Lions, eagles and lilies

I will get to England briefly in the next post that describes the post-war situation. And about France i think that smallpox epidemic was a huge Francescrew. The Grand Dauphin was probably going to be a useless king but I think le petit Dauphin could've done some nice things for France, thus with all the butterflies he could live. And the same smallpox epidemic killed a bunch of little Lorraine princes so with them not getting Lorraine like died OTL in 1697 that might be slightly changes, since the butterflies can't affect a disease very much.

That's true. This was a screw. A large screw. In fact, if you got a moment, it is like a twelve-storey screw with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour portage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying 'This Is a Large Screw'.

You can have The Grand as king for a short period of time because he himself will be rather old when Le Roi Soleil will be gone. Or he can die like OTL. Or get killed in Flanders/Rhineland/Italy while fighting like his courageous ancestor Francis I. Le Petit Dauphin can make a decent king, a true heir to his glorious grandfather. As far as I know he was kind of liberal and can grant smallfolk certain amount of rights and liberties, thus, mildly softening the social struggle in France.
 
That's true. This was a screw. A large screw. In fact, if you got a moment, it is like a twelve-storey screw with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour portage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying 'This Is a Large Screw'.

You can have The Grand as king for a short period of time because he himself will be rather old when Le Roi Soleil will be gone. Or he can die like OTL. Or get killed in Flanders/Rhineland/Italy while fighting like his courageous ancestor Francis I. Le Petit Dauphin can make a decent king, a true heir to his glorious grandfather. As far as I know he was kind of liberal and can grant smallfolk certain amount of rights and liberties, thus, mildly softening the social struggle in France.
It woul be interesting to skip the Régence, and maybe give another end to Law's System. Law's bankrupcy had slowed France down a lot.
As for the Grand Dauphin, well... Kill him the way you want. Food poisoning, even. They'll find a witch/random enemy (the Austrians/Imperials...) to blame and execute.
 
That's true. This was a screw. A large screw. In fact, if you got a moment, it is like a twelve-storey screw with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour portage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying 'This Is a Large Screw'.

I'm officially thinking of putting this in my signature on this forum. just give me the green light
 
After the war

Contrary to many expectations, with the end of the War of the Augsburg League (or the War of the Palatinate Succession) came little peace. The bloodiest one was the Great Turkish War between the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire. Leopold no longer had to fight on two fronts. He could focus on just one enemy. The new commander in Hungary was Eugene of Savoy. Eugene finally had independent command and the chance to prove how capable he actually was. With a string of fantastic victories he devastated the enemy's armies and the Ottoman power started to collapse. He liberated more than just Hungary, Slavonia and Croatia. Bosnia was taken together with northern Serbia (Belgrade taken again) and parts of Wallachia. The war was ended in 1699 with the Treaty of Karlowitz. The border between the Empire and the Sultan was now on the rivers of Una, Sava and Danube and in the Carpathian Mountains (old Transylvanian border). But there were other losses for the Turks. Poland-Lithuania regained Podolia while Venice took Dalmatia and Morea (Peloponnese). Leopold decided to make peace so he could be free to fight France in the case of a conflict about Spain. The fact Carlos II was still alive caused outrage in all of Europe. His succession was becoming a problem. Louis XIV wanted his son Louis, the Dauphin to inherit. Practically every other European leader was against it, fearing a possible Franco-Spanish union which could overrun Europe. Leopold I wanted his younger son, Archduke Leopold Josef (born in 1681) [7] to inherit Spain. The Emperor claimed inheritance as a son of Maria Anna of Spain, daughter of Philip III. This was better than Louis' idea but still allowed the Habsburgs to dominate Europe and meant possible reunification of Spain and Austria in the future. An alternative was chosen. Ferdinand von Wittelsbach, son of Maximilian II Emanuel and Maria Antonia of Austria, only surviving daughter of Leopold I and Infanta Margarita Teresa, daughter of Philip IV (younger sister of the late French Queen Maria Teresa). Maximilian and Maria Antonia had a daughter that died at birth in 1689 and a son in 1691, named Ferdinand. Maria Antonia died in 1692 and Maximilian remarried, his second wife being Leopoldine of the Palatinate. [8] He traveled to Spain at the age of six and became known as Fernando, Prince of Asturias. Carlos II had a will written in which he left everything to Fernando, but no one took it seriously. Louis had power and a claim which no one could dismiss. He started preparations for the war, planning to take as much of Spanish possessions as he could. On his side was the Duke of Savoy, but apart from him, Louis had no other allies.
There were other important events beside the Spanish succession. Polish King Jan III Sobieski died in 1695 [9] and a new election took place. Jan's son Jakub Ludwik was favored by most of the Polish nobility and by France and Sweden. The other candidate with important support was Friedrich August of Saxony, supported by Austria and Russia. But Friedrich was a Protestant and his brother, Johann Georg IV, Elector of Saxony [10] gave little support to his brother and Friedrich decided to give up after a while. He almost converted to Catholicism to gain more popularity in Poland but nothing came of the conversion once he realized he wouldn't get nearly enough votes.
In England things changed with the death of King James II in 1698 monarchy was finally stabilized with the accession of Edgar I. The Exclusion Bill was passed the same year, forbidding the young Duke of York, who was raised as a Catholic by his father, to inherit. Edgar tried to convince him to convert later on but James Edward constantly refused. Apart from the monarchy being stabilized, the financial situation of the Kingdom was improved and the Royal Navy was being increased, becoming better than Dutch or the French, mostly to Edgar's personal efforts.
In North Europe tensions between Denmark and Sweden were finally decreasing. A double royal marriage was arranged in 1698 between the seventeen-year-old Swedish Crown Prince Karl [11] and Danish princess (and his cousin) Sophie Hedvig, aged eighteen. Her younger brother Vilhelm married the Swedish princess Hedvig Sophia, Karl's younger sister born in 1684. It was the second time in a less than twenty years that a marriage happened between the Oldenburg and Swedish Wittelsbach dynasty, first being the marriage of Karl XI and his late Queen, Ulrika Eleonora. Leaders of the two countries finally started to realize that Denmark and Sweden could achieve much more through an alliance than fighting each other as the great powers used them.

[7] ITTL Leopold's children are different due to everything that already changed
[8] OTL Max was to marry her but she died. ITTL the young princess was married to him
[9] Jan III died a year earlier here. He was quite sick anyway
[10] Johann Georg died of smallpox OTL in 1694 but the butterflies did their job. And I read about him and his brother (OTL Augustus of Poland) not being on good terms so Augustus has little support from Saxon army which he used OTL to get the Polis crown
[11] Karl was born about the same time as OTL. A note: a lot of people here have the same names and were born about the same time but they are just not them same persons so this man will be Karl XII but he's not that Karl...so I guess he won't be getting an album from Sabaton :eek: :D
 
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I like this big blue blob. I wish France was able to take over the various possessions of the Spanish Habsbourgs just by winning the Spanish Succession War.
Is Edgar a francophile ?
 
Good update. And a well-done map.

Since Edgar is a protestant and a french hater, I think Louis XIV can have Scots say something like "why can't we have our own king in our own country" and install a second son, who is a catholic (James Francis). Jacobitism will be more nationalistically oriented and Jameses will stand a chance of success.

I know it sounds a bit of odd, but this is a Francewank, mates.
 
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War of the Spanish Succession

With the death of Carlos II "the Bewitched" becoming imminent, European powers began searching for another solution to the problem of Spanish inheritance instead of a war. According to the Treaty of Den Haag (1698) signed between England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, the little Prince of Asturias would inherit Spain and the entire colonial empire. Duke of Lorraine (also a grandson of the Emperor Ferdinand III von Habsburg) would receive the Duchy of Milano as a compensation for Lorraine and Bar. The Dauphin would become the King of Naples and Sicily and the Archduke Leopold Josef would receive the Spanish Netherlands (or what was left of it). Such a deal was completely unfavorable to Austria and France while the Spaniards were very angered because of the Maritime Powers selling off their lands to others behind their back. Austria wanted more, especially Italian territories, while Louis proposed to Vittorio Amedeo exchanging Naples and Sicily with Savoy, but the Duke refused even though he was tempted. Eventually, nothing became of the deal and things were looking more and more to result in another bloody war. To protect the position of his son in Madrid, Elector Maximilian II, the Emperor's former son-in-law, current brother-in-law (by marriage with Leopoldine of the Palatinate, sister of the Emperor's third wife) and an ally of the Habsburgs at the time, appealed to protect the peace in Spain. To do so, Leopold I sent Georg Ludwig von Hessen-Darmstadt back to Spain with some 4 000 German soldiers. Georg, born as a Protestant, later converted to Catholicism and became an Imperial general. He served in Italy for several years and then was sent to Spain after Savoy left the war. The war ended soon, anyway and Georg, now a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece, served as the Governor of Catalonia for two years. Now he was back in Spain. When Carlos II finally died, in December of 1700, Georg had his men just outside of Madrid, he had the loyalty of the Spanish Royal Guard and enough money to bribe any Spanish noblemen necessary to ensure the succession of the young Prince. Thus, the Castillian Cortes proclaimed him King as Fernando VI. His succession seemed smooth but a tragic event made the Wittelsbach rule of Spain very brief. Fernando died of convulsions in January of 1701, just six weeks after his great-uncle. Now, a full-scale war was about to ensue.

Castille chose Leopold Josef for a king. Apart from Georg Ludwig's influence, who was known to have bribed some important Castillian magnates and had an army in Madrid, it is also important to note many of the Castillian nobility chose the Austrian Archduke themselves, without any pressure. Leopold Josef was young and inexperienced, know to be pious and Madrid was far from the Holy Roman Empire, his father's powerbase. They knew he could do little to limit their influence. He as also the second of three sons, his older brother being Archduke Josef, already recognized as King of the Romans and King of Hungary, and his younger brother was Karl (born in 1684) who could become the King in case something happened to his older brother. On the other hand, the Dauphin and his wife Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria had only two sons, Louis, Duke of Burgundy (born in 1682) and Charles, Duke of Anjou, born three years later. [12] If one of the died France and Spain would be united and even if they weren't having a King whose grandfather was the mighty Louis XIV and directly on their border was not a good idea for Castille. So, while the emissaries from Madrid traveled to Vienna, the Cortes in Barcelona assembled and chose their own king, Charles of France. They believed their lands and people have suffered enough under the incompetent Habsburg rule, even tough Castille took the brunt of the problems, but still, they had little interest in Leopold and Charles did have a better claim, after all. He renounced his right to inherit France and was declared King in Barcelona on March 17, 1701 as Carlos III, just two days after Archduke Leopold Josef became King Leopoldo I. Almost immediately, a French army crossed the border and took several frontier towns in Flanders like Courtrai, Menin etc. In the meantime, the Emperor formed an alliance consisting of Brandenburg, the Netherlands, Bavaria (whose Elector blamed the French for killing his son so they could get the crown) and England where the King was already making preparations and the Parliament greatly supported the war, fearing France would acquire Spain and wanting to end the French hegemony over Europe. Thus in the spring of 1701 the War of Spanish Succession began.

[12] OTL Leopold I had 16 children, seven survived childhood. Two of them were sons, both Emperors, Josef I and Karl VI. Here he has three sons (Leopold Josef was actually born but died aged 2) and Louis the grand Dauphin has two sons instead of three (OTL was Louis le petit Dauphin, father of Luis XV, second son Philip of Anjou to become Philip V of Spain and a third son Charles, Duke of Berry, born in 1686, a year later than ITTL)
 
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