How does a unified Spanish/Holy Roman Empire handle colonialism?

I was searching through some threads, and I stumbled upon this fascinating scenario...

1517
Charlotte, age 2, daughter of Francis I of France, who is betrothed to Charles V, does not die; Charles and Francis become close personal friends (POD)

1518
The Spanish Cortez accepts Chalres as King (OTL)

1519
Emperor Maximilian dies. (OTL)
Charles and Francis persuade the Pope and some of the German princes to elect them as Co-Emperors

1519-1522
Rebellion by the German princes opposing the new arrangement is crushed

1523
Charles sides with Martin Luther and begins reforming the Church

1524-1525
Imperial forces defeat the Pope, who opposed reform
Anne of Bohemia dies

1526
Hungarians win at Mohacs and their King survives;
Ferdinand, brother of Charles, marries Isabela of Portugal

1532
Charles and Charlotte have a daughter

....


Henry II of France is Francis I' only surviving male heir upon his fathers death. He is bethroted to his cousin, the daughter of Charles and Charlotte (let's call her Isabela)

Isabela ends up inheriting the domanis of her father (Charles V) and uncle's heir (Ferdinands son with Isabela of Portugal)

Henry II fights a number of wars to secure his wifes inheritances, and also succeeds being crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

Henry II and Isabela of Habsburg are succeeded by only one surving male heir, let's call him Charles Francis.

Upon the death of his parents, Charles Francis of Valois-Habsburg would be:

- Holy Roman Emperor
- King of France
- King of Spain
- King Portugal
- King of Italy
- Archduke of Austria
- Lord of the Netherlands



View attachment 377534

Here's the map @Magnum posted, as it's not showing up in the quote:

IMG_3666.PNG


Now, let's say this scenario, or something very close to it, does come to pass, and the resultant empire remains a cohesive entity for at least a century or so.

Given that we're talking about an entity that would be more unified than the Iberian Union, how might we expect this empire to treat the territories conquered by Spain and Portugal in the Americas? Would the governance and social structure established (the encomienda and casta systems, slavery, etc) largely stay in place, or would a potential influx of German, French, and Italian settlers and administrators to New Spain, Peru, and Brazil meaningfully change things at such a formative stage for that area? If I am correct in assuming that there would have been an influx of settlers from those European regions, what might have been the typical profile of such a person?

Furthermore, can we expect such an empire to have different targets of colonization going forward? Would there have been a stronger or weaker desire to establish trade posts, settlements, missions, and other outposts in Africa, India, North America, Southeast Asia and Oceania? In particular, Spain did make several attempts in this area to conquer parts of North Africa, but never got much further than coastal enclaves. Could we expect greater or lesser interest in such endeavors here?
 
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Any timeline that avoids the 30 Years War is going to have to account for what will happen to the millions of Germans that died in OTL now surviving and probably emigrating to other places.
 
Any timeline that avoids the 30 Years War is going to have to account for what will happen to the millions of Germans that died in OTL now surviving and probably emigrating to other places.

Emigrating due to overpopulation?

And realistically where? More Volga Germans?

Or the Americas - which, in this scenario, would be part of the same empire as Germany.

If the greater Holy Roman Empire does conquer a significant portion of North Africa here, that could also be an option.
 
I'd say anything done with an empire of that size is going to be done very, very slowly. There's just so. Much. Land.
 
Emigrating due to overpopulation?

And realistically where? More Volga Germans?
Overpopulation? Not Yet. No I think the situation was that Germany was approaching it's carrying capacity for the time period. So one avenue would be to start an early demographic transition like France. The other is still to have high population growth like England had at the time even though it was fairly well off. Or it could be in-between those two. You are still going to have significant emigration happening.

Where would they go? Eastern Europe would work up to a point but I doubt it could take them all. You would be turning Poland into another Bohemia and render the Baltic's and Russia unrecognizable if you did that. North America is also out, unless we see a lot more Jamestown's a lot sooner it will stay a backwater not very inciting to emigrants hoping to strike it rich. So I think that we might be seeing a mass emigration to South America instead. The question is will Spain and Portugal want that? If they do, you could end up with South America getting filled up very quickly and much faster than in OTL.
 
Where would they go? Eastern Europe would work up to a point but I doubt it could take them all. You would be turning Poland into another Bohemia and render the Baltic's and Russia unrecognizable if you did that. North America is also out, unless we see a lot more Jamestown's a lot sooner it will stay a backwater not very inciting to emigrants hoping to strike it rich. So I think that we might be seeing a mass emigration to South America instead. The question is will Spain and Portugal want that? If they do, you could end up with South America getting filled up very quickly and much faster than in OTL.

If this is a largely unified empire ruled from somewhere like Vienna, Rome, or (assuming that, despite the map that was posted, Bohemia does end up as part of this collective) Prague, how much control would the Spanish or Portuguese have from preventing fellow imperial subjects from moving there?
 
Emigrating due to overpopulation?

And realistically where? More Volga Germans?

How would all these Germans end up on Volga (or elsewhere in the Tsardom of Moscow) in the mid-XVII? It is reign of the 1st two Romanov Tsars and while immigration of the individual foreigners (usually, people with the useful skills like military, doctors, etc.) was welcomed, a wholesale immigration by the millions definitely would not be the same due to the difference in religion, especially taking into an account that the very logistics was going to be complicated, to put it mildly: 1648 - 57 are the years of Khmelnitsky Uprising ("the Cossack Wars"), which would make the easiest route unavailable.

In the Baltic provinces, just conquered by Sweden, the resources of accepting big numbers of Germans also were limited. The agricultural land was not free for grabs (and most of the newcomers would have to become serfs) and the cities had been guarding rights of their inhabitants against the newcomers (in Riga this was pretty much the case until the early XIX century, well after it became a part of the Russian Empire).

BTW, was there an overpopulation in Germany prior to the 30YW?
 
If this is a largely unified empire ruled from somewhere like Vienna, Rome, or (assuming that, despite the map that was posted, Bohemia does end up as part of this collective) Prague, how much control would the Spanish or Portuguese have from preventing fellow imperial subjects from moving there?
Just because the HRE would be stronger does not mean that the constituent Kingdoms that made up the HRE would disappear. The Emperor might rule these kingdoms in "Personal Union" but the Kingdoms would still be ruled separately and autonomously. The French would be ruled by French Governors and Ministers and the Spanish would be ruled be Spanish ones and so on and so on. Just because we avoid Westphalia does not change too much about the Empire. There was too much precedent, traditions, feudal rights, and privileges for the Empire to ever resemble a Nation State as we imagine one. The Empire was built on feudalism. Occasionally you would have some centralization under Strong Emperors but that was because of their cult of personality, the state itself was never very centralized. That is not going to change just because the Empire happens to be a little stronger than in OTL.

A stronger Empire might dictate a few things about colonization but I have a hard time imagining constituent Kingdoms not haveing near total control over their colonization and ruling their Empires in the New World separately from the Empire in Europe. Think of how Spain treated the Portuguese Colonies during the Iberian Union.

Also, how might this entity interact with the Ottoman Empire?
Not very well. If the French have been subdued than there is no French-Ottoman Alliance to restrain the HRE and the Ottomans from going to War. Whether that war would be would be a total war that lasted till one side was annihilated or a series of smaller wars would remain to be seen. The latter would be smarter since the Turks during this time period were near their peak and would be a tough nut to crack. But a (semi)unified Western Europe would be a formidable nut cracker.
 
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Also, how might this entity interact with the Ottoman Empire?

90% hostile, 10% forced acceptance are the odds IMO. If this state has as much internal reorganization as I think it's going to need plus religious issues to sort out, it's going to be paralyzed for a good period of time in the Early Modern period. The Ottomans have the potential to make or break this state; maybe a crusade analogue is what it takes to centralize political authority. Maybe constant inconclusive wars is what bleeds what's effectively a reunified WRE to collapse into its constituent kingdoms. Maybe the internal troubles this state is experiencing are enough to prevent over hostilities with the Ottomans while the Ottomans are too intimidated to tackle such a behemoth, resulting in a frigid stalemate of sorts where the two compete in other regions such as Hungary, Poland, and North Africa through proxies, or alternatively end up normalizing relations due to each being unwilling to challenge the other.
 
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