No HRE immediate Collapse, Fate of Austria

So, I've been working on a TL where Napoleon doesn't rise/dies in his attempted coup. The effects are a Holy Roman Empire that survives up until the 1848 Revolutions. The 1848 Revolutions see an utter collapse of the HRE, but consolidation among the smallest states into larger states. (Not a unified Germany, but just larger kingdoms)

Either way, what does Austria do? How do the Habsburg Holdings react to such a collapse? Would the Habsburgs position themselves/Austria as the successor state of the HRE like IOTL, or proclaim something completely different?
 
I'm not sure this makes sense to me. Why does the HRE collapse? Are there German nationalists? There is already an Empire of the German Nation in your TL, and I would think the nationalists would want to give Austria more power if anything.
 
The Habsburgs wouldn't renounce their claim unless they were forced to (this is essentially what happened to Napoleon). Unless one of the newly consolidated kingdoms roundly beats Austria in a war and has the Habsburgs dissolve the Empire at gunpoint they'll just continue to claim the title. But that would be disastrous for the dynasty, and it might even mean they lose Austria. I guess they could just go full Hungarian then.
 
I'm not sure this makes sense to me. Why does the HRE collapse? Are there German nationalists? There is already an Empire of the German Nation in your TL, and I would think the nationalists would want to give Austria more power if anything.

The HRE collapses due to inner pressures. The 1848 Revolutions is basically the straw that breaks the camel's back of the HRE.

No, there are no German nationalists, just German liberals that are inspired by the French Revolution.
 
The HRE collapses due to inner pressures. The 1848 Revolutions is basically the straw that breaks the camel's back of the HRE.

No, there are no German nationalists, just German liberals that are inspired by the French Revolution.

So German nationalism isn't a thing, but for some reason everyone wants to be a liberal Baden?
 
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