A statement of multiversal odds - France was the most likely European hegemon

Valdemar II

Banned
----I would agree the HRE might have been a more likely hegemon, but pretty much only in scenarios pre-dating AD 1250 or so, when the empire definitively fell behind England and France in terms of dynastic centralization.





--- The Habsburgs certainly could do better, although I still see this leading to a Habsburg-French bipolarity in West-Central Europe. (and in reality, it would be a British-French-Austrian-Russian “quadripolar” balancing system)

Here’s the thing about the Habsburgs thought, he odds of this Habsburg domain forming the first place (and thus even becoming a contender) were certainly lower than France becoming a great power, IMHO.

Think about it, over the course of 40 years the Habsburgs ruling Austria and some south German lands (and admittedly, having the prestige of the imperial crown) had a string of remarkable good luck allowing them to inherit Spain (itself an uncertain combination that fortuned upon Italian and New World possessions), half the Burgundian lands, Bohemia, Hungary and Portugal.

No doubt there was strategy behind the marriages, but these were bets, with no guarantee of panning out, and it worked in some ways because the Habsburgs themselves practiced Salic law while marrying into important external kingdoms like Spain and Hungary that did not practice it.

Measured over a few centuries, odds of French hegemony were > than odds of Austrian hegemony.
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But even if the Habsburg had died out in the 15th century another German house would have had the same chance of dominating Germany, from the moment the German nation are created out of the Germanic tribes, it has a much chance of dominate the European contignent than France have, and for most of Middle Ages it also did so.
 
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