How could you get Protestantism (regardless of it be Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist etc.) to be more successful in Europe and have it survive and thrive in places (France, Bohemia, Austria etc.) where it didn't OTL? What would the long terms effects of a larger Protestant Europe that say encompasses all of its OTL components as well as the southern Netherlands, much of France, several more German states, Bohemia, and Hungary be?
More Successful Protestantism in 16th and 17th Century Europe
- Thread starter Marius Mazzini
- Start date
Hungary could more Protestant. Have either an autonomous ruler in Ottoman occupied Hungary or the Ottomans crush the Habsburgs forcing them to lose all of Royal Hungary to the Ottomans or the Ottoman puppet. Hungary was in the late 16th century majority Calvinist.
Then there is Bohemia. It could remain Hussite if they held out against Austria. Again, having the Ottomans again could be in this scenario. Regardless of the result against Austria, Bohemia will get breathing time. If they only sieged Vienna 60 years earlier.
France, by not revoking the Edict of Nantes.
The Lowlands... This one is tricky. Have Spain being more agressive in the Low Lands making the local Pops hostile to the Spanish. This won't make more of the population protestant but it will make people hostile to the Spanish and maybe anything they like. But in return the Radical Calvinist have to remain silent/calm. They basically made Catholics hostile towards Calvinists and the revolters.
Austria, Bavaria: be as the ruler more a fan of religious freedom and you'll have a decent Lutherab population.
Then there is Bohemia. It could remain Hussite if they held out against Austria. Again, having the Ottomans again could be in this scenario. Regardless of the result against Austria, Bohemia will get breathing time. If they only sieged Vienna 60 years earlier.
France, by not revoking the Edict of Nantes.
The Lowlands... This one is tricky. Have Spain being more agressive in the Low Lands making the local Pops hostile to the Spanish. This won't make more of the population protestant but it will make people hostile to the Spanish and maybe anything they like. But in return the Radical Calvinist have to remain silent/calm. They basically made Catholics hostile towards Calvinists and the revolters.
Austria, Bavaria: be as the ruler more a fan of religious freedom and you'll have a decent Lutherab population.
I heard somewhere that there was a Protestant movement in Spain but that it was suppressed before it could gain much traction. Is this correct?
Never heard of any reform movement in Spain (or Portugal), pretty much the opposite faith in the Catholic church was pretty strong there.
Austria was actually majority-Protestant at one point in the 16th century, although it was converted back during the Counter Reformation. Have the Emperor convert to Protestantism, though, and who knows what could happen? (Most likely a bit Empire-wide civil war, which the Protestants may or may not win.)
True. So was Bavaria.
A devout Catholic like Charles V will not convert. It has to be his succesor in the HRE. Anyone between him and Ferdinand II.
Perhaps if Louis II survives the Battle of Mohacs but is confined only to Bohemia, he and his wife and possible children might become more sympathetic to (if not entirely convert to) Lutheranism, or at least the Bohemian home-grown version of Protestantism. That might also have a knock-on affect towards Austria and/or Poland-Lithuania.
Chances improve a lot if the Habsburgs never become Kings of Spain, and remain a purely German/Burgundian dynasty. You could well get a solidly Lutheran Germany, with Catholics just a tolerated (if they're lucky) minority.
For that you need a male heir or the female heir does not marry into the house of Habsburg
I don't know... Charles V doesn't seem to have been pro-Lutheran, and I don't know if that was due to Spain.
All we can say for certain is that being King of Spain made it impossible for him to be anything else. Of course if his father dies before he and his brother are born, that cuts the link another way.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
Hard to pull off when 3 of the 4 electors are, quite literally, part of the Catholic establishment though. The Emperor, especially one with dynastic ambitions like our funny-chinned friends in Vienna, have strong political motivations to stick with the Church.
To get a Protestant Emperor, you need a Bohemia outside of Hapsburg control and under a Protestant Prince after all the other secular electors have converted, and an Austrian Hapsburgs hamstrung enough to be unable to do the political wheeling and dealing/bribery to get one of the secular electors to vote for them anyways. Best case scenario in my opinion; have the Persians delay/prevent their military reforms so the Ottomans aren't distracted in the east/militarily exhausted/facing Balkan dissent when the Bohemian revolt rolls around and have Gabriel Bethlen offered the Bohemian crown (Perhaps due to the Protestant League already aligning with the revolt politically from the start, meaning there's no need to bribe any of them for an army). The Turks provide enough of a diversion due to supporting their vassal (and to stick it to the Hapsburgs, mayhaps over the issues of Uzok piracy or something to that effect) that the Bohemians knock back Austrian attempts to re-assert their authority until the Protestant League organizes a potent military force, bringing Vienna to the negotiating table in such a way as to cause the Catholic hard-liners in the Empire to feel "sold out".
See my soc.history.what-if posts on Sarpi, Venice, and the Interdict Crisis:
"If Sarpi's grandest dream--of Protestant armies destroying the Papacy--was
not realistic, what might he have achieved in terms of liberating Venice
from the Papacy? His strategy during the Interdict crisis was of course
to argue that it was Venice, not the Pope, which was acting in accordance
with Catholic orthodoxy. Eventually, Paul V gave way. But suppose the
Vatican is really pig-headed and insists on continuing the Interdict
despite all the evidence that it is not working and despite the French and
Spanish efforts at a face-saving compromise? Then Venice might indeed set
up a "national" church separate from Rome, with Sarpi as its chief
theologian. In the beginning it would no doubt be "Catholic without the
Pope" but as in England it might gradually become Protestantized. Of
course unless you have a much more successful Reformation in southern
Europe, a Protestant or even quasi-Protestant Venice cannot survive unless
some *Catholic* power is willing to defend it militarily against Rome. The
most likely candidate for such a power is France." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/87te3kZB08w/s5EKVIXIFuoJ
"The foreign power the Venetians were most counting on was France, because
they wanted a great Catholic power on their side to show that they were not
heretics. France did make a great show of friendship with Venice, but was
also worried that the Venetians as well as the Pope might be too
intransigent. What France and the other major Catholic powers ultimately did
was to lobby for a peaceful settlement of the papal-Venetian dispute, both to
enhance their own prestige and power and to prevent a war that might get out
of control. The final compromise seems to me considerably more favorable to
Venice than to the Pope: true, the two imprisoned priests were released to
the custody of the King of France, but Vencie did not repeal the laws to
which the Vatican objected (and under which the priests had been imprisoned).
So if "Venice stood alone", in a sense so did the Pope. If he had been more
pig-headed and refused compromise, he would have been isolated with no ally
except perhaps Spain. (Spain was the only power to offer the Pope military
support, but even it did so on the assumption that a compromise would be
reached and therefore it would not have to follow through on the offer.) So if a lasting schism developed betwen Rome and the Church in Venice, and it
was really clear that the fault was on the Pope's side, I am not sure that
Venice might not get French support. For that purpose, the Venetians would
at first have to maintain that the separation was "temporary" and forced on
them by the Pope, and the Venetian Church would initially have to keep the
old Catholic theology--as indeed the Church of England largely did at first.
What I am wondering is whether as in England this could eventually develop
under Sarpi's guidance (despite his public orthodox Catholicism during the
Interdict crisis) into some form of Protestantism. Protestant ideas might
infiltate in part from the foreign Protestants whose presence (and freedom to
worship) Venice tolerated in the Republic." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/87te3kZB08w/0-Y_EpkP76oJ
"If Sarpi's grandest dream--of Protestant armies destroying the Papacy--was
not realistic, what might he have achieved in terms of liberating Venice
from the Papacy? His strategy during the Interdict crisis was of course
to argue that it was Venice, not the Pope, which was acting in accordance
with Catholic orthodoxy. Eventually, Paul V gave way. But suppose the
Vatican is really pig-headed and insists on continuing the Interdict
despite all the evidence that it is not working and despite the French and
Spanish efforts at a face-saving compromise? Then Venice might indeed set
up a "national" church separate from Rome, with Sarpi as its chief
theologian. In the beginning it would no doubt be "Catholic without the
Pope" but as in England it might gradually become Protestantized. Of
course unless you have a much more successful Reformation in southern
Europe, a Protestant or even quasi-Protestant Venice cannot survive unless
some *Catholic* power is willing to defend it militarily against Rome. The
most likely candidate for such a power is France." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/87te3kZB08w/s5EKVIXIFuoJ
"The foreign power the Venetians were most counting on was France, because
they wanted a great Catholic power on their side to show that they were not
heretics. France did make a great show of friendship with Venice, but was
also worried that the Venetians as well as the Pope might be too
intransigent. What France and the other major Catholic powers ultimately did
was to lobby for a peaceful settlement of the papal-Venetian dispute, both to
enhance their own prestige and power and to prevent a war that might get out
of control. The final compromise seems to me considerably more favorable to
Venice than to the Pope: true, the two imprisoned priests were released to
the custody of the King of France, but Vencie did not repeal the laws to
which the Vatican objected (and under which the priests had been imprisoned).
So if "Venice stood alone", in a sense so did the Pope. If he had been more
pig-headed and refused compromise, he would have been isolated with no ally
except perhaps Spain. (Spain was the only power to offer the Pope military
support, but even it did so on the assumption that a compromise would be
reached and therefore it would not have to follow through on the offer.) So if a lasting schism developed betwen Rome and the Church in Venice, and it
was really clear that the fault was on the Pope's side, I am not sure that
Venice might not get French support. For that purpose, the Venetians would
at first have to maintain that the separation was "temporary" and forced on
them by the Pope, and the Venetian Church would initially have to keep the
old Catholic theology--as indeed the Church of England largely did at first.
What I am wondering is whether as in England this could eventually develop
under Sarpi's guidance (despite his public orthodox Catholicism during the
Interdict crisis) into some form of Protestantism. Protestant ideas might
infiltate in part from the foreign Protestants whose presence (and freedom to
worship) Venice tolerated in the Republic." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/87te3kZB08w/0-Y_EpkP76oJ
One of the problems the Ottomans faced was the short rule and young deaths of the sultams starting from Mehmed III (1595-1603) to Ibrahim I (1640-1648). The 6 sultans from Ahmed I to Ibrahim I ruled less than Mehmed IV reign (37 to 39 years).
Ahmed I death was really bad timing at the age of 27 (1617). He was succeeded by Mustafa I (1618) who got deposed in a few months due to him being insane after years of fear of getting executed. Osman II took the the throne but instead of turning to Vienna he declared war on Poland. Too bad he got deposed (1622). Then at last there is Murad IV who had to face revolts until the early 30s.
Due to these chaotic era Austria was in save position. A long and stable rule like of Suleyman could definitly help the Bohemians. The Persians weren't even that much of a threat. They always try to avoid the fight with fresh units of the Ottoman Army until the Ottomans arrived in an area in which the Persians destroyed anything useful.
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