France wins the Italian Wars

Typo

Banned
WI: France conclusively defeats the Spanish and HRE in the Italian wars and turn northern Italy into a French sphere of influence, maybe even annex some of it.
 
Lotsa American effects. A Spain that has just been badly defeated in Europe will not be able to maintain a vast American empire for long. The English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese will probably take chunks of it. You also have a French-dominated Continent, so the English and Spanish will probably form some kind of alliance to oppose and counterbalance the French.
 
Lotsa American effects. A Spain that has just been badly defeated in Europe will not be able to maintain a vast American empire for long. The English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese will probably take chunks of it. You also have a French-dominated Continent, so the English and Spanish will probably form some kind of alliance to oppose and counterbalance the French.

Where does that conclusion come from? If anything, losing the Italian Wars frees Spain from the burden of Milan and holding down the Italian Princes by bayonet. At most, France might be able to consolidate their rule in Milan and hold on to Savoy, which they occupied for nearly twenty years. Taking Naples is near impossible, IMO.

The Spanish had a top notch military, but they still suffered from defeats in the Italian War. Losing Milan is not suddenly going to make the European powers turn against Spain and start picking at it's American colonies, which circa 1530, is just New Spain and some Caribbean Islands. The large influx of gold had not yet become important; even Charles V financed his election to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire with rents from Castile, not American gold. The Portuguese are more concerned with their spice routes, England doesn't have the capacity to start seizing Spanish lands in America, and France would too busy digesting their lands in Italy. The Dutch weren't even independent during the period of the Italian wars.

Pavia might make a good POD for French victory, if it is turned from a massive French defeat into a French victory. France, though, will limit her ambitions to Milan. There might still be some ambitions towards Naples, but the claims of the French kings towards it was tenuous at best. The Guises and the House of Lorraine have a much stronger claim, but I can't see France actually being able to oust the Spanish from Naples and setting them up there.
 
Where does that conclusion come from? If anything, losing the Italian Wars frees Spain from the burden of Milan and holding down the Italian Princes by bayonet. At most, France might be able to consolidate their rule in Milan and hold on to Savoy, which they occupied for nearly twenty years. Taking Naples is near impossible, IMO.

The Spanish had a top notch military, but they still suffered from defeats in the Italian War. Losing Milan is not suddenly going to make the European powers turn against Spain and start picking at it's American colonies, which circa 1530, is just New Spain and some Caribbean Islands. The large influx of gold had not yet become important; even Charles V financed his election to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire with rents from Castile, not American gold. The Portuguese are more concerned with their spice routes, England doesn't have the capacity to start seizing Spanish lands in America, and France would too busy digesting their lands in Italy. The Dutch weren't even independent during the period of the Italian wars.

Pavia might make a good POD for French victory, if it is turned from a massive French defeat into a French victory. France, though, will limit her ambitions to Milan. There might still be some ambitions towards Naples, but the claims of the French kings towards it was tenuous at best. The Guises and the House of Lorraine have a much stronger claim, but I can't see France actually being able to oust the Spanish from Naples and setting them up there.

I think I mixed up the Italian Wars and the Thirty Years War for the seizing-colonies bit. Still, the Spanish American empire at this time, as you said, was unimportant. The Incas wouldn't be completely conquered until 1572. Therefore, I think a Spanish King, faced with a newly powerful and hostile France on his northern border, would weaken his forces in the New World, who are, after all, only conquering a few heathens, in order to better guard against the French. With the garrisons weakened, an Inca revolt has a good chance of success. Then, some other European power or powers may try to take it, for God, glory, and gold; the same reasons the Spanish themselves first went there. They would probably be conquered sooner or later due to the new diseases and the huge technological disparity. The Spanish would be occupied trying to contain the French, and so will have few resources to spare for the New World.
 
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