AHC: No Portugal

Blue Sun

Banned
Would kind of PoD would be needed if the Iberian peninsula was entirely covered by a united kingdom of Spain?
 
Latest plausible PoD: failure of the 1640 Restoration.
Later PoDs are possible but a bit of a stretch.

I think later PoDs are possible. If you avoid or ameliorate the French revolution, a combined Bourbon Family Compact could secure the place for Spain during the age of mass conscription in the early 19th Century, for instance. Particularly if the nobility get bought off.
 

Eurofed

Banned
I think later PoDs are possible. If you avoid or ameliorate the French revolution, a combined Bourbon Family Compact could secure the place for Spain during the age of mass conscription in the early 19th Century, for instance. Particularly if the nobility get bought off.

Another possibility is the Iberian national unification idea in the 19th century taking mainstream momentum among the Spanish and Portoguese liberals, on the example of Germany and Italy (even more so if Scandinavia also forms).

The failure of the 1640 rebellion remains the simplest possibility, however. Portugal would become a western analogue of Catalonia.
 
The Moors conquer all the Christian states of Iberia, forming one kingdom on the peninsula which later calls itself Spain. Allahu Ackba!
 
Another possibility is the Iberian national unification idea in the 19th century taking mainstream momentum among the Spanish and Portoguese liberals, on the example of Germany and Italy (even more so if Scandinavia also forms).

A successful Napoleon timeline could see a later liberal revolt across Iberia, forming a single country.
 
I think later PoDs are possible.
They are but they're more complicated to achieve with a single PoD.
Off the top of my head I'd think that a scenario where Napoleon wins and keeps Spain as its pet ally will result in effectively eclipsing Portugal out of Europe. Not all of mainland Portugal was meant for Spain though so a few twists will be necessary.

If you avoid or ameliorate the French revolution, a combined Bourbon Family Compact could secure the place for Spain during the age of mass conscription in the early 19th Century, for instance. Particularly if the nobility get bought off.
If you have a strengthened and more aggressive Spain it'll work but you must also find a way to bypass the British.

Another possibility is the Iberian national unification idea in the 19th century taking mainstream momentum among the Spanish and Portoguese liberals, on the example of Germany and Italy (even more so if Scandinavia also forms).
The problem is Iberism is sacrilege to Portuguese romantic nationalists.
 
A POD during the Second Crusades could do the trick. OTL, a number of English/Breton crusaders were diverted from the Holy Land when they landed in Portugal to aid in the fight against the Moors. If they had instead continued on to the Holy Land, Alfonso I of Portugal may never have captured Lisbon. In that case the "Kingdom of Portugal" would remain another small Kingdom along the lines of Galicia or Navarre.

Assuming everything else goes mostly the same as OTL, and Castile-Leon comes to dominate the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal would be swallowed up by some combination of war and marriage. With this earlier POD Portugal would likely become more like Catalonia today than, say, the Basque region, since it would have been tied up with Spain for so long that its spoken language would have become nearly synonymous with Spanish.

Interestingly, with Portugal a part of Spain early on, the discovery of the New World would likely be delayed, since a larger Spain would naturally dominate the Cape of Good Hope trade route. When the New World is discovered (Basque and Breton Fishermen would eventually spread the tale, and someone was bound to take them seriously eventually), Lisbon would be well positioned to be the hub of Iberian trade to the New World, the city certainly has natural advantages superior to Seville, and comparable to Cadiz.
 
The problem is Iberism is sacrilege to Portuguese romantic nationalists.

This.
Actually, any form of succesfull Iberism would come from more "leftist" positions. For example, President Pi y Margall, who tried the creation of a Federal Republic of Spain, said that "we should give to the portuguese whatever they demand in order to get them to join our federation". Of course, more or less similar ideas are seen often in catalan iberism, as it has always seen Iberism, in part, as mean to counter the influence of the "center" increasing the "periphery", but well, this is another question. But on the other hand, Pi y Margall thought was seminal in further developments in the spanish left, in some ways he was proto-socialist and in some other ways he had large influence in early spanish anarchism, or at least proto-anarchism and certainly a progressive for its time. So, probably similar ideological circles would be more receptive to this kind of ideas also in Portugal (which, after all, maybe has been a bit the case, a portuguese may correct me. The last influent portuguese iberist, and probably the las iberist in general, was Saramago.)

Still, we are on the realm of the unlikelly and the "fucking difficult".We need a succesfull First Spanish Republic, one where the federalists have the upper hand and a Portugal receptive to the spanish invitations, which wouldn't be the case in the OTL Kingdom of Portugal of the time without a doubt, and probably either even if the king is toppled earlier than in OTL due to an eventual spanish contagion.
 
Still, we are on the realm of the unlikelly and the "fucking difficult".We need a succesfull First Spanish Republic, one where the federalists have the upper hand and a Portugal receptive to the spanish invitations, which wouldn't be the case in the OTL Kingdom of Portugal of the time without a doubt, and probably either even if the king is toppled earlier than in OTL due to an eventual spanish contagion.

If you have a medium-term successful Napoleonic Empire, you could then get an ongoing co-ordinated Iberian resistance, that feels they are all brothers against the evil French. Added in to the fact Portugal has already been divided up into tiny republics, a single People's Iberia could come out of it when Napoleon eventually dies and his empire collapses.
 
A POD during the Second Crusades could do the trick. OTL, a number of English/Breton crusaders were diverted from the Holy Land when they landed in Portugal to aid in the fight against the Moors. If they had instead continued on to the Holy Land, Alfonso I of Portugal may never have captured Lisbon. In that case the "Kingdom of Portugal" would remain another small Kingdom along the lines of Galicia or Navarre.

Not even that - Portugal was largely a county of Galicia. Having a surviving Galicia could dramatically change things, of which one easy POD could have Galicia become an Iberian Normandy. In that case, "Portugal" would essentially become OTL's Miño/Minho region.
 
^I think we have two timelines focusing on that idea actually. :)

I'd say switch the winners at Aljubarrota.

Other than that, just have the County of Portugal stay part of whatever kingdom emerges from the others. That's basically what I did, and now "Portugal" is a province limited to OTL's northern half of Portugal.
 
The simplest way to get something that used to exist is to have it stop stopping to exist

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
If you have a medium-term successful Napoleonic Empire, you could then get an ongoing co-ordinated Iberian resistance, that feels they are all brothers against the evil French. Added in to the fact Portugal has already been divided up into tiny republics, a single People's Iberia could come out of it when Napoleon eventually dies and his empire collapses.

Well, the feeling of iberian brotherhood has been there in larger or shorter measure since the Middle Ages and it has not led to an urge for an union. Well, the common struggle against the muslims, or better said, the ideological construct of a common struggle, led to the first paniberian project, but it ended as all we know. Obviously, a common struggle against the french could strenght those feelings, specially in the age of Romanticism, but also that same age of Romanticism, as Miguel noted, and the particular and somewaht exceptional political developments at the time in Spain and Portugal would complicate things. Even inside OTL Spain, the idea of a brotherhood amongst the iberian peoples is not incompatible with separatist feelings, go figure.

To make things even more difficult, during the french invasion of Iberia the ideological fractures coexist with a more subtile fracture about the construction of the state - "from above" or "from below"- conflating with a more doctrinary Liberalism and inter-elites interests. It was already conflictive inside the Spanish Monarchy to keep in order all the local and regional "Juntas" even in the penisular territories (plus the colonial unrest making it even more problematic in the Americas), which after all were the spine of the uprising against Bonaparte fromt the POW of the sovereignity, that adding the portuguese question could be mindblowing.
By their part, the portuguese have their court in Brazil, what will lead to its own political inner struggle, but driven by very particular interests that I'm not sure wether are compatible with an iberian union.

Finally we have the spanish national conscience taking form precissely during the Peninsular War. Perhaps it wouldn't be difficult to insert the consideration of Portugal as part of the spanish nation in the proccess. But, on the opposite sense, the portuguese identity is already formed and the surging romantic national cosncience, as noted by Miguel, is somewaht defined as "we-are-not-spaniards". That's more difficult to change, beceause has deeper roots, predating nationalisms. That's why in noted that Iberism found more acceptation latter in more "leftist" developments of liberalism and then in revolutionnary movements derived from these.

In the spanish side the procces led to the promaclation of the Constitution of 1812, but in the road to reach it we have an angry absolutist opposition, conflicts amongst the "Junta Central" and the regional and local juntas, which are exacerbated in the colonies. At this point in 1812, some american territories have broken de facto with Madrid (or rather Cadiz), some even proclaiming their own constitutions before (Venezuela 1811) and others pushing for both a more proportional representation and a more decentralized approach to the new constitution or for a separation of kingdoms under the same Monarchy.

On the portuguese side, with the king still acting as a king, things are a bit less complicated what probably make their procces slower. But the problem is that, after all, the king is on the other side of the ocean. So, what is now the place of metropolitan Portugal in the Empire. Are we now a colony of Brazil? add to this the loss of the colonial comercial monopoly and the loss of influence in the imperial decissionmaking, and you have large support to the constitutional proccess of 1820, though different political and social sectors have different ideological approachs to what have to be the new constitution and its limits.

So, we have a Spain with one of its typical problems of identity, but a very serious one, with the colonies breaking and a lot of problems around the internal organization and even the implications of the idea of nation and the articulation of people's severeignity. Meanwhile Portugal is looking with saudade upon the ocean towards Brazil making heartbreaking songs about their times of love with the king in the bohemian nights of Lisbon and worried about the future implications of the new situation if the king doesn't come back once the french are beaten (as actually happened in OTL). In other words, while the fight is common and similar, while one part is primarily looking inside herself at the point it's neglecting the colonial problems and demands, the other is looking outside, because the different results of the invasion regarding their monarchs (neutralization and relocation respectivelly) have created different problematics, difficult to conciliate.

Cheers.
 
Easy, just kill Afonso Henriques. You could also try the Iberian Union surviving past 1640, but this will be more difficult. If there is still a Spanish Succession War I bet the Portuguese high nobility will try and get independence.
 
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