AHC: Thirty Years War makes HRE more centralized instead of less

There is some way that could revert the result of the Thirty Years War to produce a more centralized HRE rather than a less centralized one?
 
Prevent the intervention of Sweden and France. Give Sweden something else to worry about, such as Russia, and make the Huguenot rebellion longer and more damaging for France to keep them distracted.

Before the Swedish Intervention the Spanish-Imperial armies have pretty much won a decisive Victory, having pacified their own territory, crushed the Evangelical League and occupied the lands of the Rhenish Palatinate, seized all Danish Held Lands on the Mainland, won a massive string of decisive victories, and effectively have complete military control of the Entire Empire.
 
Prevent the intervention of Sweden and France. Give Sweden something else to worry about, such as Russia, and make the Huguenot rebellion longer and more damaging for France to keep them distracted.

Before the Swedish Intervention the Spanish-Imperial armies have pretty much won a decisive Victory, having pacified their own territory, crushed the Evangelical League and occupied the lands of the Rhenish Palatinate, seized all Danish Held Lands on the Mainland, won a massive string of decisive victories, and effectively have complete military control of the Entire Empire.

But I'm afraid that way Spanish would have imposed mandatory Catholicism isn't it? Unlikely to endure much time...
 
But I'm afraid that way Spanish would have imposed mandatory Catholicism isn't it? Unlikely to endure much time...

Perhaps there's a way to make the Peace of Prague hold (after the initial Swedish Intervention failed, but before the French Intervention); the treaty contains some political centralizing provisions (particularly with regard to military and foreign policy) while rolling back Imperial attempts earlier in the war to impose mandatory Catholicism on some of the Protestant states.

IOTL, the centralizing provisions were rolled back at Westphalia. Is it plausible to prevent that by having France decide not to intervene directly?
 
Would they not have gone for the religion of the prince is the religion of the people?

Only if they are forced to swallow it, as in Augsburg. Spanish Habsburgs assumed the 'mission' of recatholicize Protestant Europe, and they saw the 30 years war as its last chance.

Problem with a HRE more centralized is that, in some way, one of the two religions 'might win' and thus makes the result difficult to last.
 
But I'm afraid that way Spanish would have imposed mandatory Catholicism isn't it? Unlikely to endure much time...

It is likely that they would impose Mandatory Catholicism or at least attempt to, but again, unless there is considerable outside intervention They have Won, and it is extremely unlikely for any of the small German States to be able to oppose them. Even with English, Dutch and Danish Intervention the Imperials still won, decisively. It was only after they were opposed by literally every single major power in Europe other than Poland that the Protestants actually managed to win.

And they managed to re-Catholicize Bohemia after re-conquering it. I don't see why it would be impossible for the same thing to happen in other Imperial Territories, especially given the sheer magnitude of the Imperial Victory before Sweden and France Intervened.

However the Mandatory Catholicism doesn't have to stick, it's just the centralization that needs to. The Habsburgs were a mixed bag as far as Religion Tolerance Went. The Habsburgs Were willing to make Religious Concessions to secure their authority, even when negotiating from a position of relative strength. If they secure major centralization here, and later give up a little religious freedom while maintaining their other powers in the Empire, that still ends up with a vastly more centralized HRE.
 
Absence or failure of Swedish and French intervention (or the fear of it) leads to a more centralizing Peace of Prague and those centralizing factors can be enforced and extended. I agree a forced Catholicization of N Germany is untenable but as others have suggested, perhaps the emperor will compromise to achieve political power.

So a centralized Germany in the 1600s has immense ramifications. Is Leopold I the Sun King instead of Louis? Is Vienna the center of European culture and politics instead of Paris? Is German the dominant language on the continent instead of French?

Where is the power of the new Germany projected? Into Poland? Hungary and the Balkans? Italy? What coalitions arise to contain the new power?
 
The problem...

The problem with HRE, which manages to be more centralized and unified, is that at that time political opposition and religious dissent, were for everyone, interchangeable terms together.

The centripetal forces that fought to modernize it and make it a condition, the style of the other European States of their time, were at this time the Habsburg and instead centrifugal forces were represented by the powers Reformist internal (German) or external.

Even though this causes the cultural instinctive rejection in many people whose cultural traditions were marked by the survival of the Reformers
who managed to maintain and justify ideologically, through its religion their political autonomy and taxation traditional privileges of feudal origin.


Obviously the intervention of France, was motivated to prevent the emergence of a great state, ruled by the Habsburgs his enemies who surround to France.


But if what you want is a non-Catholic HRE, should prevent a member of the Habsburg family can become Emperor and perhaps replaced by a member of a noble family that could be more feasible to convert to the Reformed faith or too weak to oppose her, but in the latter case would also too weak to even attempt to centralize and unify the empire, facing his fellow Catholics already.
 
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