And you're going to persuade them to do so how? Not to mention the details of a tax on what, on who (I doubt the concept of a tax paid by every adult male is normal in the HREGN in this period) and so on that would be subject to argument and discussion and dispute.
There's the rub - the Princes don't have to say "No, we refuse to contribute to the Empire's defense" point blank to block a program that strengthens imperial authority and access to resources at their expense.
They have a lot of ways to argue for alternatives.
Ulms and Mainz are a lot easier to argue are relevant to the defense of the Federation against France than fortresses in Bavaria are. And the Confederation doesn't have the fact the princes do not want the Emperor to gain power at their expense, which your proposal is all about - it would be very difficult to say that fortifications with large numbers of Imperial troops in place to interfere with the elector of Brandenburg is about national defense against the Empire's Western Enemy.
But not much use to the goal of reigning in the larger princes.
No, it would look as if the sovereign is not willing to spend (for example) Bavarian money or men on something of no concern to Bavaria.
Their subjects would probably prefer that, and their fellow princes . . . its kind of hard to look bad for being part of the crowd, if that makes sense.
Especially for those princes who phrase their disagreement with the Imperial Army Plan in terms of alternatives and other points up for discussion instead of just saying "No, the rest of the Empire can hang." bluntly.
It might be effectively saying so, but if they can phrase their arguments well enough, they can make the IAP seem like a greater threat than France. Which would be all sorts of bad and wrong, but that's beside the point.
So, this differs from the OTL situation how? "Fellow Germans" didn't see many soldiers sent freely to Vienna's defense against the Turk or to fight against Louis XIV - God's sweaty gym socks, we have the elector of Bavaria actively siding with France (in the War of Spanish Succession) and we don't see the other princes of the Empire all jumping on Bavaria over it.
And those are the states who you have to get on board and/or push into submission. Not the little states that would be more happy to make certain arrangements in regards to Imperial powers but which don't have much to contribute.
OK I feel I should point out that all this is for my TL, Apollinis et Dianae. So some things will be changing from OTL. As to the ta, it would be payed by each imperial Prince, though the larger Princes will probably pay more.
They do have some alternative but not many.
As to the fortress locations, your both right and wrong. Yes you can't build a fortress in Brandenburg and say its defending against France, but you can say its defending against Sweden, still a very powerful nation at this point, or Poland.
As for reigning in the larger Princes, I think its possible. Saxony sided with the Emperor most times, as would TTL Calvinist Palatinate, wanting to regain the lower Palatinate and their higher ranking Prince-Electorship. The Ecclesiastical states tended to side with the Emperor as well. Really this just leaves Bavaria and Brandenburg. Here both are married into the Imperial family, so for the time being they might be willing to side with the Emperor. And really the Emperor only needs short-term support to get reforms through. Later on, the Princes can object but the laws will already be on the books, so not much they can do.
And this is were the Imperial circles can come into play. Each circle pays a tax to build the fortresses within that particular circle. That way Bavaria or Brandenburg or Cologne are paying for their own defense, not some other Princes.
But remember most commoners at this point saw themselves as
Germans not Bavarians or Prussians. So they might just as easily see their Sovereigns as looking out for themselves rather then Germany. After all, that logic is what destroyed Germany in the thirty years war and no German is gonna want a repeat of that.
As to the Imperial army and making France seem like a bigger threat, that's gonna be difficult. Remember France has already ravaged Germany several times before, something that can't be said about the Emperor. And the army garrisoning each fortress can be a combo of Habsburg troops and troops from the Imperial circles. That way its more fair.
And in my TL most of the Imperial princes sent aid to Vienna, encouraged by the promises of English subsidies and glory. And actually most Princes send troops against France when the Diet declared it an imperial war. Bavaria was more of the exception rather then the rule. And Bavaria originally sided with the Emperor, only switching after Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria died.
And troops and fortresses can be built in Imperial states close to the larger states but not
technically in the major states. That way the Emperor can project power onto the major states but not within their borders. I think it would work.
In a way, you're right Elfwine. It will be immensely difficult to sell the idea of taxing the other parts of the empire not directly under your control to build fortresses that would impose greater imperial fortress. Especially more so on the larger powers within the HRE who are more opposed to the Emperor. Money is what makes all these dreams as they are...as I highly doubt there will be enough money to construct these planned fortifications.
However, I do feel that it is possible to do so to at least confirm the smaller states and the larger ones that are supportive to the Emperor at the time, (such as the Electorate of Saxony before the PU with the PLC, or the Duchy of Lorraine and Margraviate of Baden) but for those who are in opposition, such as the Wittelsbach electors of Bavaria, or the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg...that would be a harder sell. Even then it's only possible because they were either gratefully supportive of the Emperor, are in opposition to the French King (Louis XIV) or both, and that may change if action is not taken soon-ish.
I think your both right. Direct taxation would be difficult but a circle tax could work. That way each circle is funding their own defense and not the defense of the entire Empire.
As for the larges states, Bavaria is gonna have its hands hands full with the Palatinate wanting to regain their lost territories, so they will be distracted. And Brandenburg is temporarily allied via marriage with Austria so both are for the time being neutralized. But a common enemy like the Sun King should be enough to convince the Princes to support the defense plans.
I'll throw out a suggestion I made in a previous thread to use Reichsritter as the basis for the imperial bureaucracy you're going to need if you start centralising the Empire,
An expansionary France will certainly help by providing an outside enemy to unify against but the Ottomans? After the Treaty of Karlowitz pushed them away from Austria and Bohemia they're not really a threat to any territory within the Empire, I was under the impression that people were generally reluctant to stump up the resources for further wars as it was seen as more of a Habsburg thing than an imperial one.
Was recapturing Istanbul ever really a seriously thought of proposition? I think if you want to go about centralising the Holy Roman Empire then after the Treaty of Passarowitz - or better yet a Treaty of Karlowitz that sees them gain Transylvania, the Banat/what's nowadays the Serbian autonomous province of Vojvodina north of the Danube and parts of Croatia north of the Suva to form a nicely delineated and defensible border - then they would be better off arranging a long-term peace with the Ottomans to allow them to concentrate on Germany and Italy. The Balkans just seem like a distraction.
How about removing the Hungarian problem by getting them to make the Crown of Saint Stephen hereditary in the person of the Habsburgs? After the Treaty of Karlowitz the Habsburgs regained most of Ottoman Hungary to go with Royal Hungary they already ruled, perhaps by playing hardball with the Hungarian nobility they could force them to recognise the crown as hereditary in return for doling out all that new land. I'm sure the Hungarians will still cause trouble but with it no longer being an elective monarchy they would lose a lot of their leverage and allow the Habsburgs to concentrate on the Empire for a fair while.
Well I'm unsure if the Reichsritter on their own would be a good basis for a bureaucracy. Maybe they could be combined with the Thurn und Taxis post services? Controlling the lines of communication across the Empire would be a great boost to any centralization attempt.
And your right, France and perhaps Sweden would be a good threat to use as an outside enemy to unify the imperial states behind the Emperor. The Turks mainly threatened the Habsburgs, not the rest of the empire.
As for a long term peace with the Ottomans, not gonna happen in my TL. Right now most of Europe is allied against the Turks and either way Austria wants Hungary, Croatia and Transylvania back. Its better to completely remove the Ottomans from the Balkans and set up puppet states then focus on Germany and Italy.
As to making Hungary hereditary, that shouldn't be to hard. After all the Emperor made Bohemia hereditary and with the Imperial army controlling Hungary it should be easier to leverage the Hungarian Diet to make the throne hereditary. But that's only half of the real problem. Hungary's magnates were the real problem. Weaken them, maybe by breaking up the massive estates, and the Habsburgs can focus on Germany.
Maybe if the Austrians deal with those uppity Prussians using the time-honoured Hapsburg method of marrying into their royal family, and the dynastic history of those two nations falls out so that Prussia ends up getting incorporated into the Hapsburg dynastic union. That way we don't have German dualism tearing the Empire apart, and, if we add a belligerent and expansionist France into the mix, we might see the German princes granting more power to the Emperor. Possibly if Revolutionary France still does well in Germany, but not quite well enough to force the Empire to disband, we might see the various German princes ceding control of foreign and military policy to the Emperor on the grounds that it's at least better to be dominated by a German monarch than a foreign one. The Empire might then evolve into a federation-style country, a la the USA.
In my TL Apollinis et Dianae Prussia hadn't yet risen and I have to plans to allow it to do so.And with a POD in 1666 I doubt we would see anything similar to Revolutionary France. But Louis XIV would be enough to make the Princes tremble, especially if he annexes some territory on the Rhine. It proves that the Sun King can't be trusted and the Princes should turn to the Emperor for protection.
This, times a thousand. And let's add that all this worship for the Kaiserreich was ultimately for a state that failed faster and more profoundly than the HRE ever did, in no small part due to the supposed improvements that the Prussians had carried out. Centralization is not necessarily good in itself, especially when it is done in such a way that it stifles all hope of reasonable dissent. Virtually every absolute monarchy in history is a good example of this.
Yeah the Prussians military obsession is what ruined the German Empire. But I think your wrong about centralization. Evey state with to much decentralization fails for a reason. Centralization at the end of a bayonet is bad but leaving each Imperial prince to his own devices was equally disastrous. That's why I believe that Federalization is the way to go. Each Prince maintains his control over his own territories but things that involve the entire Empire and defense could be handled by Vienna. Its not perfect and it would take a lot of work but could work.
Maybe so, but at the same time, trying to keep the HRE alive will require some degree of centralization. Too much centralization will increase dissent and eventually lead to a French Revolution-esque movement, but too little centralization...and you're going to end up with a Yugoslavia-moment where every state that wanted nothing to do with the Emperor broke away from the Empire. Remember, that the states within the HRE Post-Westphalia were de facto independent, and it took Napoleon to make that de-facto independence, de-jure.
Really the HRE in between the Peace of Westphalia and the rise of Prussia was surprisingly together, unlike what a lot of people think. Look at how many Imperial Princes sent aid to to Vienna or participated in the Great Turkish war. Before Prussia came to power Austria had no rival within the Empire. Sure the Bavarians liked to think of themselves as the Habsburgs rivals, but every time they challenged the Emperor they got their asses kicked. But I think any form of centralization can be encouraged against a powerful external enemy. History proves that people are willing to give up some freedoms for security. This could be applied on a larger scale in the Empire.