Imperial throne had been made vacant, at thus it was time for a fresh Election. Since the Peace of Aussig was held to be invalid, the Electorate of Silesia was not recognized by the Archbishop of Mainz, meaning that the League of Heidelberg now controlled four of the seven valid Electoral votes (Mainz, Trier, Cologne, and the Palatinate). [5] These four votes would all be cast in favour of King Henry III of France who would soon be crowned Emperor Henry VIII.
The crowning of a French King as Holy Roman Emperor without Papal approval, together with the continuing denial of Papal Supremacy by the Royal Church of France would lead to the 1640 excommunication of King Henry III of France by the Pope. This excommunication would quickly lead to a schism between the French Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Known as the 'Catholic Schism', this break would lead to the use of the term 'Catholic' by both the Roman Church as well as a number of Autocephalous Catholic Churches. The Catholic Schism will be discussed more thoroughly in a subsequent chapter.
While the Election of 1640 threatened to put a French King on the Imperial throne, there was a clear majority of the Princes of the Empire who felt that this election was invalid. Both the Hapsburg's Catholics allies in the South and the League of Dresden in the North supported the validity of the Peace of Aussig, meaning that there were now eight, rather than seven, Electors, and thus four votes were no longer a majority. However, despite the illegality of Henry's claim to the imperial throne, Henry's position as the only ruler who had called himself 'Emperor' in the past ten years gave him prestige and support amongst the people of the Empire. In order to support the invalidity of the Election, the Hapsburgs and the League of Dresden felt compelled to choose an Emperor of their own to challenge the usurper.
Thus, the Third Diet of Bayeruth, like the First, was centred around the question of the Imperial Succession. It soon became clear that Charles' claim to the throne was still not popular enough to gain the support of a majority of the Diet. However, the alternative of maintaining the status quo was unacceptable, as it would allow the usurper to go unchallenged. In a moment of desperation, Charles put forward a proposal to divide the Empire and make the Imperial Schism permanent. After much negotiation, a compromise was reached which was acceptable to a majority of members of the Imperial Diet.
According to the Third Diet of Bayeruth, Charles would now be able to call himself Holy Roman Emperor, although his Empire would only consist of the Southern half of the pre-1640 Holy Roman Empire. In the Southern Empire, the title of Emperor would be made hereditary, although Emperors would still have to be crowned by the Pope. This decision was supported by a Papal Bull, and Charles would travel to Rome for a second Papal coronation in the early months of 1641.
The Northern half of the pre-1640 Empire would be turned over to the League of Dresden. Saxony, Brandenburg, and Silesia would retain their Electoral status, and an additional two Electorates were created for Jülich-Cleves-Berg and Brunswick-Lüneberg, who had both had important roles in the Westphalian theatre of the First Schismatic War. The Electors of the Northern Empire would soon elect Elector Augustus of Saxony as German Emperor (the Emperors of the Northern Empire would drop the words 'Holy' and 'Roman' as the Pope would have no official role in the North). The Northern Empire would soon become an officially Lutheran state, as the five Electors were all Lutherans, and the remaining Calvinist and Catholic Princes of the North would soon find their lands confiscated.
The division of the Empire into Northern and Southern portions [6] would allow the Hapsburgs and the League of Dresden to finally end the disputes between them and join together against the League of Heidelberg and France. The hope of both the League of Dresden and France would be to end the French claim to the Imperial throne, push France out of the Empire once and for all, and to incorporate the various states of the League of Heidelberg into the Northern and Southern Empires. They would go on to accomplish some, but not all, of these goals in the Second Schismatic War.
Footnotes:
[1] Since the Peace of Aussig, Archduke Charles is now King Charles since he has won the Crown of Bohemia. He is known by his highest-ranking title (Bohemia) even though his capital is still in Vienna.
[2] Bavaria is still unwilling to let Austrian troops pass through its territories for fear of a resumption of the Hapsburg Regency.
[3] Magdeburg was secularized by Brandenburg in the 16th century, and Bremen, Verden, and Lübeck had been secularized by Denmark in the early 17th century before the outbreak of the First Schismatic War. Osnabrück and Hildesheim were only secularized by Brunswick-Lüneberg during the course of the First Schismatic War. However, these secularizations had been de facto rather than de jure arrangements. According to the Second Diet of Bayeruth, Bremen will be retained by Denmark (it will be governed as part of Holstein), Osnabrück and Hildesheim by Brunswick-Lüneberg and Magdeburg by Brandenburg, but Lübeck will be given to Mecklenburg, Verden to Oldenburg (this is Christian's way of rewarding his allies). Note there are a number of smaller Imperial abbeys, etc. that have also been secularized but are not included in this list.
[4] Butterflies have killed off the rest of the Bavarian Wittlesbachs.
[5] If you're confused about how France obtained the allegiance of all these Electors, remember that Trier voluntarily accepted French occupation out of fear of the Hessian armies who had occupied Koblenz, Cologne is now controlled by the Navarrese Netherlands, and Mainz and the Palatinate are held by Wittlesbachs who are upset about the Hapsburgs seizure of Bavaria.
[6] If you find the situation in the Empire incredibly confusing, don't worry, I will post a map very very shortly. Also, the situation in the Empire will get simpler in the not-so-distance future, as both 'halves' of the Empire will undergo much consolidation. Most of the tiny states of the Empire will have disappeared by 1700 (as in they will exist as parts of larger whole and will lose their current autonomy).
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