AHC: keep Portugal under Spanish rule

samcster94

Banned
Portugal was under Spanish rule OTL for decades and was lost near the end of the thirty years war. Is there a way to prevent this??? The POD has to be no earlier than 1580.
 
Portugal was under Spanish rule OTL for decades and was lost near the end of the thirty years war. Is there a way to prevent this??? The POD has to be no earlier than 1580.

The main reason why "Spain" finally lost control of Portugal is that it had overextended and faced too many enemies. The United Provinces, France, England, the 30 years war, not to mention the ottoman empire, were more than the spanish Habsburgs could swallow.

Spain needed to regroup. It should have given-up both the burgundian inheritance and northern Italy and have focused its energies on the Mediterranean sea, the atlantic, the Americas and trade with Asia.

If It had regrouped earlier, It would probably have retained control of Portugal.
 
Need to crush the Dutch completely so the Spanish don't look impotent later on when the Dutch merchants seize and attack Portuguese possessions and threaten their prosperity.
 

Lusitania

Donor
As long as Portuguese felt abandoned by Madrid like they did with the diverting of resources from Portuguese India and East Indies in their war against the Dutch the Portuguese resented Madrid and revolted against the the unnatural alliance.
 
Have Alfonso, prince of Portugal and Isabella of Aragon, princess of Asturias survive. Throw in a couple of infantes and infantas and you're all set.
 
Keep Spain out of the Netherlands, destroy the Spanish alliance with the Austrian Habsburgs and avoid the Spanish Armada, or at least place a Good Admiral in charge of it.

The Portuguese merchants, and the State, had many interests in Antwerp, our main commercial hub in Northern Europe, and the war with the Dutch was against those interests, that we were constantly having to send soldiers to fight all over Europe just managed to piss off the nobility that was more interested in wagging war in Asia and in Morocco and our losses in the Spanish attempted invasion of England just poisoned the relationship from the start given that it gave the impression that our resources were just to be wasted in defense of Madrid's interests instead of being used to defend our interests.
 
I'm not sure that keeping the Habsburgs out of the Netherlands is for the best given how much money they got from taxes and the importance of Dutch and Flemish merchants, and I'm certain that the Habsburg alliance is a good idea which is why it happened in the first place given the inevitable conflict with France over Italy to say nothing of French designs on Catalonia. Likewise the Ottomand are going to be butting heads with Spain over the Mediterranean so an Austrian alliance makes sense there too to open up another front. The devil is in the details- have a different division of the Habsburg inheritance or a less bungled response to the Dutch revolt, or have the Habsburgs inherit England as well to complete the encirclement of France.

My favored Pod would be a surviving son of queen Mary who retains the English throne and gets the Burgundian Lands as well, as well as whatever bits of northern France (Picardy, maybe one of Brittany, Aquitaine or Normandy) they can take when the Valois inevitably raise a stink.
 
I'm not sure that keeping the Habsburgs out of the Netherlands is for the best given how much money they got from taxes and the importance of Dutch and Flemish merchants, a

The thing is that those are good things for the Habsburgs but bad for Portugal. The Netherlands was our main northern comercial hub and all we wanted there was peace, we didn't cared about who controlled it we just wanted our trade to be left in peace and that included avoiding war in Flanders, being dragged into the wars there against the Dutch Republic pissed off many merchants that had initially been more than happy to be under Spanish control, after all they had gained easier access to Peruvian Silver and Spanish Colonies had been opened to our Slave Trade, but that good will was shattered when Madrid imposed embargos on the Dutch because of the war between the two powers.

and I'm certain that the Habsburg alliance is a good idea which is why it happened in the first place given the inevitable conflict with France over Italy to say nothing of French designs on Catalonia. Likewise the Ottomand are going to be butting heads with Spain over the Mediterranean so an Austrian alliance makes sense there too to open up another front.

Again this are things that favored the Habsburgs but not Portugal, and that was what poisoned the relationship between Lisbon and Madrid.

Fighting with Austria and Spain against the Ottomans? We would be more than happy to help, after all we spent the full 16th century fighting the Ottomans over control of the Indian Ocean and screwing them in Europe would be a bonus. But being dragged into the conflicts in Italy, Germany and being opposed to France was against our interests, specially because we depended in imports from those areas to keep our armies and fleets in India well supplied, and for those in power it looked like we were investing much more in protecting the Spanish-Austrian interests than they invested in protecting ours. We send men and ships to help Spain invade England, and to all the other conflicts to which they dragged us, and when we needed help in defending the colonies against the Dutch we were ignored and told that we had to send more help so that Madrid could defend their possessions.

The devil is in the details- have a different division of the Habsburg inheritance or a less bungled response to the Dutch revolt, or have the Habsburgs inherit England as well to complete the encirclement of France.

My favored Pod would be a surviving son of queen Mary who retains the English throne and gets the Burgundian Lands as well, as well as whatever bits of northern France (Picardy, maybe one of Brittany, Aquitaine or Normandy) they can take when the Valois inevitably raise a stink.

The devil is that the interests of the two countries were opposites. Spain had interests in Europe and wanted to expand their possessions there, Portugal wanted peace in Europe so that we could continue our expansion in India and in SEAsia. If they had ignored the Burgundian lands and northern Italy, and had steered away from conflicts in Europe, except against the Ottomans, those with power in Portugal would had little reason to rebel against Madrid, and to that matter Catalonia would also had little reason to rebel as well.
 
An alternate split of the Habsburg empire sounds like the way to go then- have Austria keep the Netherlands and maybe Milan and Spain sticks with just the Two Sicilies.

I don't think Spain can or should detach completely from European affairs but trading Austrian support against the Turks for the occasional assault on Lenguadoc or Gascony seems fair. France isn't going to stop trying to push towards the Rhine or Milan and unless Portugal wants to break away completely I don't think that Spain should let them, however a looser policy that lets them work with say the Dutch or English as well as the Austrians seems like it would accomplish that, and Spain being directly engaged in the Netherlands was what ultimately broke that relationship as it bogged them down in a ruinous attempt at bleeding taxes from distant Protestants.

It's not impossible to prevent the Dutch revolt which in turn would prevent the Netherlands from being such a moneysink as well as reducing pressure on Portuguese colonies, which eliminates much of the strain that you noted. The easiest way, again, is to foist the Low Countries off on some other branch of the family, either the Austrians or a third branch.

Milan I think could be kept by Spain without overextending them against France or the like, it's rich, religiously and culturally compatible with Spain and has Savoy and the Alps as a buffer. Giving it to Austria or a cadet line are also possible.
 
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