Chronology for a Teutonic Empire (assay)

In the way of preparing a TL about the creation and expansion of a Teutonic Empire, I want to check with you the plausibility of some of its chronological milestones (not definitive though, just for brainstorm).

The basic ideas are these:

* 14th century: PoD when the Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights (TK) develops into a dynastic one, based on Prussia (Malbork) but also controlling the Baltic duchies. Samogitia is transformed into a duchy and some dynastic union with Poland is agreed or somehow forced.

* 15th century: first expansions of the Teutonic Kingdom, mostly to Southern Poland, Lithuania propria and the area of Pskov. In the second half of the century, the TK is increasinlgly centralized and expands into HRE through Brandenburg. The relationship with the Papacy becomes more and more tense, because the Popes of the moment supports the HRE and the TK is trying to challenge its power. By 1500, the TK is considered a major rival by the HR Emperor and Austria.

* From 1510 to 1540: the Reformation is well received by TK. The TK is upgraded to Teutonic Empire and its won National Church is created, with 'holy see' in Marienburg (Malbork). This move is contested by Austria, but Ottomans then sieges Vienna; Teutons and Ottomans sandwich the Austrians and they are finally crushed: the Teutons acquire the Austrian territories in the north side of the Danube while Ottomans make their way into Italy, occupying Rome (= war with France and Spain). The Teutonic Empire takes advantages of the chaos and acquire new territories of the HRE that support Reformation, like some of the Swiss cantons and the Northern states.

* From 1540 to 1572: Ottomans hold Rome and the Catholic powers ally against them. The quick expansion of the Teutonic Empire creates internal divisions and the current dinasty is dethroned. A new dinasty takes control of the Empire, which is further centralized.

* From 1572 to 1620: Ottomans are finally expelled from Italy and start to decline. The Teutons takes control of some of their former territories in Northern Italy and pushed the border with the Ottomans southwards, establishing a stable one in the Save river. Reformation succeeds more than OTL and Catholics are reduced to Spain, Italy, France and some Western German states plus Bavaria.

* From 1620 to 1660: Once Ottomans are defeated, France and its German allies (Catholic German states) declares war to the Teutons. After a couple of decades of war, the HRE is finally abolished: the Teutons acquire all the German lands east of the Rhine, excepting Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria, remaining as puppet states. France holds the Rheinland, Belgium and part of OTL Switzerland. Spain holds all Italy south of the Po; the rest of Northern Italy becomes Teuton, excepting Savoy.

* From 1660 to 1720: Denmark and Sweden, former Teutonic allies, declare war to the Teutonic Empire, after the 'illegal' annexation of Pomerania in 1665. The Teutons occupy Jutland in 1670, and the Danish king retreats to Norway; the Danish islands are occupied some time later.
Sweden manages to avoid defeat, but cedes Ingria and part of Karelia to the Teutons for signing peace.

* From 1720 to 1790: the Teutonic Empire pushed the Ottomans out of Ukraine and the Empire reaches the Black Sea. The Teutons divide Ukraine with Russia, in order to establish peace with them and a stable border from the Ladoga until the Black Sea (peace of Lemberg in 1772). The political capital is relocated to Vienna in 1781, but Marienburg remains as the religious center.

* From 1790 to 1820: the French Revolution causes a war with the Teutonic Empire. Some anti-revolutionary regions embrace the 'Teutonic help' but they are finally invaded. After decades of war, a peace in 1820 establishes a new border: France loses all territories east to the Rhone and north to the Somme. The Teutons also annexes the remaining German states and Savoy. Italy is granted with independence from Spain.

* From 1820 to 1870: the Teutons acquire its lasts territories in the Balkans, pushing Ottomans out of them in a series of wars. An independent big Greece is created, but the rest of the Balkans (north to Macedonia) is annexed by the Teutons. This area is heavily resettled with Germans.

* From 1870 to 1905: a Liberal revolution in 1875 puts an end to the conservative empire. A new Constitution is written in 1878 and a Parliament established in Vienna. The Empire is rationally divided in hundreds of 'Kreise', that also freely groups in länder, with some degree of autonomy and own parliament.

* From 1905 to 1930: a coup puts an end to the constitutional monarchy, establishing a pseudo-fascist one. Many non-German people is pushed out of the Empire and political parties are banned. The constitutional monarchy is recovered in 1930 after a pacicifc revolution.

* Since 1930: the Empire boosts a European League of Nations to re-establish peace and good relations with France, Spain, UK, Italy, Greece, Norway and Sweden. Russia remains as a 'natural' rival power.
 
That is what is called a wank : a country (preferably an underdog) that takes over the world, or just as well.

Putting it simply, there's no way that Teutonic Order would have the ressources (men, economy, structures, etc.) to take on entiere Poland, let alone Ottomans, Habsburgs, France; and of course to hold territories and states under their domination when these had far more military power than them.

There's a reason why Prussia wasn't a thing before the XVIII when they began to inherit a load of smaller states, and was considered an underdog up to the Seven Years War (and still considered as a minor power up to Congress of Vienna).
They were nicknamed the "army with a state" for a good reason, and even in the XVIII, they had trouble to take on neighbours.

It's not that you can't use it for doing alternate history, that's not I wanted to say and some particularly impossible TL can make good AH if done interestingly : but it's really implausible as in "I don't say ASB to be on the safe side".
 
That is what is called a wank : a country (preferably an underdog) that takes over the world, or just as well.

Putting it simply, there's no way that Teutonic Order would have the ressources (men, economy, structures, etc.) to take on entiere Poland, let alone Ottomans, Habsburgs, France; and of course to hold territories and states under their domination when these had far more military power than them.

I know it, so that's why I did not say that the Teutonic Kingdom (no Order anymore) would join Poland in a dynastic union or somehow 'forced' compromise, in an analogue way of the OTL Polish-Lithuanian union. I'm not stating that Prussia would invade all Poland, because it would be pretty ASB.

Prussia was mostly nothing then, so I intend to forge a Prussia-Poland-Baltic states unified Kingdom (but under Teutonic lead) to form a sort of medium power, that, step by step, could grow enough to challenge HRE, France or the Ottomans later.
 

Deleted member 67076

So... why is France just sitting around and doing nothing? Or Spain? Or Britain?

Dont mean to sound rude, but the knights will face an insane amount of competition trying to unify Germany, let alone try to take land in Italy.
 
I like the premise of this timeline. A Protestant Teutonic State? Intriguing.

That is what is called a wank : a country (preferably an underdog) that takes over the world, or just as well.

I can't say that I've read a Teutonic wank... I, for one, am interested.
 
So... why is France just sitting around and doing nothing? Or Spain? Or Britain?

Dont mean to sound rude, but the knights will face an insane amount of competition trying to unify Germany, let alone try to take land in Italy.

Of course, they won't.

This is a point I need to elaborate more, but my idea is this: the Teutonic Kingdom remains as a medium (= not big threat) power until they invade part of Austria when this country is challenged by the Ottomans (1527).

Obviously, once this happens, the other powers will just consider the Teutonic Kingdom (converted to Protestantism and self-upgraded to Empire) a dangerous power worthy to fight.

So, to surpass this moment, the Teutonics should make that, in some way, the Ottomans would enter Italy after conquering the lower part of Austria. An eventual occupation of Rome by the Ottomans would, for sure, distract France and Spain from attacking the Teutons (as the Roman issue should be their first priority), while the raise of the Reformation among some German states will make the HRE to sink in its inernal disputes (as somehow happened OTL); UK should not be worried as Teutonics were still far of them and Sweden is a Teutonic ally until mid-1600s.

The combination of the war against Ottomans in Italy and the internal disputes in HRE regarding reformation should give the Teutonic Empire enough time for consolidating its new acquired position of raising power and attracting the Protestant German states to its side, something that will help to make HRE to collapse later.

I think that once Teutons had acquired great part of former HRE (not only by war) and other territories left behind by Ottomans when they would be defeated by French and Spanish, the Teutonic Empire is powerful enough to resist any attack from France, UK or Spain.
 
Your whole point is : they took on them, but each one after the other.

That's...deeply unlikely : A stronger Teutonic State would not only know its own inner troubles, (as they don't appear ITTL, I assume that Teutonia is not threatened by any crisis whatsoever) but would certainly provoke butterflies.

An exemple, taken among all the others. A French Revolution, in the 1780's with a PoD in the XVI century and a wanked Teutonia? No, I'm sorry, that's ASB.

Each time someone in modern Europe tried to fight his way to continental hegemony, you had an huge coalition of almost everyone else to beat the crap out of it : Charles Quint, Napoleon are probably the best known exemples. And there : nope.
It looks like everyone in Europe acts dumb, and only change actions when it's convenient for Teutonia.

You may want to do such a TL, and really, why not.? It could be fun. But it does not belong to a plausible Pre-1900 allohistory.
 
Your whole point is : they took on them, but each one after the other.

That's...deeply unlikely : A stronger Teutonic State would not only know its own inner troubles, (as they don't appear ITTL, I assume that Teutonia is not threatened by any crisis whatsoever) but would certainly provoke butterflies.

An exemple, taken among all the others. A French Revolution, in the 1780's with a PoD in the XVI century and a wanked Teutonia? No, I'm sorry, that's ASB.

Each time someone in modern Europe tried to fight his way to continental hegemony, you had an huge coalition of almost everyone else to beat the crap out of it : Charles Quint, Napoleon are probably the best known exemples. And there : nope.
It looks like everyone in Europe acts dumb, and only change actions when it's convenient for Teutonia.

You may want to do such a TL, and really, why not.? It could be fun. But it does not belong to a plausible Pre-1900 allohistory.

I certainly appreciate this discussion :)

My point is this: it's not that Teutonia would not have their own crisis (I only summarized the events that leaded to major changes) but the philosophy it's to take adavantage of the crisis of their neighbours in the most oportunistic way. Just like Romans did OTL.

The idea of this came when I somehow realized that Europe faced a double crisis in the 1520s caused by a) the internal disputes caused by Reformation and b) the Ottoman expansion. By different circumstances, no OTL European power could use both for their own profit, but what if existed one medium-power in the situation of taking a huge advantage on this? Sometimes, big empires have raised thanks to taking profit of some eventual chances at the right time: look at the Arab Caliphate; if they tried to expand after or before, probably Byzantines and Persians could have managed to block them, but Arabs took profit of the right moment, when both empires were exhausted.

Napoleon or Charles V or Hitler tried to gain continental dominance an all failed, but maybe they did not choose the right time to do so (well, as individuals, they could not wait decades until it appears). But imagine if Stalin would have managed to keep USSR out of WWII and the US would have been neutral (possibly without Japan in): he could have let Germany, France and UK to fight each other until complete exhaustion, and then, if wanted, the USSR could have raided the whole Europe without real opposition and getting the whole continent (OK, then the US had come in, but only-Europe-wise he could have succeeded).

Regarding the point of if French revolution would happened with Teutonics at side, maybe yes, maybe not. The causes of OTL French Revolution were not directly linked to how threatening the German states were then...mostly linked to rivalry with UK and huge expenses in the American war that broke French treasury. Teutonia would not affect this that much if they were at peace with France by that moment. I mean: the existence of Teutonia would not have prevented the UK to found the American colonies, France and UK would be rivals at America anyway and this confrontation would have lead France to bankruptcy anyway, boosting the Revolution. Of course, the change would have been that Teutonia, as explained, would have not tolerated this to raise outside and no Napoleon for sure.
 
. By different circumstances, no OTL European power could use both for their own profit, but what if existed one medium-power in the situation of taking a huge advantage on this?
Again, Eastern Europe couldn't match by far the ressources or the military power of any of the countries you quoted.

When Spain raised a league against Ottomans in Lepantos, they managed to gather morte than 60, 000 men for one battle. Ottomans managed more than 80, 000!

Population of Poland was at best, around 8 million of people at the time of the PoD. France itself had 20 millions, 11 in Italy, and so on.
Even by reaching uber-prussian ratio of military/population (meaning that you count almost only on plunder to ravitail a poorly equiped army,because no ressources for an even remotly standardized equipment), that means less than 50 000 men avaible for conquest and control.

I won't even go in the part about fiscal revenues and domination over trade roads or american gold, because it would be unfair at this point to even make the comparison.

look at the Arab Caliphate; if they tried to expand after or before, probably Byzantines and Persians could have managed to block them, but Arabs took profit of the right moment, when both empires were exhausted.
Of course, if Byzantines or Persians had a complete and perfect vision of what was happening they would have reacted differently, and if Romans knew how to make space rockets, you'll have a SPQR on the Moon by now.

But, nobody have a perfect vision of history or what's happening : people didn't saw Crimean crisis happening, and it's still happened. And you expect people to think Teutons are some sort of supermen with a perfect knowledge of their era and geopolitical situation, and always able to make the best decisions.
No. That's so a wanked ASB that you can't seriously argue that's even remotly plausible.

Napoleon or Charles V or Hitler tried to gain continental dominance an all failed, but maybe they did not choose the right time to do so (well, as individuals, they could not wait decades until it appears).
But...Napoleon didn't had a history book where he could choose "Mmm...I see that UK make peace with me in 1812, I'll choose to attack in 1811 then". They were limited by what they convieved and saw.

Or Teutons manage to be omniscients, and your TL make sense (well, some weird kind of sense), or no, they couldn't have done that.
 
Ok, I see it's very challenging.

Well, I'll give up this and finish my map of the empire just for personal fun :D
 
Yeah I think there's just too much Hand-Waving and Good Luck in this for it to work as a serious timeline as is. There actually was a state that tried to take advantage of the combination of Religious Fragmentation and Ottoman Invasion, its name is France. There's also Sweden. Both were feuding with Austria and Spain, and managed to make solid gains against both, but not nearly to the level this Teutonic State is, despite starting off with far more power and wealth.

That said, I think the idea is incredibly good, I think you need to just rein in your goals, and more fully explore the ramifications of certain situations.

For instance, Poland, quite frankly, wiped the floor with the Teutonic Order historically, through a combination of outright military success and opportunistic use of the Order's own internal troubles. The Teutonic Order will require a lot of PoDs to be able to not only hold off but actually beat and annex Poland. And you will have to seriously consider what happens if they do, I think it would be far more likely that the Dynastic Head of the Order would relocate to Poland and choose that as his primary title, because it will be far more prestigious to be a King than a Grandmaster.

Also, Russia isn't even mentioned until the 1720 point, where the Teutons and Russia agree to partition the Ukrainian area. Where was Russia this entire time? They were already feuding with and invading Lithuania before 1500. If this Teutonic State is really expanding into as much of Poland and Lithuania as you want it to, it will be right in Russia's path.

Also, you claim that until 1660 the Teutonic State was allied with both Denmark and Sweden. How? Sweden and Denmark were constantly at each other's throats. You cannot juggle alliances with two parties who both want to kill each other, eventually there will be war and both will demand you pick a side.

Also I think this Teutonic State will probably be heavily Land based, so will have trouble taking the islands of Denmark or doing much of anything to Sweden.

You have also established that both France and Spain are much more powerful than they were historically, or at least much larger. If that is truly the case, you might be able to play them off each other somewhat, but it will lead to a 1984 situation where the three superpowers are constantly juggling partners to keep the balance, that's just how European Politics at the time works.

France will also not sit idly by while the Teutons and Scandinavia duke it out for a couple of Decades, they will be right there fighting alongside the Scandinavians. With Russia and probably also Spain thrown into the mix, that's a nasty combination.

All of that said, I do think this is an interesting PoD. If anything the theological ramifications of Protestantism having a Major Theocratic State, and not just that but a Holy Military Order would be huge.

But I think if anything this would weaken Protestantism by dividing it as this flies in the face of a lot of the core principles of Protestantism. Protestantism focused a lot on dismantling the secular power of the clergy because they felt it bred corruption and because the new Protestant Princes used that as a pretext to annex clerical lands. If there is a Protestant Holy Order that suggests that Lutheranism, or whatever equivalent there is, is not massively suggesting the secular powers of the clergy be removed to prevent corruption.

If that is the case then the Reformation is fundamentally different. Either the differences between Catholic and Protestant are less pronounced, meaning its likely that Austria will do better in gathering support, or there will probably be a lot more Radical Princes, especially in northern Germany, and they will be just as opposed to the Teutons as they are to Austria.

So all in all, I like the idea, but it needs to be heavily edited to make it plausible.
 
So all in all, I like the idea, but it needs to be heavily edited to make it plausible.

Thanks!

This week-end I've been thinking about how to revamp this and I realized that it was too ASB that a little power like the Teutonic Kingdom could have carried out that well a very challenging series of wars.

I think that the first part is plausible: the monastic state becomes a dynastic one that somehow engages in a dynastic union with (part of ) Poland and still controls the Baltic duchies. So, it becomes a medium-little power peripheral to the HRE by the 1500s.

It's better to discard wars against HRE/Austria just then, because as LSCatilina stated, that eventual kingdom would lack of enough resources to carry them out well. I think that the best way to make the Teutonic that hegemonic is introducing changes in how the Reformation processes developed during the 16th century.

The basic idea is make Reformation more successful in a greater part of HRE, including key states like Austria or Bavaria that sticked to Catholicism IOTL; not only this, it could have had a most early-nationalistic German(ic) compound that could have bring the German states together against Catholic powers like Spain or France.

So, maybe the Teutonic Kingdom could have lead a wide coalition of pro-Reformation states that would have defeat Spain and France in an earlier version of the 30-Years War. This alliance of Protestant states could have remained under a permanent coalition (confederation?) after the war (especially if the victory was not overwhelming and fears of new attacks remain) and also somehow religiously unified under a Protestant authority, even if not as centralizing nor hyerarchic like Rome was.

This coalition, under the proper circumstances, could have developed into a increasingly centralized power until becoming a more unified empire a couple of centuries later.
 
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