Balkanized European Empires?

I was walking home today and had this idea where following a war of succession an empire - say the spanish one - was partitioned in a peace settlement; say the senior branch of a family getting the motherland, branch 2 getting New Spain, the Caribbean and the Philippines, the Republicans hold Great Britain while the Royalists hold America, and so on. I think a TL with this as a theme has great potential but I can't think of enough ways to break the major European dynasties so as to litter America and India with a bunch of European early modern kingdoms :(
 
I agree that it's interesting and has potential, but from the very start it's verging on ASB. Though such ideas are postulated a lot, really several of those ideas would never happen - such as the Spanish Americas going to a younger son, or the colonies remaining royalist and surviving if Britain went republican...which itself is a very unlikely event.
 
Interesting idea. But you should take into account that the being fobbed off
with the colonies would feel like an exile, for losing prestige, economic
and cultural status, as well as homeland feeling.

Unless you schedule these events so late that it was equivalent to
calling the new-wold rulers famous motherland supporters of the independence
movements.

Do you already have any preferred period for that?
 
I was walking home today and had this idea where following a war of succession an empire - say the spanish one - was partitioned in a peace settlement; say the senior branch of a family getting the motherland, branch 2 getting New Spain, the Caribbean and the Philippines, the Republicans hold Great Britain while the Royalists hold America, and so on. I think a TL with this as a theme has great potential but I can't think of enough ways to break the major European dynasties so as to litter America and India with a bunch of European early modern kingdoms :(

If that happens in the philippines is free or independent from any european powers, earlier reislamization(which will happen gradually) will happen like what is happening now,the moros in fact raided some cities in the philippines i don't think any thing can stop it other than european or GI powers.
 
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or the colonies remaining royalist and surviving if Britain went republican...which itself is a very unlikely event.
Not necessarily impossible. Just depends on how early you have it. In the English Civil War, much of the colonies remained Chevalier, even though the Isles themselves fell to Roundheadism. So that one's already sorta OTL.

Though most of what he's saying is highly unlikely, especially the longer you go on. Nations just simply became more centralised from the Renaissance on down through the 19th century. Your best bet for an interesting "balkanised empire" is having feudalism in France stay as-is from the 12th century forwards, but not have it all go into English hands. Now, that's an entertaining story. :D
 
I was walking home today and had this idea where following a war of succession an empire - say the spanish one - was partitioned in a peace settlement; say the senior branch of a family getting the motherland, branch 2 getting New Spain, the Caribbean and the Philippines, the Republicans hold Great Britain while the Royalists hold America, and so on. I think a TL with this as a theme has great potential but I can't think of enough ways to break the major European dynasties so as to litter America and India with a bunch of European early modern kingdoms :(
One word: Brazil
 
I was walking home today and had this idea where following a war of succession an empire - say the spanish one - was partitioned in a peace settlement; say the senior branch of a family getting the motherland, branch 2 getting New Spain, the Caribbean and the Philippines, the Republicans hold Great Britain while the Royalists hold America, and so on. I think a TL with this as a theme has great potential but I can't think of enough ways to break the major European dynasties so as to litter America and India with a bunch of European early modern kingdoms :(

In 1820, after the restoration of the spanish liberal constitution of 1812, some representatives from Nueva España (specially Michelena and Ramos Arízpide) proposed something like that. The idea was to create regencies in the spanish american colonies with members of the reigning dinasty (the spanish Bourbons, of course) to preserve the self-governance that was reached by the colonies in the recent years. The Cortes refused that and all we know what happened then. It's difficult to say (at least I don't know it) if it would be accepted by a majority in the colonies, but I guess that it could have had different levels of acceptance in Nueva España and in the south american vicerroyalties (less in the later).
 
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