AHC: A Successful Germanization of Czechia

Silesia and Pomeranian are key examples- IIRC the Catholics Poles in Prussia were less radical than the Protestants. The religious tensions are pretty important... but then again the religous defiance was basically a finger in the Emperor.. There's a reason they are known as Bohemians.

So the challenge (from a 14th century perspective) is to get a Habsburg Austria Hungary with incentive to break with Rome.
The easiest way would be to make the Habsburgs divorced from Spain and Italy but still inherit Burgundy, Bohemia and Hungary. OTL the Habsburgs had to keep a firm party line to the Catholic Church because of the Spanish alliance and the integral role of the pope in Italy and the Empire.

So let's have two divergences. If Gian Galeazzo succeeds in claiming North Italy and eventually inherits the Angevin claims on Naples (and Provence?) This creates a powerful state that can wrest control of Italy and the privilege of the Roman Empire from the German king. Secondly gimp France and wank Burgundy- let Charles the bold secure a royal crown and keep the HYW going on longer to prevent France from protesting much in the interim. Aragon doesn't unite with Spain, and gets partitioned between Castille and France. Castille unites with Portugal and generally stsys out of European affairs.

Then have the Habsburg branch under Laszlo the Posthumous (the leopoldines?) survive, giving them Austria, Hungary and Bohemia half a century earler. This branch inherits Burgundy. Meanwhile France allies Italy and the Habsburgs ally England and maybe Spain.

By the time the Reformation comes around the Habsburg territories are hotbeds of the Reformation and antagonistic to France, Italy and the Pope. Thus Protestantism becomes a marker of pro-Habsburg affiliations and Catholicism anti-Habsburg.


Alternately a more permanent Mongol conquest of Hungary could do to Germany (and Italy) what the Golden Khanate did to Russia. Give Ogedai another decade of life and they basically own the Balkans and are raiding constantly into Italy, Bohemia, and Bavaria like a medieval Ottomans.
 
I agree as well with senior martyr .. Religion will be central as well, but it's not be all end all.

Northern Germany is predominantly Protestant while southern Germany is Catholic.

Make Austria a bit more religious tolerant, or religion not so crucial in their rule.

Germanization starts with settlers and language, it was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Make that more important to the bohemians. German culture was there, just drive it home
 
But im comparing them to prussians, silesian, sorbs and wends - pretty huge territory and a significant number for people that disappeared/became germans. It seems to me that basically what the germans conquered in the east in the middle ages and retained later ended up as at least german majority if not completly german by WWI.

Bohemia was conquered pretty late and had already significant Bohemian nobility and traditions of using bohemian language on state level. Later came the hussite wars that was a huge setback for german settlement in the kingdom. Even with this Bohemia has been 1/3 german by WWI.

Make them use german from the beginning and a wholly german nobility (easiest with a german conquest because they are pagans) with OTL german settlement and maybe butterfly the hussite wars and you are done without Prague becoming the capital for Germany.

Actually, what is funny is that the Protestant Silesians are either staunch germans or nationalistic poles - the Catholic Slavic (Polish) Silesians tend to be more soft in their nationalism and willing to compromise and willing to be used against Czechs, Germans or other ethnicities, they are similar to the Poles in Galicia..in that respect..
 
Actually, hussite wars was by no means a counterstrike to germanization. Czech language penetrated administration and high literature decades BEFORE outbreak of hussite wars. Much cities in bohemian inland (including cities of Prague) was czechified before hussite revolution. Even many catholic nobles and burghers who were staunch enemies of hussites were in fact ethnic Czechs (including for example catholic city council of the New Town of Prague who was defenestrated at the begining of revolution). In fact Czech language penetrated royal administration during reign of "foreign" dynasty of Luxembourgs. During hussite wars king Sigismund of Luxembourg, arch-enemy of hussites, enacted allmost all his charters as king of Bohemia in Czech. So in my humble opinion, hussite wars doesnt matter at all, because Czech penetrated cities and administration way before outbreak of these wars and because Czechs or Czech speaking individuals were also in the catholic side (by the way, many ethnic Germans were in turn on the hussite side, including successor of Žižka, Prokop Holý).

Even battle of White Mountain and subsequent Thirty years war and recatolization doesnt matter at all. After these event, German was elevated to second official language next to Czech, but Czech remained in effective use as official language even more than subsequent 100 years. Many members of highest and most important Bohemian families (including Czernin, Kinský and so on) spoke Czech even at the begining of 18th century. By the way, last Hapsburg emperor who spoke Czech was Ferdinand III. The turning point was the second half of 18th century, when Czech definitely fell into disuse at first among highest nobles, than among lower nobles and finally among burghers. Prague city council finally ceased to administrate in Czech in 1784, when doyen of Prague city council Jan Tadeáš Habřina spoke the last public speech in Prague City Hall (then Prague cities were unified and unified Prague administrated in German until 1861).

Why that happened in the 18th century? Probably because of similar reasons as contemporary still larger and larger dominance of English. Many people today predict, that English will pull much of languages into disuse. Similar case was in 18th century of Bohemia. Bohemia was part of Habsburg empire which center was in German speaking Austria. After Battle of White Mountain (in fact, even before White Mountain) there was quite large influx of nobles from neighboring countries, which were predominantly German speaking. Since 1627 German was second official language. So Bohemian nobles were pushed to learn German in order to communicate with neighboring countries and with the center of empire which was Bohemia part. On the other hand nobles form foreign countries were not motivated to learn Czech. It took more than hundred years since the Battle of White Mountain but finally in the second half of 18th century, Czech fell into disuse and the turn of 18th and 19th century, Czech turned into rather despised country dialect (which was on the other hand still occassionally used in official events such as session of Bohemian diet, so the situation of Czech was quite similar of the situation of contemporary Belarus). If there was no Herderian movement towards romantic nationalism, Czech would today ended up in the similar position as Scottish Gaelic. Of course Czech national revival was not isolated phenomenon. Allmost every nation from Finland to Macedonia underwent more or less similar process during 19th and early 20th century. Sometimes, it came quite late (as in Macedonia), sometimes it even failed (as in Belarus). But largerly it was successful. After all, look at contemporary map of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

So my conclusion: No Herder, no Czechs. But also no Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Slovenes and other nations. Map of this part of Europe would be completely different, not just disappearance of Czech salient (by the way, as a Czech I do not regret, that Czech salient is still here:)
 
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