AH Challenge: Habsburg Dynasty but a footnote

[Justin Pickard]

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to prevent the Habsburg domination of Europe which occured in OTL. Cut them short, kill them off, stop them from even beginning to gain a foothold. It's quite a tricky one to pull off plausibly. They don't seem to be that much of a threat early on, and ripping one of them out early on normally merely diverts the flow down a different branch of the family tree. Leave it too long, however, and - bam! - suddenly there are hoards of the blighters. You'll have to be cunning...

Best of luck.

 

[MerryPrankster]

During the early stages of the 30 Years War, Protestant forces from Bohemia and Protestant-dominated parts of Austria (in the beginning, much of the country was Protestant) besieged Vienna.

If Vienna falls to the Protestants, the Hapsburgs might be in trouble. They might be able to regroup outside Vienna and stage a comeback, but if enough of them are in the city when it falls, the family might be decimated.

 

[Kidblast]

My United European Monarchy thread gets kinda close, but it's probably still too late to make them just a footnote.

 

[Max Sinister]

The first Habsburg emperor (Rudolph I) isn't elected. The other electors chose him as a counterweight to the mighty Bohemian king Ottokar Przemysl, which made the latter angry and led to a battle between them and Ottokar's death. Before those events, the Habsburgs only had a few territories in Switzerland and the SW tip of Germany. Now they had an emperor and got the core of Austria.

 

[North King]

If the Luxembourg dynasty were to become Holy Roman Emperors in the main instead of the Hapsburgs... Suppose that Sigismund were to procure a male heir (who then basically inherits the title), or marry off into a different dynasty (which passes along the title to someone else). Won't exactly extinguish the Hapsburgs, but it does leave them without the crown of Holy Roman Empire and probably a lot less likely of a target for marraige by Spain.

 

[Gladi]

If the Luxembourg dynasty were to become Holy Roman Emperors in the main instead of the Hapsburgs... Suppose that Sigismund were to procure a male heir (who then basically inherits the title), or marry off into a different dynasty (which passes along the title to someone else). Won't exactly extinguish the Hapsburgs, but it does leave them without the crown of Holy Roman Empire and probably a lot less likely of a target for marraige by Spain.

Bright day
Ladislaus Posthumous?

 

[North King]

Bright day
Ladislaus Posthumous?

Sigismund was around during the Hussites, his only daughter married a Hapsburg, who then passed on the mantle to his son, Ladislaus. So Ladislaus would be his grandson. Though the Hapsburgs had the title a few times before that, they were really one among many competing factions; after the Luxembourg line fizzled out, they pretty much became unopposed in election to the Holy Roman Emperorship. So if Luxembourg had produced a male heir... they would probably have troubled the Hapsburgs a bit more.

 

[Nicole]

As has been said, Rudolf never elected Emperor, or he loses his war with Ottokar over Austria- Austria and the various related principalities pass into Bohemian hands, and the Hapsburgs only have a small state in modern Switzerland... The stage ends up set for a dominant Bohemian Empire...

 

[Max Sinister]

Possibly... but even if Ottokar is successful, the other German princes might be suspicious of him. Noone but him had such a large empire in Germany, and he was one of the prince-electors. If his dynasty doesn't die out soon (which it did OTL), the others could always try to restrict him. And he's the only non-German prince in the crowd. That could be a problem.