AHC: Carlist Spain AND Liberal Spain

[Emperor Julian]

Hmm. Assuming a Legitmist holds the crown in Paris, the Carlist would certainly have a great power patron. But who would support the Spanish liberals? Certainly not the Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, Savoyards, Ottomans, Romanovs, or Saxe-Coburg and Gothas. Only perhaps Braganzas would back the Spanish liberals, and only because the Carlist had a claim to the Portuguese throne as well. I doubt the Brits would back them, and in the face of a united European opposition Lisbon will back down. So we're back to square one - we don't have both liberal and Carlist Spain.

Why wouldn't the British back them to weaken their French rivals?

 

[Rush Tarquin]

Hmm. Assuming a Legitmist holds the crown in Paris, the Carlist would certainly have a great power patron. But who would support the Spanish liberals? Certainly not the Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, Savoyards, Ottomans, Romanovs, or Saxe-Coburg and Gothas. Only perhaps Braganzas would back the Spanish liberals, and only because the Carlist had a claim to the Portuguese throne as well. I doubt the Brits would back them, and in the face of a united European opposition Lisbon will back down. So we're back to square one - we don't have both liberal and Carlist Spain.

Well, Bismarck would want to stick it to the French again by putting a Hohenzollern on the throne in 1870. The forces that overthrew Isabella II were thinking of Leopold. This is close enough, no? I've never understood European dynastic politics and I've only recently started looking at Spanish history during this period, but is there some definition or detail I'm unaware of?

 

[Lleibi]

Ok, now let me get clear a bit on this:

Your suggestion to put Leopold on the liberal throne is complementary to mine (that is, putting Leopold after Amadeo gives up and after the Republic, Federalization, and instead of Alphonse XII)?

Or is it a completely independent idea (Leopold instead of Amadeo)?

I think the second is true, but i want to be sure

 

[wolf_brother]

Why wouldn't the British back them to weaken their French rivals?

Well, Bismarck would want to stick it to the French again by putting a Hohenzollern on the throne in 1870. The forces that overthrew Isabella II were thinking of Leopold. This is close enough, no? I've never understood European dynastic politics and I've only recently started looking at Spanish history during this period, but is there some definition or detail I'm unaware of?

Why are the French rivals of the British ITTL? IOTL they became close allies after the Napoleonic period - it was at British insistence that France was brought into the European alliance system and normalized relations with the rest of the continent. Even without Napoléon III the two states would still be close.

To get Leopold on the throne as per OTL we'd need a timeline that is fairly close to OTL, and the timing of the Legimist takeover would have to be to be fairly close to the end of Bonapartist regime IOTL anyhow. So we're looking at after the Crimean War, Austro-Italian War, American Civil War, French Intervention in Mexico, Second Schleswig War, and the Seven Weeks War. By that point the entente's foundations had been well laid out. That isn't to say that the two powers couldn't become rivals again - but a Legimist France isn't going to be that tipping point.

Again, I can see a Carlist Spain, and I can see a liberal Spain - or even a liberal Carlist Spain. But not both. The geopolitics aren't there. You'd need a POD back in the 1820s or 30s to pull this off IMHO.

 

[Rush Tarquin]

You mean that Leopold gets chosen as king instead of Amadeo of Saboy? Who are the legitimists, anyway? (don't really know much about the european politics in that moment... for some reason, the period between 1812 and 1898 was always... uninteresting to me, i studied what pertained to Spain, but never bothered with the European context my bad)

The Legitimists are the conservative monarchists in France as opposed to the moderate monarchist Orleanists. Both factions were still quite relevant in the French Sénat.

I think he means Hohenzollern. Would he have been more forceful about his position than Amadeo Saboy?

For the purposes of the challenge, I think Prussian/German Hohenzollerns would be powerful enough vis-a-vis France to force a stalemate. The Italian Savoys, not yet.

Ok, now let me get clear a bit on this:

Your suggestion to put Leopold on the liberal throne is complementary to mine (that is, putting Leopold after Amadeo gives up and after the Republic, Federalization, and instead of Alphonse XII)?

Or is it a completely independent idea (Leopold instead of Amadeo)?

I think the second is true, but i want to be sure

Yeah, the idea I had was for Leopold to be selected in the first place and either avoid the I Republic or retain the throne after the I Republic collapses (the latter is maybe less plausible; I don't know enough). Though the complementary idea works well and might be more plausible if you can account for why the change of heart happened since 1870 and why Alphonse XII doesn't get it.

To get Leopold on the throne as per OTL we'd need a timeline that is fairly close to OTL, and the timing of the Legimist takeover would have to be to be fairly close to the end of Bonapartist regime IOTL anyhow. So we're looking at after the Crimean War, Austro-Italian War, American Civil War, French Intervention in Mexico, Second Schleswig War, and the Seven Weeks War. By that point the entente's foundations had been well laid out. That isn't to say that the two powers couldn't become rivals again - but a Legimist France isn't going to be that tipping point.

My assumption was a Franco-Prussian/German rivalry rather than an Anglo-French rivalry causing a division of Spain.

 

[Lleibi]

The scenario is very compelling. And it certainly would make the III carlist war a lot more balanced.

But i wouldn't place together my idea of federalism with Leopold in the throne, because the reason why the Borbons were restored on Alphonse XII's head was that people were very very tired of experiments. While low on prestige, people remembered the country had been much more stable under the Borbons.

So we basically need 2 things to make it work:
-Reasons for the French legitimists and the Prussians to care about the Carlist war. This would need an earlier PoD, as wolf suggests. Doesn't have to be necesarily something that drastically changes events from there, but something that only triggers at the III Carlist war.

-Reasons for the Carlists and the liberals to accept a divided Spain. Carlists theoretically wouldn't, as much as Charles VII was a "progressive" by carlist standards, because they are traditionalists, their motto is God, Fatherland and King. It would require some kind of strange mixture of federalist regionalism (that already existed) together with the Carlism, a new ideology *cough*.
Republican Federalists might have an easier time accepting it, but precisely because of this, the republic would surely fall, and Alphonse XII wouldn't be accepting at all.

On the other hand, with Leopold from the get go, he might be happy to get a kingdom at all, but that remove the only window i see for the Carlists to accept a divided Spain (no republic, hence no federalism, unless Carlism and regionalism/nationalism fuse as an offshot of carlism much much faster than it happened IOTL, like 30 years faster).

 

[Rush Tarquin]

The scenario is very compelling. And it certainly would make the III carlist war a lot more balanced.

But i wouldn't place together my idea of federalism with Leopold in the throne, because the reason why the Borbons were restored on Alphonse XII's head was that people were very very tired of experiments. While low on prestige, people remembered the country had been much more stable under the Borbons.

So we basically need 2 things to make it work:
-Reasons for the French legitimists and the Prussians to care about the Carlist war. This would need an earlier PoD, as wolf suggests. Doesn't have to be necesarily something that drastically changes events from there, but something that only triggers at the III Carlist war.

-Reasons for the Carlists and the liberals to accept a divided Spain. Carlists theoretically wouldn't, as much as Charles VII was a "progressive" by carlist standards, because they are traditionalists, their motto is God, Fatherland and King. It would require some kind of strange mixture of federalist regionalism (that already existed) together with the Carlism, a new ideology *cough*.
Republican Federalists might have an easier time accepting it, but precisely because of this, the republic would surely fall, and Alphonse XII wouldn't be accepting at all.

On the other hand, with Leopold from the get go, he might be happy to get a kingdom at all, but that remove the only window i see for the Carlists to accept a divided Spain (no republic, hence no federalism, unless Carlism and regionalism/nationalism fuse as an offshot of carlism much much faster than it happened IOTL, like 30 years faster).

Well, Alfonso XII was quite young and the only male heir. If he had died even earlier, his two younger sisters might have been seen as too young to be suitable. Which leaves his older sister, and I have to ask why she didn't take the throne OTL if she was the heir presumptive.

Might they have gone back to Lepold if they were 'tired of experiments' (in a TL where Leopold accepted in 1870), or perhaps asked Leopold if Amadeo didnt want to give it a second try, geopolitical baggage be damned (in a TL where Leopold didn't accept in 1870)?