Anaxagoras
Banned
How might France have won a decisive victory in the War of Spanish Succession? Also, what would have been the implications of Spain being united under a single Bourbon monarch?
How might France have won a decisive victory in the War of Spanish Succession? Also, what would have been the implications of Spain being united under a single Bourbon monarch?
As long as both Philip V and Louis XV survive and have sons, then there won't be a personal union, regardless of how many victories the Franco Spanish forces have.
The only change would be the Spanish Netherlands remain Spanish, or become French, and that Naples and Sicily would remain in personal union with Spain.
I recall a timeline called Drunk on Bourbon based on a (successful) Franco-Bavarian march on Vienna.I spent two months doing research to find a plausible way that France comes out of the war of Spanish succession significantly better than it started... damn near impossible.
I think a major problem is that if France wins decisively in Europe, Britain has every incentive to pillage and divide up the Spanish and French colonial empires. Britain will likely increase its efforts in the Americas to compensate for any French hegemony in continental Europe. I could easily see Britain get much of the West Indies, Florida, New Orleans, Acadia, and even Canada as its price to accept French victory in Spain.