A New Portugal (an alternate Ksar-el-Kebir)
- Thread starter Gonzaga
- Start date
Looks like the Dutch are stuck with the Habsburgs for a while yet, then.
Ah well, at least the bit about Menning hints at more wacky Netherlander shenanigans in the future...
Not only Netherlanders...
But as the proper TL will end before these "problems" happen I will only cover them in the prologue.
The next installments, as this one, will cover larger periods of time, but focusing more in the causes and effects of the situations than describe them properly. I decided to do so because if not I will need to spend the next 20 years of the TL describing battles rather than explaining how their results will affect the future. Also, I have other project in mind, so I need to finish it soon.
IOTL English garrisons in the Netherlands had one problem: they were composed of troops that English kings and queens did not wanted to have at home: mainly english catholics and irish. They tended to be bribed quite easily… do they have the same problem in your TL?
Great news to have an update!!!
Great news to have an update!!!
This time the English learnt from the past mistakes, as this intervention happens almost four decades after the last English troops that were fighting for the Dutch Republic left Netherlands. However, even with more loyal forces they were still driven out of the country, but the reasons for that I will explain in the next chapter (the order of future installments will probably be England, Italy and Russia).
Well, frankly I don't understand much about military issues, that's why I didn't want to give much detail, but I would welcome any suggestion of idea for the differences ITTL. For Gustav Adolph, he is dead ITTL, and the Swedish armies are lead by his younger brother Charles. So probably his reforms were not made, but the "Gustavian" ideas could be imagined by others instead.
Hollanders use defensive strategies, only advancing when they are able to take advantages from the mistakes of the Habsburgs forces. So you might imagine a war there involving basically sieges, destroyed dams and fortresses being built.
It is the natural evolution, the Spanish Tercio improved the existing formations by increasing firepower. Eventually someone would have found the way of increasing it (better drilling, rotations...).
Arise from the dead!
Chapter 47
The Hungarian Issue
From “The 30 Years' War”, by Jakob Gremmelmayer
… Through much of the period between 1629 and 1635, Habsburg power in the Empire was on the verge of collapse. Despite the fact that the French had left the conflict due to their internal instability caused by the succession crisis, new powerful players came into action. The troubles in Hungary caused the Ottomans to enter the war. The alliance with Poland-Lithuania was neutralized by the Swedes, who immediately poured into the Commonwealth territory, from where they made several raids against Bohemia. And in the core of the Habsburg territories, the Hollander Republic was born to bring more conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in the Netherlands…
…The war transformed Central Europe into a devastated battleground. The conflict inside the Holy Roman Empire would become a stalemate, as the struggle between the allies of the Emperor and the Evangelical League would be marked by inconclusive battles or minor victories, followed by brutal raids of revenge from the defeated side against the states held by the opponent.
One example of the brutality of this phase of the war was the Hessian Horrors. As the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt - despite being a Lutheran - supported the Emperor against the Calvinist ruler of Hesse-Kassel, the Evangelical Union destroyed the town of Giessen, burning it to the ground in 1633 and looting its university. As revenge, in 1634 the Imperial forces invaded Marburg, in Hesse-Kassel, and not only destroyed the city, but also killed at least a third of its inhabitants and burnt all the books of the “heretical” university that existed at that town. [1]…
…In order to save the Habsburgs in Central Europe, the help of their Spanish cousins was once more requested. The sense of a near end to conflict brought by the previous victory over Portugal and the French retreat was soon replaced by the constant employment of Tercios in many different theatres, including Holland, Croatia, North Africa and Bohemia. Combined with the burden already imposed on Spain by the English, who were constantly attacking their possessions in the Caribbean, and the costs of their military missions to Persia and Songhai [2], the war became a sinkhole for Madrid’s finances, a fact that would be remembered by many leaders 30 years later, during the “Dutch Betrayal” affair and its consequences for the War of the Spanish Succession…
…It was the death of two Habsburgs that caused the beginning of another phase in the war. In March 22nd 1635, Isabella of Spain, the wife of Charles II of Hungary and Bohemia, died in Vienna from a flu epidemic brought by troops. One week later, the king himself passed away due to the disease. As the couple was childless, a succession crisis was installed in the worst moment possible, when an Ottoman army was starting a siege against Pressburg, then capital of Hungary…
…The nearest male Habsburg who could claim the thrones was the Emperor Maximilian III himself. However, taking advantage of the situation, John II Casimir of Poland asked to be recognized as the legal monarch of Hungary and Bohemia, since he was married to the nearest relative of Charles II – the deceased king’s eldest sister, Christine. In his letter to the Emperor, the Polish monarch reminded him that the Habsburgs got these thrones through a woman as well – Anne of Hungary, who was married to Ferdinand I – and so his claims were legitimate. He also complained that the Commonwealth was being destroyed by the “Swedish deluge”, and threatened to leave the war if his rights were not recognized.
Maximilian considered such demands as outrageous at first. Not only he considered both thrones as belonging to him by right, but also the Bohemian throne was especially important to the Habsburgs, as it granted them an electoral vote. Despite the fact that since 1452 all the Emperors had been from this family, this office was still officially an elected one, and there was always the risk that the prince-electors could choose someone else. Giving it to someone belonging to another dynastical house would mean that such vote could be used against the Habsburgs. However, the possibility of Poland leaving the war would make a grim scenario for the Imperial forces. By then, the Poles were keeping busy the great majority of the Swedish and Prussian-Brandenburger forces and a good part of the Ottoman armies in Hungary as well. If John II Casimir decided to surrender then all these troops would be employed directly against Imperial lands, where the Habsburgs were already facing not only the Evangelical Union but also the rebellious Hollanders and the English regiments supporting them. They counted only the Spanish as allies, who were at that moment facing problems at sending more troops to the Germanies due the Italian rebellions and the advances of Mohammed esh Sheikh’s armies in Morocco [3]…
…The fall of Pressburg to the Ottomans in May 30th 1635 gave them a strategic position to attack not only Vienna, the homeland of the Habsburg family, but also the possibility of invading Moravia and Bohemia. This finally made Maximilian decide the matter. The Emperor agreed to recognize John as king of Hungary, while he kept the Austrian lands and the kingdom of Bohemia. In compensation, Maximilian ceded to John III Casimir the several Silesian territories that belonged to the Bohemian States, and also recognized Polish suzerainty over the Silesian Duchies that did not belong to the crown, an act that reversed the decisions made by the Treaties of Trentschin and Visegrád signed in 1335.
However, such an act was not made without a curse in disguise to John III Casimir. Now that Maximilian was officially released from his duties as defender of the Hungarian territories, he ordered all the Imperial and Spanish troops that were fighting the Ottomans in Croatia and Hungary to leave those theatres and march to Austria, where they would be redeployed in most necessary theatres within the Empire. If the Polish king wanted to possess a new realm so it was his duty to defend it from the infidels...
…An example of Maximilian's new policy in the East was his answer to the Ottoman envoy who asked the Emperor to recognize Stephen Bethlen as the legitimate king of Hungary in order to avoid raids into Austrian lands and a siege against Vienna: “If you attack us than God have mercy on you for we shall build a new wall around Vienna with the bodies of your soldiers. But if you ask for Hungarian matters, than we believe that you missed your way, since the only king can give you answers about that realm does not live in Brussels, but rather in Warsaw.” Such a new attitude confused the Ottomans at first, but the Porte decided to test the waters. After leaving a defensive force in Pressburg, the Ottoman armies initiated an invasion of Croatia, attacking the city of Warasdin. However, they did not go further into Croatian territory, waiting to observe the Habsburg reaction. Not a single garrison from Carniola crossed the border to help the Croatians, but after some weeks they received the information that Polish troops that were fighting the Transylvanians near the town of Munkács were redeployed westwards, and were marching in their direction. Maximilian's answer seemed sincere, and so the Ottomans plans of war were changed accordingly… [4]
…Such an attitude of Maximilian towards Hungary might be explained by the fact that he never had any personal attachment to that kingdom. Born in Brussels, he always lived in the Netherlands, and never even had visited the Habsburg homeland of Austria. With the division of the Habsburg territories made by his father Albert in order to be accepted by the other branches of the family as Emperor in 1612, Hungary and Bohemia to him became territories belonging to distant relatives, while he was more personally linked to the Spanish side of the family. His father was raised in the Spanish court, his mother, Catherine Michele, was a daughter of Philip II, and his first wife, Mary of Spain (1605 – 1625) , was a daughter or Philip III (and therefore also his cousin)…
…However, the agreement was received with protests by Philip IV of Spain, who complained that while he was sending troops to the Germanies in order to protect the interests of the Dutch branch of the family the Emperor was harming the Spanish by giving advantages to the Ottomans, against whom the Spaniards were having hard struggles in North Africa. Another issue highlighted by Philip was that if the female succession could be accepted then he considered that the best claim to the kingdom of Hungary should belong to the seven-years-old Isabella Clara, the only daughter of the former king Leopold, uncle of Charles II. As before Leopold’s death he was already negotiating to marry his – by then – just born daughter to Charles, Prince of Asturias, she could unite the thrones of Spain and Hungary, keeping both countries under Habsburg rule. But such arguments failed to convince Maximilian…
…Without the need to defend Hungary, Maximilian decided to change the strategy of the war. Now the Ottomans were a Polish problem, he could concentrate his forces against the Evangelical League. However, there were still two major powers to fight: the Swedish, who from their bases in Poland were constantly attacking Bohemia in order to support the claims of George William of Brandenburg as the Protestant king there, and the English, who were sending more and more troops to defend and expand their allied Hollander Republic…
…His first act was to try to neutralize the Swedish forces by threatening them near home, forcing Charles X not to send more troops against Bohemia. The solution the Emperor found was to make an old enemy a friend…
[1] The University of Giessen IOTL was founded in 1607 as a Lutheran institution, after the nearby University of Marburg went Calvinist.
[2] The situation in Spain, her colonies and her military missions abroad will be explained in a future chapter.
[3] Read above.
[4] Chapter 49 will deal with the fate of the Ottoman campaign.
Chapter 47
The Hungarian Issue
From “The 30 Years' War”, by Jakob Gremmelmayer
… Through much of the period between 1629 and 1635, Habsburg power in the Empire was on the verge of collapse. Despite the fact that the French had left the conflict due to their internal instability caused by the succession crisis, new powerful players came into action. The troubles in Hungary caused the Ottomans to enter the war. The alliance with Poland-Lithuania was neutralized by the Swedes, who immediately poured into the Commonwealth territory, from where they made several raids against Bohemia. And in the core of the Habsburg territories, the Hollander Republic was born to bring more conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in the Netherlands…
…The war transformed Central Europe into a devastated battleground. The conflict inside the Holy Roman Empire would become a stalemate, as the struggle between the allies of the Emperor and the Evangelical League would be marked by inconclusive battles or minor victories, followed by brutal raids of revenge from the defeated side against the states held by the opponent.
One example of the brutality of this phase of the war was the Hessian Horrors. As the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt - despite being a Lutheran - supported the Emperor against the Calvinist ruler of Hesse-Kassel, the Evangelical Union destroyed the town of Giessen, burning it to the ground in 1633 and looting its university. As revenge, in 1634 the Imperial forces invaded Marburg, in Hesse-Kassel, and not only destroyed the city, but also killed at least a third of its inhabitants and burnt all the books of the “heretical” university that existed at that town. [1]…
…In order to save the Habsburgs in Central Europe, the help of their Spanish cousins was once more requested. The sense of a near end to conflict brought by the previous victory over Portugal and the French retreat was soon replaced by the constant employment of Tercios in many different theatres, including Holland, Croatia, North Africa and Bohemia. Combined with the burden already imposed on Spain by the English, who were constantly attacking their possessions in the Caribbean, and the costs of their military missions to Persia and Songhai [2], the war became a sinkhole for Madrid’s finances, a fact that would be remembered by many leaders 30 years later, during the “Dutch Betrayal” affair and its consequences for the War of the Spanish Succession…
…It was the death of two Habsburgs that caused the beginning of another phase in the war. In March 22nd 1635, Isabella of Spain, the wife of Charles II of Hungary and Bohemia, died in Vienna from a flu epidemic brought by troops. One week later, the king himself passed away due to the disease. As the couple was childless, a succession crisis was installed in the worst moment possible, when an Ottoman army was starting a siege against Pressburg, then capital of Hungary…
…The nearest male Habsburg who could claim the thrones was the Emperor Maximilian III himself. However, taking advantage of the situation, John II Casimir of Poland asked to be recognized as the legal monarch of Hungary and Bohemia, since he was married to the nearest relative of Charles II – the deceased king’s eldest sister, Christine. In his letter to the Emperor, the Polish monarch reminded him that the Habsburgs got these thrones through a woman as well – Anne of Hungary, who was married to Ferdinand I – and so his claims were legitimate. He also complained that the Commonwealth was being destroyed by the “Swedish deluge”, and threatened to leave the war if his rights were not recognized.
Maximilian considered such demands as outrageous at first. Not only he considered both thrones as belonging to him by right, but also the Bohemian throne was especially important to the Habsburgs, as it granted them an electoral vote. Despite the fact that since 1452 all the Emperors had been from this family, this office was still officially an elected one, and there was always the risk that the prince-electors could choose someone else. Giving it to someone belonging to another dynastical house would mean that such vote could be used against the Habsburgs. However, the possibility of Poland leaving the war would make a grim scenario for the Imperial forces. By then, the Poles were keeping busy the great majority of the Swedish and Prussian-Brandenburger forces and a good part of the Ottoman armies in Hungary as well. If John II Casimir decided to surrender then all these troops would be employed directly against Imperial lands, where the Habsburgs were already facing not only the Evangelical Union but also the rebellious Hollanders and the English regiments supporting them. They counted only the Spanish as allies, who were at that moment facing problems at sending more troops to the Germanies due the Italian rebellions and the advances of Mohammed esh Sheikh’s armies in Morocco [3]…
…The fall of Pressburg to the Ottomans in May 30th 1635 gave them a strategic position to attack not only Vienna, the homeland of the Habsburg family, but also the possibility of invading Moravia and Bohemia. This finally made Maximilian decide the matter. The Emperor agreed to recognize John as king of Hungary, while he kept the Austrian lands and the kingdom of Bohemia. In compensation, Maximilian ceded to John III Casimir the several Silesian territories that belonged to the Bohemian States, and also recognized Polish suzerainty over the Silesian Duchies that did not belong to the crown, an act that reversed the decisions made by the Treaties of Trentschin and Visegrád signed in 1335.
However, such an act was not made without a curse in disguise to John III Casimir. Now that Maximilian was officially released from his duties as defender of the Hungarian territories, he ordered all the Imperial and Spanish troops that were fighting the Ottomans in Croatia and Hungary to leave those theatres and march to Austria, where they would be redeployed in most necessary theatres within the Empire. If the Polish king wanted to possess a new realm so it was his duty to defend it from the infidels...
…An example of Maximilian's new policy in the East was his answer to the Ottoman envoy who asked the Emperor to recognize Stephen Bethlen as the legitimate king of Hungary in order to avoid raids into Austrian lands and a siege against Vienna: “If you attack us than God have mercy on you for we shall build a new wall around Vienna with the bodies of your soldiers. But if you ask for Hungarian matters, than we believe that you missed your way, since the only king can give you answers about that realm does not live in Brussels, but rather in Warsaw.” Such a new attitude confused the Ottomans at first, but the Porte decided to test the waters. After leaving a defensive force in Pressburg, the Ottoman armies initiated an invasion of Croatia, attacking the city of Warasdin. However, they did not go further into Croatian territory, waiting to observe the Habsburg reaction. Not a single garrison from Carniola crossed the border to help the Croatians, but after some weeks they received the information that Polish troops that were fighting the Transylvanians near the town of Munkács were redeployed westwards, and were marching in their direction. Maximilian's answer seemed sincere, and so the Ottomans plans of war were changed accordingly… [4]
…Such an attitude of Maximilian towards Hungary might be explained by the fact that he never had any personal attachment to that kingdom. Born in Brussels, he always lived in the Netherlands, and never even had visited the Habsburg homeland of Austria. With the division of the Habsburg territories made by his father Albert in order to be accepted by the other branches of the family as Emperor in 1612, Hungary and Bohemia to him became territories belonging to distant relatives, while he was more personally linked to the Spanish side of the family. His father was raised in the Spanish court, his mother, Catherine Michele, was a daughter of Philip II, and his first wife, Mary of Spain (1605 – 1625) , was a daughter or Philip III (and therefore also his cousin)…
…However, the agreement was received with protests by Philip IV of Spain, who complained that while he was sending troops to the Germanies in order to protect the interests of the Dutch branch of the family the Emperor was harming the Spanish by giving advantages to the Ottomans, against whom the Spaniards were having hard struggles in North Africa. Another issue highlighted by Philip was that if the female succession could be accepted then he considered that the best claim to the kingdom of Hungary should belong to the seven-years-old Isabella Clara, the only daughter of the former king Leopold, uncle of Charles II. As before Leopold’s death he was already negotiating to marry his – by then – just born daughter to Charles, Prince of Asturias, she could unite the thrones of Spain and Hungary, keeping both countries under Habsburg rule. But such arguments failed to convince Maximilian…
…Without the need to defend Hungary, Maximilian decided to change the strategy of the war. Now the Ottomans were a Polish problem, he could concentrate his forces against the Evangelical League. However, there were still two major powers to fight: the Swedish, who from their bases in Poland were constantly attacking Bohemia in order to support the claims of George William of Brandenburg as the Protestant king there, and the English, who were sending more and more troops to defend and expand their allied Hollander Republic…
…His first act was to try to neutralize the Swedish forces by threatening them near home, forcing Charles X not to send more troops against Bohemia. The solution the Emperor found was to make an old enemy a friend…
[1] The University of Giessen IOTL was founded in 1607 as a Lutheran institution, after the nearby University of Marburg went Calvinist.
[2] The situation in Spain, her colonies and her military missions abroad will be explained in a future chapter.
[3] Read above.
[4] Chapter 49 will deal with the fate of the Ottoman campaign.
Last edited:
Good update, Gonzaga!
Thanks!
Damn! Jan III Sobieski as King of Hungary!
This timeline is now way too awesome to be realistic
Oh Damn! He is not John III, he is Jan II Casimir Vasa, I confused the numbers.
Now is edited.But still, there is difference between be the king and claim to be the king...
Chapter 48
A cicatrice raw and red
From “Denmark: from Kalmar to Kolding”, by Allan Simonsen
…With the end of the Scandinavian War in 1622 [1] Denmark entered a period of relative isolation. The unresolved conflicts with Sweden brought by the war - especially the Danish failure to take the town of Göteborg, the only maritime Swedish port outside the Baltic – meant that the courts of Copenhagen and Stockholm would spend the 1620s in a permanent state of distrust against each other…
…Due to the tension between both Scandinavian kingdoms, Christian IV was unable to pursue his plans of expansion into the Holy Roman Empire as he at first intended. Although sympathetic to the Evangelical Union cause, the possibility of a war with Sweden made his council not permit the king to send armies to help the Protestants. Also, when Christian the Younger of Brunswick was chosen as Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden instead of Christian’s son Frederick[2] the Danish king considered the act as disrespectful to him, and soon lost interest in involvement in the conflict. Instead, he focused his expansionistic plans on the lucrative trade with the East, and taking advantage of Portuguese and French distraction due to the war he allowed the creation of the Danish East India Company in 1626 [3]…
…When Sweden entered the 30 Years' War Christian IV was left in a difficult situation. Although he was not willing to ally with his enemy, at the same time he could not just let Charles X become “the savior of the Reformed Faith” alone. He sent diplomatic envoys to Prussia - where Charles had gone to command the invasion of Poland - in order to negotiate an alliance. However, Christian wanted to include in the deal a marriage between his son Frederick and Charles’ daughter, Christina. By then, the five-year-old girl was the only child of the Swedish king – the prince Charles Gustav would only be born in 1630 – and with this arrangement Christian was trying to have a chance of not only ensuring a throne for his second son, but also make Sweden an Oldenburg kingdom again…
…It is said that the refusal of Charles X to accept the proposed marriage enraged Christian IV so much that when he read the Swedish king’s message he yelled “I hope he rots in some Polish swamp”. In retaliation, he ordered the Sound Tolls raised for any ship carrying military materiel into the Baltic – although it did not have much of an effect on Sweden, as the port of Göteborg was outside the Baltic and equipments could be traded there. Going to war again was considered, but was not carried out mainly due to Christian’s fear that he would be considered a traitor to his fellow Lutherans by attacking their champion (and therefore helping the tyrant Emperor Maximilian). Denmark entered again into a bitter neutrality…
…In September 1635 a new ambassador from Emperor Maximilian III, Francis Collaert, arrived at Copenhagen and delivered to Christian IV an alliance proposal…
…By the terms offered by Maximilian, in case of victory the Danish should receive the territories of the Lutheran Bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, which would be given to Ulrik, the third son of Christian, who would also receive the lands of Brunswick to the North of the Aller River, being made Duke of Lüneburg. His second son, Frederick, would become Duke of Mecklenburg and Bishop of Lübeck, and would receive the Electoral title lost by the rebellious Margrave of Brandenburg. In exchange, the Danes would provide assistance against the Swedish armies, and expulse from their territory all the Calvinists living there…
…Although some of Maximilian’s advisers had spoken against the Emperor’s decision to give so many strategic territories to the Danes, he had good reasons to make such concessions. By attracting Christian to his side the Emperor would once more be showing to the Lutherans that this war was not against them, but against the heretic Calvinists and traitors who refused Imperial authority. Also, with the Danish armies keeping Charles X busy he could have an easier dominance of Bohemia, and focus his efforts against what he the main threat against his authority: the Evangelical Union and the Hollander Republic. And finally, as he told Collaert, if in the future the Oldenburgs should become too greedy “it will always be possible to play one brother against the other”…
…Christian hesitated for a long time. Many of his counselors were against the war, as it would make the king look like a traitor to the Protestant cause. Even if he hated Charles X, he was also a good Lutheran, and allying himself with the “Popish tyrant from Brussels” would be a hard choice…
…While some skeptic historians consider it a myth, claiming that what made Christian’s mind up was a huge bribe, the traditional chronicles of that age affirms that the king was ultimately convinced to join Maximilian’s alliance due to a supposed captured letter from Charles X to his brother-in-law, George William of Brandenburg, negotiating a marriage between his daughter Christina and her cousin Frederick William of Brandenburg. In the document, the Swedish king commented about the proposal made by Christian IV some years earlier, using very offensive terms towards the Danish king and the House of Oldenburg…
…In November 1635, just before the winter, 6,000 Danish and Norwegian soldiers started a siege against Göteborg, initiating other round in the struggle for the supremacy of Scandinavia…
[1] As explained in chapter 36.
[2] IOTL Frederick got this position.
[3] IOTL it was founded in 1616. As the Dutch Company was never founded ITTL, the do not have their model, and create it later.
A cicatrice raw and red
From “Denmark: from Kalmar to Kolding”, by Allan Simonsen
…With the end of the Scandinavian War in 1622 [1] Denmark entered a period of relative isolation. The unresolved conflicts with Sweden brought by the war - especially the Danish failure to take the town of Göteborg, the only maritime Swedish port outside the Baltic – meant that the courts of Copenhagen and Stockholm would spend the 1620s in a permanent state of distrust against each other…
…Due to the tension between both Scandinavian kingdoms, Christian IV was unable to pursue his plans of expansion into the Holy Roman Empire as he at first intended. Although sympathetic to the Evangelical Union cause, the possibility of a war with Sweden made his council not permit the king to send armies to help the Protestants. Also, when Christian the Younger of Brunswick was chosen as Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden instead of Christian’s son Frederick[2] the Danish king considered the act as disrespectful to him, and soon lost interest in involvement in the conflict. Instead, he focused his expansionistic plans on the lucrative trade with the East, and taking advantage of Portuguese and French distraction due to the war he allowed the creation of the Danish East India Company in 1626 [3]…
…When Sweden entered the 30 Years' War Christian IV was left in a difficult situation. Although he was not willing to ally with his enemy, at the same time he could not just let Charles X become “the savior of the Reformed Faith” alone. He sent diplomatic envoys to Prussia - where Charles had gone to command the invasion of Poland - in order to negotiate an alliance. However, Christian wanted to include in the deal a marriage between his son Frederick and Charles’ daughter, Christina. By then, the five-year-old girl was the only child of the Swedish king – the prince Charles Gustav would only be born in 1630 – and with this arrangement Christian was trying to have a chance of not only ensuring a throne for his second son, but also make Sweden an Oldenburg kingdom again…
…It is said that the refusal of Charles X to accept the proposed marriage enraged Christian IV so much that when he read the Swedish king’s message he yelled “I hope he rots in some Polish swamp”. In retaliation, he ordered the Sound Tolls raised for any ship carrying military materiel into the Baltic – although it did not have much of an effect on Sweden, as the port of Göteborg was outside the Baltic and equipments could be traded there. Going to war again was considered, but was not carried out mainly due to Christian’s fear that he would be considered a traitor to his fellow Lutherans by attacking their champion (and therefore helping the tyrant Emperor Maximilian). Denmark entered again into a bitter neutrality…
…In September 1635 a new ambassador from Emperor Maximilian III, Francis Collaert, arrived at Copenhagen and delivered to Christian IV an alliance proposal…
…By the terms offered by Maximilian, in case of victory the Danish should receive the territories of the Lutheran Bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, which would be given to Ulrik, the third son of Christian, who would also receive the lands of Brunswick to the North of the Aller River, being made Duke of Lüneburg. His second son, Frederick, would become Duke of Mecklenburg and Bishop of Lübeck, and would receive the Electoral title lost by the rebellious Margrave of Brandenburg. In exchange, the Danes would provide assistance against the Swedish armies, and expulse from their territory all the Calvinists living there…
…Although some of Maximilian’s advisers had spoken against the Emperor’s decision to give so many strategic territories to the Danes, he had good reasons to make such concessions. By attracting Christian to his side the Emperor would once more be showing to the Lutherans that this war was not against them, but against the heretic Calvinists and traitors who refused Imperial authority. Also, with the Danish armies keeping Charles X busy he could have an easier dominance of Bohemia, and focus his efforts against what he the main threat against his authority: the Evangelical Union and the Hollander Republic. And finally, as he told Collaert, if in the future the Oldenburgs should become too greedy “it will always be possible to play one brother against the other”…
…Christian hesitated for a long time. Many of his counselors were against the war, as it would make the king look like a traitor to the Protestant cause. Even if he hated Charles X, he was also a good Lutheran, and allying himself with the “Popish tyrant from Brussels” would be a hard choice…
…While some skeptic historians consider it a myth, claiming that what made Christian’s mind up was a huge bribe, the traditional chronicles of that age affirms that the king was ultimately convinced to join Maximilian’s alliance due to a supposed captured letter from Charles X to his brother-in-law, George William of Brandenburg, negotiating a marriage between his daughter Christina and her cousin Frederick William of Brandenburg. In the document, the Swedish king commented about the proposal made by Christian IV some years earlier, using very offensive terms towards the Danish king and the House of Oldenburg…
…In November 1635, just before the winter, 6,000 Danish and Norwegian soldiers started a siege against Göteborg, initiating other round in the struggle for the supremacy of Scandinavia…
[1] As explained in chapter 36.
[2] IOTL Frederick got this position.
[3] IOTL it was founded in 1616. As the Dutch Company was never founded ITTL, the do not have their model, and create it later.
maverick
Banned
Oh Damn! He is not John III, he is Jan II Casimir Vasa, I confused the numbers.
Oh, bugger
Also, great update...wasn't expecting Denmark to join the HRE so easily, except for the huge bribes
So, is there any more to this?
No, pressure is good, it forces me to write!
I'll try to finish a new one until the weekend, probably about Hungary, Poland and the Ottomans.
No, pressure is good, it forces me to write!
I'll try to finish a new one until the weekend, probably about Hungary, Poland and the Ottomans.
Oh YES
.I await that update with pleasure
.Nice update by the way.
We'll be waiting!No, pressure is good, it forces me to write!
I'll try to finish a new one until the weekend, probably about Hungary, Poland and the Ottomans.
Of course, I couldn't deliver it at the date I wanted, but here is the Polish chapter:
Chapter 49
The Deluge
From “The Struggle for the Baltic”, by Konrad Korzeniowski
...Even if the invasion of 1629 was a cause for concern among the Sejm, many nobles also considered it as an opportunity to avenge Poland’s humiliation from the defeats imposed on the country in 1611 and 1618. What they could never imagine was that the existence of the Commonwealth itself would be threatened by the Swedish Deluge of the 1630s….
…At first, the Swedish strategy was only to conquer the lands near the Baltic, in order to ensure a continued line of territory between Livonia and the vassal Duchy of Courland and their ally Brandenburg. After this, their aim was to control all of the strategic points from Ducal Prussia to the Silesian border, providing a line of supply and reinforcement to the Protestants in Bohemia. However, after their initial successes, Charles X decided that he could finally take revenge for all the offenses committed by the Polish Vasas, who for almost 40 years had kept their claim on the throne of Stockholm by declaring themselves “kings of Sweden”…
…While the Commonwealth could muster circa 50,000 men, the Swedish assembled during the invasion a force that at its peak – including reinforcements from Transylvania - reached 100,000 soldiers. It was a challenge too great for the Polish and Lithuanian troops, forced to see their cities and fortresses being taken one by one, their churches having all the saints' statues destroyed and their fields being looted by the invaders. Combined with the plague brought by Swedish soldiers in 1634, it is believed the war cost Poland between 25 and 30% of her population…
…After the destruction of Warsaw, John II Casimir was forced to take refuge at the old capital of Krakow. It was there where he first received news of the death of Charles II of Hungary and Bohemia…
…Later Polish historians have blamed John’s decision to claim the Hungarian and Bohemian thrones while the country was suffering a foreign invasion on “Vasa’s lack of both sense and sensibility”. However, the reason why he acted so rapidly in making good his rights as heir of Charles II was much more pragmatic. John II Casimir hoped that by becoming the rulers of those territories he could gain access to more troops to use against the Swedes, especially 20,000 Croatian cavalrymen…
…John’s hopes vanished when he received news of the Turkish successes in Hungary and their invasion of Croatia. With their homes threatened by the Ottomans no Hungarian or Croatian noble would help a monarch that was hardly recognized yet...
…Again threatened by the armies of the Swedish king, John II Casimir fled Krakow to the Southeastern town of Trebowla. Since the losses of Kiev and other nearby territories to Russia during the conflicts of the 1610s Trebowla had become a modern border fortress, in order to defend the South from a possible attack from their Eastern neighbour…
…During the conquest of Krakow one of the most morbid scenes of the Thirty Years' War took place. After breaking into the Cathedral of Saints Stanislaus and Vladislaus, the place where Polish kings were traditionally interred, Charles X demanded that the remains of Sigismund III of Poland should be exhumed and brought to him. At the nearby Royal Castle, he ordered a trial of Sigismund, accusing him of treason against Sweden, and declared him guilty. The corpse was decapitated, and the beheaded body was burned in order to “cleanse the Earth from the influence of such a villain”. The head was sent to Trembowla as a menace to John II Casimir if he refused to surrender…
…Using the support of the Polish and Lithuanian Protestant and Orthodox nobles, and even some Catholics discontented with the course of the war, the Swedes managed to assemble a small “rival Sejm” at Torun, where the Lithuanian Calvinist prince Krzysztof Radziwill was elected king. Although initially not favourable to an agreement with the Swedish, Krzysztof was convinced to accept the crown in exchange for the marriage of his son Janusz to Anna Kettler, the only living daughter of the Duke of Courland, William Kettler. [1] With this union, Janusz would be declared the new duke after the death of William, adding the Duchy of Courland to the already large Radziwill family’s estates...
…Due the the Danish attack against Göteborg, Charles X was obliged to divide his forces. While some men where sent back to Sweden in order to protect their homeland, the king himself decided to command his best troops in the journey from Poland to Jutland, starting what would be called by the Habsburg loyalists as the “March of Death”. The rest of the army was ordered to spend the winter at Krakow, and then depart to Trembowla as soon as the weather allowed, where they would be joined in the siege by a Transylvanian reinforcement, as was agreed with Stephen Bethlen’s regent, Anna Sophia of Brandenburg…
...The lack of action due to the winter – one of the harshest of the entire 17th century – was used as a breathing space for John Casimir. Also, the fact that the Radziwills needed to suffocate rebellions against his election across the country also contributed to his relative peace. However, the future of he and his dynasty seemed grim. As the season passed, hundreds of refugees fled to Trembowla, where they waited a decision from their king. Some wished John II had a plan that could change the outcome of the war. Others just wanted to fight their last battle, while a splinter group was pressing the king to finally give up. Isolated in that border town, John knew that his enemies were just waiting for the spring to come in order to make a final attack against his fortress...
...By the beginning of March, the Swedish were already approaching Lviv on their way to Trembowla, while the Transylvanians were assembling an army at the southern border. The situation became even worse when the king was informed that a small Russian force had crossed the Southern Bug River, and were also heading to Trembowla...
...The Russians were the first to arrive at the fortress, and outside it they found the remnant Polish army waiting for them. However, as invaders were carrying a white flag, the Polish commander, hetman Stanislaw Koniecpolski, decided to hear their offers first. When he approached his opponents’ leader, his first impression was of surprise. The young Russian commander was extremely similar to John Casimir’s. Nevertheless, he still confronted him about the unwarned and illegal aggression against the Commonwealth and the king. But he wouldn’t be prepared for the answer received: “Sir, I the true Duke of Finland, Ivan, son of John Vasa, was ordered by my lord, the mighty Feodor, Tsar of All Russias, to bring a message to my cousin Poland, your king”… [2]
[1] IOTL William Ketler had a son, Jacob, who became his successor. ITTL Jacob died while still young and childless. Also, Anna Kettler is the daughter of the ATL marriage of William and Catherine of Sweden, and so she iis not only a niece of Charles X, but also the heir to the throne if Charles’ issue becomes extinct.
[2] Ivan Vasa is the Russian son of John Vasa, Duke of Finland, half brother of Sigismund III of Poland, and Xenia Godunov, the sister of Feodor II of Russia. The events surrounding their marriage are described in Chapter 27.
Chapter 49
The Deluge
From “The Struggle for the Baltic”, by Konrad Korzeniowski
...Even if the invasion of 1629 was a cause for concern among the Sejm, many nobles also considered it as an opportunity to avenge Poland’s humiliation from the defeats imposed on the country in 1611 and 1618. What they could never imagine was that the existence of the Commonwealth itself would be threatened by the Swedish Deluge of the 1630s….
…At first, the Swedish strategy was only to conquer the lands near the Baltic, in order to ensure a continued line of territory between Livonia and the vassal Duchy of Courland and their ally Brandenburg. After this, their aim was to control all of the strategic points from Ducal Prussia to the Silesian border, providing a line of supply and reinforcement to the Protestants in Bohemia. However, after their initial successes, Charles X decided that he could finally take revenge for all the offenses committed by the Polish Vasas, who for almost 40 years had kept their claim on the throne of Stockholm by declaring themselves “kings of Sweden”…
…While the Commonwealth could muster circa 50,000 men, the Swedish assembled during the invasion a force that at its peak – including reinforcements from Transylvania - reached 100,000 soldiers. It was a challenge too great for the Polish and Lithuanian troops, forced to see their cities and fortresses being taken one by one, their churches having all the saints' statues destroyed and their fields being looted by the invaders. Combined with the plague brought by Swedish soldiers in 1634, it is believed the war cost Poland between 25 and 30% of her population…
…After the destruction of Warsaw, John II Casimir was forced to take refuge at the old capital of Krakow. It was there where he first received news of the death of Charles II of Hungary and Bohemia…
…Later Polish historians have blamed John’s decision to claim the Hungarian and Bohemian thrones while the country was suffering a foreign invasion on “Vasa’s lack of both sense and sensibility”. However, the reason why he acted so rapidly in making good his rights as heir of Charles II was much more pragmatic. John II Casimir hoped that by becoming the rulers of those territories he could gain access to more troops to use against the Swedes, especially 20,000 Croatian cavalrymen…
…John’s hopes vanished when he received news of the Turkish successes in Hungary and their invasion of Croatia. With their homes threatened by the Ottomans no Hungarian or Croatian noble would help a monarch that was hardly recognized yet...
…Again threatened by the armies of the Swedish king, John II Casimir fled Krakow to the Southeastern town of Trebowla. Since the losses of Kiev and other nearby territories to Russia during the conflicts of the 1610s Trebowla had become a modern border fortress, in order to defend the South from a possible attack from their Eastern neighbour…
…During the conquest of Krakow one of the most morbid scenes of the Thirty Years' War took place. After breaking into the Cathedral of Saints Stanislaus and Vladislaus, the place where Polish kings were traditionally interred, Charles X demanded that the remains of Sigismund III of Poland should be exhumed and brought to him. At the nearby Royal Castle, he ordered a trial of Sigismund, accusing him of treason against Sweden, and declared him guilty. The corpse was decapitated, and the beheaded body was burned in order to “cleanse the Earth from the influence of such a villain”. The head was sent to Trembowla as a menace to John II Casimir if he refused to surrender…
…Using the support of the Polish and Lithuanian Protestant and Orthodox nobles, and even some Catholics discontented with the course of the war, the Swedes managed to assemble a small “rival Sejm” at Torun, where the Lithuanian Calvinist prince Krzysztof Radziwill was elected king. Although initially not favourable to an agreement with the Swedish, Krzysztof was convinced to accept the crown in exchange for the marriage of his son Janusz to Anna Kettler, the only living daughter of the Duke of Courland, William Kettler. [1] With this union, Janusz would be declared the new duke after the death of William, adding the Duchy of Courland to the already large Radziwill family’s estates...
…Due the the Danish attack against Göteborg, Charles X was obliged to divide his forces. While some men where sent back to Sweden in order to protect their homeland, the king himself decided to command his best troops in the journey from Poland to Jutland, starting what would be called by the Habsburg loyalists as the “March of Death”. The rest of the army was ordered to spend the winter at Krakow, and then depart to Trembowla as soon as the weather allowed, where they would be joined in the siege by a Transylvanian reinforcement, as was agreed with Stephen Bethlen’s regent, Anna Sophia of Brandenburg…
...The lack of action due to the winter – one of the harshest of the entire 17th century – was used as a breathing space for John Casimir. Also, the fact that the Radziwills needed to suffocate rebellions against his election across the country also contributed to his relative peace. However, the future of he and his dynasty seemed grim. As the season passed, hundreds of refugees fled to Trembowla, where they waited a decision from their king. Some wished John II had a plan that could change the outcome of the war. Others just wanted to fight their last battle, while a splinter group was pressing the king to finally give up. Isolated in that border town, John knew that his enemies were just waiting for the spring to come in order to make a final attack against his fortress...
...By the beginning of March, the Swedish were already approaching Lviv on their way to Trembowla, while the Transylvanians were assembling an army at the southern border. The situation became even worse when the king was informed that a small Russian force had crossed the Southern Bug River, and were also heading to Trembowla...
...The Russians were the first to arrive at the fortress, and outside it they found the remnant Polish army waiting for them. However, as invaders were carrying a white flag, the Polish commander, hetman Stanislaw Koniecpolski, decided to hear their offers first. When he approached his opponents’ leader, his first impression was of surprise. The young Russian commander was extremely similar to John Casimir’s. Nevertheless, he still confronted him about the unwarned and illegal aggression against the Commonwealth and the king. But he wouldn’t be prepared for the answer received: “Sir, I the true Duke of Finland, Ivan, son of John Vasa, was ordered by my lord, the mighty Feodor, Tsar of All Russias, to bring a message to my cousin Poland, your king”… [2]
[1] IOTL William Ketler had a son, Jacob, who became his successor. ITTL Jacob died while still young and childless. Also, Anna Kettler is the daughter of the ATL marriage of William and Catherine of Sweden, and so she iis not only a niece of Charles X, but also the heir to the throne if Charles’ issue becomes extinct.
[2] Ivan Vasa is the Russian son of John Vasa, Duke of Finland, half brother of Sigismund III of Poland, and Xenia Godunov, the sister of Feodor II of Russia. The events surrounding their marriage are described in Chapter 27.