Do you remember Troy?

I am enjoying this quite a bit. Although I must say my interest in history has more to do with societal, political and economic than simply military history, so I am rather curious about the political ramifications of Henry IV's survival than just the military ones.
Keep up the good work though, this will be really great when it gets farther from the POD and becomes a truly different universe (like all other alternate histories.
Scipio
 
I will post updates about the political background, about the crisis of mantuan succession, the fall of the Duke of Lerma, and more, but later.
 
About Hedwig of Denmark and Christian II of Saxony, I saw that their marriage was childless. In this TL, I plan the contrary, but I don't know if in OTL, there was a problem of infertility or not. Can you help me?
 
I'm sorry I can't help you, French history is more my thing. However, if nothing you find says infertility, than it probably was not there.
Scipio
 
Campaign of Picardy

After the fall of Arras, the winter stopped for a time the operations.
The french army wintered at Arras and King Henri began to plan a siege of Cambrai.

In Spain, the succession of spanish defeats had seriously weakened the Duke of Lerma. To reverse the situation, a serie of offensives aimed to bring the war in France were planned. Thus, while were gathered a fleet in Naples, and an army in Catalonia, reinforcements were sent to Archduke Albert.
In the Netherlands, a defensive stand had to be adopted against the Dutch, while an army had to invade northern France, to take Amiens in a first time, then to attack Paris.

On January 15th, the French began to besiege Cambrai relatively unopposed.
On January 29th, the archduke departed from Mons with 34.000 men. To distract the French, he sent a small detachment to delude them. The stratagem was succesfull in the begining.
On February 14th, the spanish army crossed the Canche river at Avesnes [1], thus entering in France.
King Henri remained unaware of the invasion until February 26th, when he heard that the Spanish army was approaching Amiens. He soon abandonned the siege of Cambrai and headed towards Amiens.
On March 3rd, after a week of assaults, the Achduke took the fortress of Corbie, so cutting the French from Amiens. But the Spaniards [2] failed to take immediatly Amiens, forcing them to besiege the town [3].

King Henri arrived at Ancre [4] on March 5th. He attempted to retake Corbie but his 39.000 men were unable to defeat the superior tercios; it was on March 7th.
Worse, the French army was threatened to be trapped. However, at the battle of Bray [5], the behaviour, and the sacrifice, of the french rearguard under the Marshal de Hautemer permitted to King Henri to retreat safely towards Saint-Quentin.
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Marshal de Hautemer

Once in Saint-Quentin, he ordered to the Marshal de Beaumanoir to dispatch him about the half of the french Army of Swabia. An additionnal raising of troops was also ordered across France. The garrison and the fortifications of Beauvais and Paris were reinforced.
At Amiens, the general Spinola organized the siege under the command of the Archduke.

In the first times of the siege, everything seemed to go well for Archduke Albert, but in late april, the true problems appeared.
Firstly, the new of the siege of Antwerp by the Dutch reached him. Secondly, small french detachments had begun to harass his supply lines.
As Antwerp resisted, the Archduke decided to remain at Amiens.

Amiens.jpg
Siege of Amiens

In mid-June, King Henri launched a new offensive to relieve Amiens.
Having gathered about 55.000 men, on June 22nd, the King retook Doullens, which had been taken by a spanish detachment in late March.
Hoping to use his numerical superiority to outflank the spanish tercios, he marched again towards Amiens.
On June 26th, it was the battle of Canaples.
Even being outnumbered by an army near twice his size, the spanish army managed to hold off any french attack, but no without heavy losses. The most notable action of the day was a french charge of cavalry which was very impressive but which was a failure.
Although this was a defeat for King Henri, the spanish army was seriously weakened.
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Battle of Canaples

On July 10th, the Archduke decided to retreat to the Netherlands.
Indeed, Amiens still resisted, a beginning of epidemic diseases appeared in the spanish army and the Archduke was threatened to be trapped in Picardy as he had failed to dislodge or destroy the french army at the battle of Doullens on July 3rd.

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[1]: To not confuse with Avesnes-le-comte; this town is laocated near Montreuil in Pas-de-calais
[2]: By extension the Spaniards themselves, plus Italians, Portugueses, Walloons ...
[3]: In 1597, the Spaniards had taken the town by ruse; Amiens was retaken after a siege of six months by King Henri. I assume that after this event, precautions were taken and the fortifications reinforced.
[4]: IOTL, the actual Albert, northeast to Amiens.
[5]: IOTL, actual Bray-sur-Somme
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Next update: Campaign of Languedoc


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Yes, one. If the Spanish and the Imperials continue winning, Savoy might switch sides. They pulled this off quite a few times during their history.
In this TL, Savoy, later Lombardy, would have more interest to remain a french ally. Indeed, the expansion of Savoy will encounter resistance, first from Tuscany, Papal states and Spain of course, then after the war, with Venice. Genoa and Milan are not the only territorial expansions I consider: a savoyard/lombard overlordship over the duchies of Mantua and Parma. This begining of italian unification will surely lead to other wars.
 

abc123

Banned
Huge implications? Yes. I plan a parliamentary monarchy in France, a Spain less decadent than in OTL, an earlier unification of Italy, a great Polish-Russian empire, the Rumanian and Greek independances earlier than in OTL, no english civil war, all this only for the seventeenth century. But I don't think that this TL is going to go far, unless it really gathers interest.

Subscribed.
Sounds VERY intresting.
 
Campaign of Languedoc

No without difficulties [1], the Marquis de Almazán as Viceroy of Catalonia, gathered during winter and spring an army of 35.000 men to invade Southern France.

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Francisco Hurtado de Mendoza y Cárdenas, Marquis of Almazán, Viceroy of Catalonia

By the beginning of April, the invasion force was ready.
On April 15th, the Marquis de Almazán arrived at Salses where a Spanish fortress no far from the strategic french fortress of Leucate commanding the road to Languedoc, defended by the Françoise de Cezelli, the woman who had defeated the Spaniards during a previous siege [2].
Z
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Françoise de Cezelli

Since the declaration of war, she didn't spare any effort to reinforce the fortifications of his bastion.
After a week of fights, the french fortress was surrounded.
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Siege of Leucate

In Carcassonne, the Marshal de Montmorency attempted to levy a relief force but the request of the King for Picardy having priority, it took a long time.
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Henri Ist de Montmorency, Marshal and Constable of France

Taking advantage of this, the Marquis of Almazán left 6.000 men to besiege Leucate and pursued his way to Narbonne. Using naval support, he managed to take the defenders of the town from the rear. Narbonne fell on May 9th.
Still in a situation of numerical inferiority with a spanish army twice his size, the Marshal de Montmorency decided to elude battle and harass the Spanish army by guerilla attacks.
The Spaniards arrived before Carcassonne on June 1st.
Unfortunately for the Marquis de Almazán, the french defenses proved to be too strong to permit a frontal assault. The siege became the only possibility but the Marshal de Montmorency managed to prevent the encirclement of Carcassonne by winning the battle of Pezens on June 4th.
Little after, the Marquis of Almazán heard that an army created from dispatched elements of the army of Italy, militias of Provence and Upper Languedoc was marching upon Narbonne.
The general Balthasar Juven, nephew of the Marshal de Lesdiguières, led this army. On June 1st, he was at Montpellier and on June 6th, he was at Béziers.
The Marshal de Montmorency, who had also heard the coming of Juven, began to pursue the retreating Spanish army as soon as it departed from Carcassonne, but still avoiding an open battle.
Finally, on June 14th, Montmorency and Juven made their junction at Narbonne: together, their armies were able to line up 35.000 men against the Spanish army.
At the south of the town, the Marquis de Almazán, who had failed to prevent the junction, put his army in order of battle.
The battle seemed to go well for the Spaniards until that the Marquis of Almazán be grievously wounded. Taking advantage of the momentaneous confusion, the French attacked the Spanish right wing by using a combined charge of infantry and cavalry. Under the pressure, the Spanish lines began to crumble. However, a last-minute counter-attack permitted to secure a retreat in good order.
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Battle of Narbonne

As Leucate still resisted, the Spanish commander decided to continue towards Salses where he arrived on July 2nd.

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[1]: This will be developped in a future update.

[2]: IOTL, in 1590, the Spaniards captured her husband and executed him after she refused to surrender. Henri IV, gratefull, granted her the governorship of Leucate, previously held by her husband.
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Next update: Campaign of Saxony


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I've decided to rewrite this TL as the actual is too slow and sufficently developped in other matters that the military campaigns. I will post something of more condensed, a v2.0 around late July.
Thanks of your previous support.
 
I've decided to rewrite this TL as the actual is too slow and sufficiently developed in other matters that the military campaigns. I will post something of more condensed, a v2.0 around late July.
Well, I am sorry to hear that, but I must say I do agree with your analysis of the problem. I will look forward to your repost, as this is a fantastic POD and idea for a timeline. Also, your ideas seem great, if you could just find a way to present the timeline in a fuller way, focusing on stuff other than the military campaigns, then the timeline would be much more engaging. For instance, in my timeline (which I haven't posted yet but will in the next few days) gives more cursory attention to military developments (though certainly does not ignore them) while focusing on political, and later societal and cultural, developments.
Scipio
 
Write a v2.0 is longer and harder than I believed.
So, I will told you of the great lines of my reasoning in order you can help me.

The war

# In my thought, the spanish presence in the Netherlands is compromised as, the 'Spanish road' being cut, the army of Flanders becomes very reliant upon spanish fleet for his supplying, what will be very hard with the Dutch.
Spain will not be able to support very strong forces and the Spaniards would be in numeric inferiority with a ratio of 2 against 1 at least. Thus, after some attempts to bring the fights in France or Holland proper, and in spite of the tactic superiority of the tercios, the strategic advantage of the French and Dutch will, after some times, drive the Spaniards into a defensive strategy.

# In Holy Empire, with the Brandenburg then Denmark (for the reasons I've exposed in the TL) in the side of the Prtoestant Union, northern Germany will become a protestant stronghold. The fights would thus occur essentially in Palatinate, Saxony and Bohemia. But ponctual french offensives in Bavaria aren't excluded.

# In Italy, after the initial campaign of Lombardy, the front will be cristallized in the siege of Genoa.
With a naval presence far less threatened in Mediterranean sea, the Spaniards will be able to supply the besieged town, but not to retake Lombardy.
The opening of a new front in Italy will wait until the crisis of mantuan succession.
I imagine that the Pope, Tuscany and Parma will join the Spaniards. I think that Modena, hoping to retake Ferrara, could join the French.
But I'm more hesitant with Venice. The savoyard expansionism (pretentions over Mantua) could be felt as a threat. But a compromise could be Charles Gonzaga put on the ducal throne while recognizing himself as vassal of Lombardy. What's more, I thought to transpose the conspiracy of Bedmar in this TL.

# As the situation in Flanders would appear very bad to Spain, the opening of a second front would be necessary.
What's more, a 'Union de armas' could likely be launched to better share the effort of war. That would rise the tensions in Catalonia and in Portugal.
So, we would have one or two invasions of Languedoc, but the French could bring the war in Spain as soon a revolt breaks out, like the OTL catalan revolt of 1640.
Here, the war will surely take a great turn as Portugal will likely follow Catalonia and declare independance.
Portugal being tied with England by an alliance treaty, we would have England entering in the war.
The sequel would be an english expedition against Cadiz. For this work, Raleigh would be released. If the expedition fails or doesn't occur, english troops would be anyway landed in Portugal to help the secession.
The revolts of Catalonia and Portugal and the entry in war of England would lead to the fall of the Duke of Lerma.

# More generally, the entry in war of England would mean the end of the Spanish Netherlands. With both english and dutch navies in the fight, supply the Netherlands would be impossible. I doubt that the Spaniards would be able to hold a long time in the region.
The end of war should follow quickly. The spanish fortresses would surrender one after one, then Spain would have to sue for peace.
With Spain, leaving war, the other states (Holy Roman Empire, Papal states, Tuscany...) would be forced to make peace.
A war would last most around 6 or 7 years than of 30.

#A butterfly effect of TTL is the birth of a son to Christian II of Saxony and Hedwige of Denmark.
After the death of the former in 1611 as IOTL, there would be a regency with Hedwige and John George.
I think it would lead to a deeper involvement of Denmark in north Germany, especially as Hedwige would become pregnant while his brother enters in war.

# In the peace treaties, the independance of Portugal would of course assured, but I'm less sure about Catalonia.
I plan that the county of Burgundy and the duchy of Luxembourg would be retained by Spain, but the Netherlands would be shared between France and United Provinces: Artois, Cambresis, Hainaut to France, and Flanders and Brabant to the Dutch. For the French, the abandon of claims over Burgundy and Luxembourg isn't very important as the partition of spanish Netherlands eliminates a great threat over the northern frontiers of France.
In Italy, the annexation of Genoa, Milanese and Mantua (as a vassal) by Savoy, which becomes the Kingdom of Lombardy, are recognized. Modena receives Ferrara. Maybe Venice could have some gains in Polesine.
Spain receives Corsica, its only gain of the war.
At the time of the Peace treaties, the Holy Roman Emperor should be Matthias. About terms between the Catholics and Protestants, I have no particular ideas. Don't hesitate to make suggestions.


After war
France
# As Henri IV seems to have planned it, ITTL, Louis XIII will be married to Nicole of Lorraine in order to annex Lorraine as for Britanny before.
# Louis should become king around 1625/1626 (the date isn't yet decided). Richelieu will become chief minister as in OTL.
# Contrary to OTL, Louis will not have children, and the crown will pass upon his death to Gaston of Orleans, a more liberal mind I believe. Thus, with more and more concessions as the years pass, France will become by late XVIIth century or early XVIIIth century a parliamentary monarchy.

Italy
# The main consequence of the war is the creation of the Kingdom of Lombardy, surely the first step of an italian unification. The unification will be hard and will be realised by dynastical weddings, wars of sucessions...
Many coalitions risk to be created against Lombardy, Venice being not excluded to participate to some, to counter the nascent expansionism. The alliance with France would be essential.
Spain
# Because of the war, Philip IV would be married after the war, maybe as a part of the treaties, to Henriette Maria. The prince she will give to the spanish crown would be far better than Charles II.
# Without the cost of the Army of Flanders and of garrisons in Lombardy to support, the state of the spanish treasury would be better than in OTL, I think.
# The loss of the Netherlands would cause a reorientation of the spanish core of power more to south, in the western mediterranean sea.
A renewal of the spanish presence in Maghreb could be possible.

England

# A butterfly effect is the survival of prince Henri Frederick who will become Henri IX. Better relations between the Parliament and the King could thus prevent a civil war.
# Because of the war, the crown prince, Henri Frederick ITTL, would be married to Elisabeth of Bourbon instead of Henriette Maria.

Triple Union (Russia, Lithuania, Poland)
# As writed in the v1.0, the premature death of Sigismund III at Smolensk permits to enact the project of crowning the prince Wladislaw as Tsar.
The consequence is a better position for the Polish in Russia.
So, Smolensk falls earlier. However, the war will not be over.
There is still the threat of the Swedish, a threat especially important since Denmark, waging a war in north Germany, will not attack them before the peace treaties.
What's more, there would still be Dmitry Pozharsky.
ITTL, the Polish aren't thrown out of Moscow.
I imagine that Michael could refuse the crown (IOTL, he had hesitations to accept it), but there is also the possibility for Pozharsky to become Tsar.
Anyway, my objective is to make the Polish victorious.
Sweden could abandon Russia against concessions in Ingria, and maybe in Livonia, or because of an attack of Denmark after the end of the war in western Europe.
# The reign of Vladislav should be used to cement the union between the Polish and the Russians.
The polonization of elites excepted, we would have an expansionism as a mean to reach this goal. As example, Polish and russian settlers could colonize together Siberia.

Ottoman empire
# ITTL, the ottoman empire will be, more than Spain, the big looser.
I plan to have Abbas I of Persia allying with the Triple Union.
The Triple Union have interests in the matter as the fights between the Crimean Khanate, an ottoman vassal, and the Cossacks, under polish sovereignty, are source of tensions with the raids from both sides in their respective territories ; the polish magnates also have great interests in Moldavia.
What's more, these conditions would be very favourable to the project of Charles Gonzaga to create a greek state. For Lombardy, it would be move away a vassal to strenghten control over Mantua, and for Venice, a puppet state would be an assurance of safety for the venetian positions in eastern Mediterranean sea.
Against a such coalition, the Ottomans would have little chances to win.
The result would be Mesopotamia annexed by Persia, Crimea annexed by the Triple Union, a venetian puppet state in Greece and a polish puppet state in Rumania.

Persia
# A notable consequence of TTL is the survival of Mohammed Baqir Mirza who escapes to disgrace.

Indian ocean
# I think that Portugal could retain his possessions in Oman and East Africa in spite of losing Ormuz.

America
# In New France, Champlain manages to be appointed Governor General and after the War, he reinforces the french colonies.
# ITTL, the french colonies are not victim of english raids from Virginia because of the war in Europe as I imagine the English wanting to be as neutral as possible.
So, the french rule expands more to south, in Maine with the fondation of Castine.
# ITTL, an other butterfly effect is that the Mayflower goes more south than IOTL, to the mouth of Hudson river.

Sciences
# ITTL, Galileo Galilei is luckier as in his choice for the character who defends geocentrism, he is more careful and doesn't lose the support of Urban VIII.
A suggestion to replace Simplicio is welcome.
So, he continues his works in astronomy and mechanic.
There, I let you the choice of making or not of Galilei the discoverer of the universal gravitation laws and other OTL Newton's discoveries in mechanic.
 
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