AHC: Bavaria a World Power

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make a state based in Bavaria a world power without ASBs. This state may include other territories, but its most important part and capital must be in Bavaria, and its name must include the word 'Bavaria'. It may have a minority of actual Bavarians.

Your POD must be no earlier than the beginning of Otto I Wittelsbach's reign.

Bonus points for having the POD after 1638, as well as for a short TL.

Can this even be done? :eek:
 
A true French victory in the War of the Spanish Succession is a good platform; Bavaria allied with France in said war, and could get concessions that would plant the seeds of making it a rival towards Austria for German dominance.
 
I also think that the best way is via dynastic marriages, inheritances, etc. Basically, instead of the Habsburgs marrying and inheriting half of Europe, it's the Wittelsbachs (or some other Bavarian noble line that gains prominence via butterflies). They inherit some surrounding lands whose aristocracy and population are slowly assimilated, then rinse and repeat until it can be called the "Bavarian Empire" or somesuch.

Another alternative might be if Bavaria somehow gets the title of the HRE's Emperor, and manages to reform it into something more centralized. It would probably still be called the HRE, but might gain a colloquial title as the "Bavarian Imperial Federation" or somesuch.

- Kelenas
 
A Wittelsbach-Habsburg union would be interestesting. Perhaps a Austro-Bavarian Empire. The various German principalities could be organized into two bodies with a Lutheran North and a Catholic South.
 
Does Bavaria have to be the name of the state when it forms a state apparatus, or can it merely be one of the many titles held by a king who controls a world power?
 
One thing about the House of Wittelsbach was that they were a lot like the House of Luxembourg - coming very close to the dominance of the HRE, but ultimately coming up short due the death of the various branches.

The Wittelsbachs held Holland, Brandenburg, and the Palatinate in addition to their native Bavaria.
 
Main problem with late POD is that the "Bavarian" world power would likely be known as Germany.

I'd propose an early medieval POD. At that time, the duchy of Bavaria was quite large and colonizing the East - OTL Austria. Keeping the HRE weak or making the Bavarian duke Emperor allows Bavaria to expand into Northern Italy - which they sometimes did IOTL with Verona. Do that on a small scale, though, so that only OTL Terra Ferma become Bavarian and the Bavarians keep out of Italian politices elsewhere. Let them also conquer/inherit Bohemia plus Silesia, and you have essentially copied the later Hapsburg domains plus Bavaria.
 
How about a different Austrian Succession? Instead of the Duchy of Austria passing into Habsburg hands after the demise of the Babenbergs, it passes instead into the hands of the Wittelsbachs?
 
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