With a POD of a victorious Spanish Armada in 1588, have Spain be the world's most powerful country by 1900. ITTL, the Armada first decisively engaged and defeated the English fleet at Plymouth before successfuly escorting the Duke of Parma's invasion force to England's shores.
AHC: Spain the world's most powerful country by 1900
- Thread starter Emperor Palpatine
- Start date
Spain was politically incompetant and economocally backward. Centuries after being a power, Spain lacked a single local forge, competant shipbuilder, banker, trading company, etc.
They couldn't adapt.
They couldn't adapt.
*Philip II and Mary Tudor have a son, she dies in childbirth
*Son marries Marie Elisabeth of Valois, both survive into their 20s but she dies giving birth to a son, Charles Phillip
*Charles Phillip controls France, England, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, OTL Benelux countries, most of northern and southern Italy, and all colonies therein by 1610. As his father and grandfather are technically 'Spanish' so is he.
*Son marries Marie Elisabeth of Valois, both survive into their 20s but she dies giving birth to a son, Charles Phillip
*Charles Phillip controls France, England, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, OTL Benelux countries, most of northern and southern Italy, and all colonies therein by 1610. As his father and grandfather are technically 'Spanish' so is he.
yeah, im thinking you have to go back a little farther. The Spanish empire decline began started at its inception. Charles was constantly walking a tight rope trying to balance his realms. However it was his son's and brother religious zealot that really turned the screws. Spain spent blood and money before it was earned on wars, it's elites turned to financial transactions as a means of making money rather than investing in home grown manufacturing.
By the time of the War of Spainish Succession Spain was a joke, it economy was wrecked, it was wracked by years of famine and plague, the population exhausted by war. The Bourbon successors spent years trying to stabilize the country only to lose its precious colonies as nationalism spread across the americas.
If you want to turn Spain into a major world power by 1900 you really got to start with adjustments the Habsburgs
By the time of the War of Spainish Succession Spain was a joke, it economy was wrecked, it was wracked by years of famine and plague, the population exhausted by war. The Bourbon successors spent years trying to stabilize the country only to lose its precious colonies as nationalism spread across the americas.
If you want to turn Spain into a major world power by 1900 you really got to start with adjustments the Habsburgs
Yeah, but he might well move his capital outside Spain - to Rome, Paris, who knows. In any event these would still be separate countries, merely in personal union.
I think it might be better for Spain to not get mixed up with all the Hapsburg inheritance in the first place, which seemed to just cause them a lot of headaches.
Anaxagoras
Banned
What Spain needs more than anything else is the same sort of revolution in financial institutions that took place in the Netherlands and, a bit later, in Britain. A central bank, a bond market, the creation of limited stock companies, that sort of thing. This is something that might happen with a plausible if extraordinary POD (i.e. a noble who happens to be a financial genius gets the ear of the King and is placed in charge of reforming the nation's finances), but really something like this takes centuries of social and economic evolution.
Bourbon Spain able to conquer and annex Portugal during the Napoleonic Period.
Bourbons then get deposed by Nappy per OTL, and the new Iberian Union firmly falls into the British camp.
Congress of Vienna recognizes the new Union, uniting both the Portuguese and Spanish Empire's indefinitely.
Bourbons then get deposed by Nappy per OTL, and the new Iberian Union firmly falls into the British camp.
Congress of Vienna recognizes the new Union, uniting both the Portuguese and Spanish Empire's indefinitely.
Viva Espana
*Count of Schaumburg-Lippe dies at the Battle of Minden in 1759
*Spanish conquer Portugal in December 1762 at end of Seven Year's War, treaty includes provision that one king may rule Naples, Sicily, and Spain
*Colonial reforms begin in late 1760s under Charles III and continue under Gabriel I into the 1790s (Charles IV dies in the smallpox epidemic that claimed Gabriel in OTL).
*Ferdinand I is killed during revolution in Naples where he is a viceroy and Charles IV of OTL is found incompetent to rule like his older brother
*Gabriel takes a very active role in his government, the war against France started in 1793 is won after the Holy Roman Empire, Sardinia, England, and France is restored as a monarchy. For its troubles, Spain is given a corridor running from the Garonne River to the Canal of Languedoc, while the Holy Roman Empire takes a large piece of northeastern France, Sardinia takes Provence, and the Papacy regains the territory at Avignon (actual proposed divisions from Britain, http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual.../sociology-economics/sociology-economics.html)
*French internal revolution results in a second deposition of the monarchy, this time under an ambitious army commander named Napoleon who proceeds to declare a dictatorship, by 1808 he has declared an Empire.
*First Trans-Continental War begins, it lasts fifteen years and sees France reduced yet again. Its colony of Louisiana is given to the United States, Spain is given a corridor from Narbonne to the Rhone along with French possessions in India, Corsica, Sardinia, Parma, Tuscany, Genoa, Provence, Lucca, and is made Protector of the Papal States. Sardinia, a former ally of Napoleon, is reduced to its original pre-1793 boundaries. Britain takes all other French overseas colonies in the Western Hemisphere while the Netherlands is unified with Lille and parts of northeastern France as Prussia takes Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine, and everything east of the Meuse River to the newer Swiss border north of Geneva. The papacy is restored to Avignon where it moves (prior to its move to the current location in Rio de Janeiro 110 years later) in 1825.
*Carlos IV inherits the throne in 1827 and continues a policy of good management for his colonies and kingdom, uniting them and practicing a middle-line balance of permitting some parliamentary democracy but retaining a firm hand on the army, finances, and executive powers. He does permit the popular legislatures to create new laws, however, and Prussia is inspired by the example soon after.
*With colonial reforms in place the colonial revolutions are significantly lessened, Mexico goes free later than OTL as does Gran Colombia but Spain retains control of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Viceroyalty of La Plata, Cuba, and all of its Caribbean Islands. Spain becomes the first European government to admit overseas colonial representatives to the Cortes, which is expanded to include representatives from all regions of the Empire including the Philippines.
*Trade expands in the post-Napoleonic peace and permits Spain to continue building on its otherwise shaky financial base, loans are slowly paid down and excesses invested in infrastructure. Spain also assumes control of New Zealand, Formosa, and Sakhalin Island during this time.
*Crimean war sees Ottomans desperate for finances, Spain buys control of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Tripoli from them in exchange for supplies. They get a terrific deal as most of the territories are only nominally Ottoman anyway. With little means of enforcing distant claims, Spain sells everything east of the Rio Grande to the United States as a means to pay for Northern Africa. Its claims to Alaska and the Pacific Basin are retained as it lays claim to Hawaii, Thailand, North Borneo, and Indochina. The resulting Viceroyalty of the Philippines out of Manila is also created.
*California remains Spanish during its gold rush years and is settled by large numbers of people from everywhere. With the United States trying hard to influence if not take over the area, Spain grants the Mormon settlements in its boundaries self-government as an autonomous province. Mexico declares independence in 1855 though California will be retained as a largely Spanish province for another five years, it is the last to fall to Republican forces during the War for Independence and the most hotly contested province. Gran Colombia declares independence towards the end of the war but is unable to keep Darien or anything north of it while Mexico is unable to keep Oaxaca, the Yucatan, or Central America, which remain Spanish as the Viceroyalty of Guatemala based in Guatemala City.
*Spain continues to industrialize, providing ships and supplies to the Confederacy during the American Civil War of 1875-1882. Though the Confederates lose the war, the regional opinion of Spain is set: Southerners love them, Northerners and Midwesterners hate them, but all respect them. Spain develops a navy second only to the United Kingdom but has retained a significant friendship with London over the years which continues into the 20th century. Unfortunately due to geopolitical maneuvering, by 1910 the competing alliances see a truncated France allied with Great Britain, the United States, and Russia against Spain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The assassination of an Austrian prince sets fire to Europe in 1918 and kick-starts a generation of warfare that redraws the maps of Europe and the world.
*Count of Schaumburg-Lippe dies at the Battle of Minden in 1759
*Spanish conquer Portugal in December 1762 at end of Seven Year's War, treaty includes provision that one king may rule Naples, Sicily, and Spain
*Colonial reforms begin in late 1760s under Charles III and continue under Gabriel I into the 1790s (Charles IV dies in the smallpox epidemic that claimed Gabriel in OTL).
*Ferdinand I is killed during revolution in Naples where he is a viceroy and Charles IV of OTL is found incompetent to rule like his older brother
*Gabriel takes a very active role in his government, the war against France started in 1793 is won after the Holy Roman Empire, Sardinia, England, and France is restored as a monarchy. For its troubles, Spain is given a corridor running from the Garonne River to the Canal of Languedoc, while the Holy Roman Empire takes a large piece of northeastern France, Sardinia takes Provence, and the Papacy regains the territory at Avignon (actual proposed divisions from Britain, http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual.../sociology-economics/sociology-economics.html)
*French internal revolution results in a second deposition of the monarchy, this time under an ambitious army commander named Napoleon who proceeds to declare a dictatorship, by 1808 he has declared an Empire.
*First Trans-Continental War begins, it lasts fifteen years and sees France reduced yet again. Its colony of Louisiana is given to the United States, Spain is given a corridor from Narbonne to the Rhone along with French possessions in India, Corsica, Sardinia, Parma, Tuscany, Genoa, Provence, Lucca, and is made Protector of the Papal States. Sardinia, a former ally of Napoleon, is reduced to its original pre-1793 boundaries. Britain takes all other French overseas colonies in the Western Hemisphere while the Netherlands is unified with Lille and parts of northeastern France as Prussia takes Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine, and everything east of the Meuse River to the newer Swiss border north of Geneva. The papacy is restored to Avignon where it moves (prior to its move to the current location in Rio de Janeiro 110 years later) in 1825.
*Carlos IV inherits the throne in 1827 and continues a policy of good management for his colonies and kingdom, uniting them and practicing a middle-line balance of permitting some parliamentary democracy but retaining a firm hand on the army, finances, and executive powers. He does permit the popular legislatures to create new laws, however, and Prussia is inspired by the example soon after.
*With colonial reforms in place the colonial revolutions are significantly lessened, Mexico goes free later than OTL as does Gran Colombia but Spain retains control of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Viceroyalty of La Plata, Cuba, and all of its Caribbean Islands. Spain becomes the first European government to admit overseas colonial representatives to the Cortes, which is expanded to include representatives from all regions of the Empire including the Philippines.
*Trade expands in the post-Napoleonic peace and permits Spain to continue building on its otherwise shaky financial base, loans are slowly paid down and excesses invested in infrastructure. Spain also assumes control of New Zealand, Formosa, and Sakhalin Island during this time.
*Crimean war sees Ottomans desperate for finances, Spain buys control of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Tripoli from them in exchange for supplies. They get a terrific deal as most of the territories are only nominally Ottoman anyway. With little means of enforcing distant claims, Spain sells everything east of the Rio Grande to the United States as a means to pay for Northern Africa. Its claims to Alaska and the Pacific Basin are retained as it lays claim to Hawaii, Thailand, North Borneo, and Indochina. The resulting Viceroyalty of the Philippines out of Manila is also created.
*California remains Spanish during its gold rush years and is settled by large numbers of people from everywhere. With the United States trying hard to influence if not take over the area, Spain grants the Mormon settlements in its boundaries self-government as an autonomous province. Mexico declares independence in 1855 though California will be retained as a largely Spanish province for another five years, it is the last to fall to Republican forces during the War for Independence and the most hotly contested province. Gran Colombia declares independence towards the end of the war but is unable to keep Darien or anything north of it while Mexico is unable to keep Oaxaca, the Yucatan, or Central America, which remain Spanish as the Viceroyalty of Guatemala based in Guatemala City.
*Spain continues to industrialize, providing ships and supplies to the Confederacy during the American Civil War of 1875-1882. Though the Confederates lose the war, the regional opinion of Spain is set: Southerners love them, Northerners and Midwesterners hate them, but all respect them. Spain develops a navy second only to the United Kingdom but has retained a significant friendship with London over the years which continues into the 20th century. Unfortunately due to geopolitical maneuvering, by 1910 the competing alliances see a truncated France allied with Great Britain, the United States, and Russia against Spain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The assassination of an Austrian prince sets fire to Europe in 1918 and kick-starts a generation of warfare that redraws the maps of Europe and the world.
Anaxagoras
Banned
Britain wouldn't let that happen.
The Portuguese would insist on regaining their independence and the British would be more than happy to give it to them.
It's not in anyone's interest to allow this to happen and the British in particular would be decidedly opposed.
Besides, even if it did happen, "Iberia" would still be faced with the revolt of its overseas colonies, its backward economic system, its corruption-riddled political system, and all its other associated problems. So it certainly wouldn't end up at "the world's most powerful country by 1900".