Not Holy or Roman but maybe an Empire?

If Ferdinand II had an overwhelming victory in the Thirty Year's War how centralized could he make the Holy Roman Empire without causing another war? And would he even try?
 
Over the long term, he and his heirs would probably be as eventually successful as the other European monarchies who were turning their medieval kingdoms into centralized states.

An Imperial victory would establish an effective government over all of Germany instead of its components becoming de facto independent states. Westphalia or Brandenburg would be no more independent than Brittany or Provence. However, Germany would still be behind France, Sweden, and Britain for quite some time as they were far further the process.

There would still be the case of some level of autonomy for the various domains, but the triumph of the Habsburgs would set the stage for further consolidation.
 
Gustavus Adolphus dies in one of his wars with Poland (1626-1630), leaving the small Christina (which would 0-4 years old by the time) on the throne, no Swedish intervention means the war ends not much after Wallenstein defeats the Danes in 1629.

A preliminary peace treaty can be found there, ITTL it maybe even harsher since the Emperor wouldn't be trying to win support against the Swedes.

The HRE itself would still be fragmented compared to France, England and Sweden, but without the small states plotting against him, Ferdinand III and his successors would be better off, specially since now the Empire would have it's own army.
 
Gustavus Adolphus dies in one of his wars with Poland (1626-1630), leaving the small Christina (which would 0-4 years old by the time) on the throne, no Swedish intervention means the war ends not much after Wallenstein defeats the Danes in 1629.

A preliminary peace treaty can be found there, ITTL it maybe even harsher since the Emperor wouldn't be trying to win support against the Swedes.

The HRE itself would still be fragmented compared to France, England and Sweden, but without the small states plotting against him, Ferdinand III and his successors would be better off, specially since now the Empire would have it's own army.

Thank-you, exactly what I wanted, wasn't sure what to search for though.
 
Over the long term, he and his heirs would probably be as eventually successful as the other European monarchies who were turning their medieval kingdoms into centralized states.

An Imperial victory would establish an effective government over all of Germany instead of its components becoming de facto independent states. Westphalia or Brandenburg would be no more independent than Brittany or Provence. However, Germany would still be behind France, Sweden, and Britain for quite some time as they were far further the process.

There would still be the case of some level of autonomy for the various domains, but the triumph of the Habsburgs would set the stage for further consolidation.

Absolutely not. It's way too late for that by 1630. An imperial victory absolutely would not establish an effective government over all of Germany, and it absolutely would not lead to Brandenburg and Saxony and Bavaria being no more independent than Brittany or Provence were in 17th century France. This isn't even what Ferdinand II was *trying* to accomplish.

The Edict of Restitution was designed to restore the religious status quo of 1555, which, from the Catholic perspective, had been slowly deteriorating over the next 75 years. Even so, it was probably too radical to succeed, with or without a Swedish intervention, but it wasn't aiming to depose all the princes and replace them with centralized imperial control. If Ferdinand had tried to do this, it wouldn't have just been Brandenburg and Saxony and the Protestant princes opposing him. It would have been the Catholic electors and most of the Catholic princes as well. And France would have been supporting them.

But the more important thing is - this wasn't even what Ferdinand was trying to do.

The basic problem is that to get his religious policies through, he absolutely needs the support of Maximilian of Bavaria and the Catholic princes. And they're going to oppose any measure that reduces their own power. OTL, they forced Ferdinand to dismiss Wallenstein and replace him with their own man, Tilly. Even without a Swedish intervention, it's hard to see how Ferdinand gets around this. Certainly the Spanish have their hands full, and the French are going to be doing everything they can to encourage resistance to Ferdinand's goals.
 
While that's all true - the defeat of the protestant princes (and their partial emasculation in the succeeding peace) will give the Emperor a base to build power on. An HRE in which only Bavaria and the Archbishop-Electors are autonomous but the rest is somewhat cowed isn't 17th century France, but it does start to look like France before Charles the Bold of Burgundy died (i.e. the big bad Burgundians are independent, and Brittany is close to it, but they can't stand up to the kings without outside backing).

Of course, France will play interference, and and early 30YW victory means there needs to be some final settling of 'can France interfere seriously in the HRE' (presumably through another war), but it is on a path that can lead to centralization.
 
The problem is that Bavaria/the Wittelsbachs were pretty pro-independence (Max I of Bavaria and his descendants all the way to Max III, followed a Wittelsbach-first policy) even when they were married to Habsburg archduchesses. By smacking down the Protestant princes TOO much, you're essentially getting rid of the checks on the Wittelsbach power.

So, sooner or later, an emperor is going to have to make nice with the Lutherans/Calvinist princes to so that he can humble the Wittelsbachs. Except that Wittelsbachs have an ally in France, who'll supportany prince (30YW proved that just because you are Catholic doesn't mean you have to support the Catholics) who wants to stir trouble in the empire.

Note: simply using the Wittelsbachs as an example.
 
The problem is that Bavaria/the Wittelsbachs were pretty pro-independence (Max I of Bavaria and his descendants all the way to Max III, followed a Wittelsbach-first policy) even when they were married to Habsburg archduchesses. By smacking down the Protestant princes TOO much, you're essentially getting rid of the checks on the Wittelsbach power.

So, sooner or later, an emperor is going to have to make nice with the Lutherans/Calvinist princes to so that he can humble the Wittelsbachs. Except that Wittelsbachs have an ally in France, who'll supportany prince (30YW proved that just because you are Catholic doesn't mean you have to support the Catholics) who wants to stir trouble in the empire.

Note: simply using the Wittelsbachs as an example.

Yeah, the structures of power within the Reich are such that it's actually really hard to transform into a modern type state. Any disruptive forces are going to tend to fragment it into multiple independent states, not unite it behind the Habsburgs.

Personally, I'm much less interested in exploring turning the Reich into a unitary, Habsburg-ruled German nation-state than I am in exploring the weirdness of the Reich itself.
 
Yeah, the structures of power within the Reich are such that it's actually really hard to transform into a modern type state. Any disruptive forces are going to tend to fragment it into multiple independent states, not unite it behind the Habsburgs.

Personally, I'm much less interested in exploring turning the Reich into a unitary, Habsburg-ruled German nation-state than I am in exploring the weirdness of the Reich itself.

True, but France was even more decentralized before 1204, and the disruptive forces were even greater. Hell, the king personally held a smaller portion of the kingdom than the Habsburgs within the HRE, and foreign kings were more powerful inside France than the king himself, and easily held more than half of it.

All the structures in France would indicate that it would be hard to transform it into a centralized state.

And even when it tried to centralize under Philip II, it was met with tenacious resistance. In 1214, England, Flanders, Boulogne, and the Holy Roman Empire under Otto IV organized a coalition to crush France and preserve the liberties and independence of the great French vassals.

In my view, France in 1180 was even more decentralized than the HRE in the 18th century. You have foreign kings who are also vassals? Check (Champagne-Navarre and the Angevevins for France, Brandenburg-Prussia, Saxony-Poland and Hanover-Britain for the HRE). You had Kings defeated in war by vassals? Check (the King of France was repeatedly defeated by the Norman and Angevins during this period. The Habsburgs were defeated by Frederick II of Prussia.) The dynasty was legally elective but defacto hereditary? Check. You had foreign kings interfering with the kingdom? Check (France by the HRE and England, HRE by France).


In my opinion, all you need are a series of consecutive great emperors that would be on par with Philip II Augustus, Louis VIII, and Louis IX, to make the 18th century HRE as centralized as the France of Louis IX and Philip IV. And of course, lots of luck.
 
True, but France was even more decentralized before 1204, and the disruptive forces were even greater. Hell, the king personally held a smaller portion of the kingdom than the Habsburgs within the HRE, and foreign kings were more powerful inside France than the king himself, and easily held more than half of it.

All the structures in France would indicate that it would be hard to transform it into a centralized state.

And even when it tried to centralize under Philip II, it was met with tenacious resistance. In 1214, England, Flanders, Boulogne, and the Holy Roman Empire under Otto IV organized a coalition to crush France and preserve the liberties and independence of the great French vassals.

In my view, France in 1180 was even more decentralized than the HRE in the 18th century. You have foreign kings who are also vassals? Check (Champagne-Navarre and the Angevevins for France, Brandenburg-Prussia, Saxony-Poland and Hanover-Britain for the HRE). You had Kings defeated in war by vassals? Check (the King of France was repeatedly defeated by the Norman and Angevins during this period. The Habsburgs were defeated by Frederick II of Prussia.) The dynasty was legally elective but defacto hereditary? Check. You had foreign kings interfering with the kingdom? Check (France by the HRE and England, HRE by France).


In my opinion, all you need are a series of consecutive great emperors that would be on par with Philip II Augustus, Louis VIII, and Louis IX, to make the 18th century HRE as centralized as the France of Louis IX and Philip IV. And of course, lots of luck.

1180 is not 1630. The fact that the Holy Roman Empire is a more developed institution than twelfth century France (and you're right, it certainly is) works *against* what you're trying to do. It's easy to make big changes in the middle ages, because *all* institutions are much less firm and well developed. It's much harder in the early modern period. Yes, the Angevin Empire looks very well on a map. It works a lot less well in practice, because the Angevins have exactly the same problems with unruly vassals that the Capetians do, and a much larger and harder to govern realm to boot. Henry II wasn't a great conqueror. He inherited or married his way into a giant realm, and then spent half his reign defending it from his own sons (and his supposed overlord, I suppose). His position was much more fragile than it looked, and the Capetian position was actually stronger, because Louis VI had developed a pretty firm hold on the Royal Demesne, at least, and the kings of France could actually focus on narrower goals than the kings of England. (Looking at it this way, the kings of France actually more closely resemble the Hohenzollerns, the kings of England the Habsburgs in this analogy). At any rate, one significant below and the whole thing comes apart, and Philip Augustus is in a good position to take advantage of this.

On the other hand, the Holy Roman Empire in 1630 has a ton of well-developed institutions that make the imperial constitution hard to overthrow. The Emperor can ally with the larger princes to despoil the weaker estates, but while that potentially makes him stronger, it also weakens the element within the Reich that is most inclined to support imperial power in favor of the elements most opposed to it. If he sides with the weaker estates against the larger princes, he is forced to work through the consensus based organs of the Reich government, rather than creating a more centralized state. It's hard to see how either of these routes leads to a German state akin to Louis XIV's France.

And I'm not sure a German state akin to Philip IV's France is even a meaningful concept. It feels like a comparison of apples to oranges. What would that even mean? A fourteenth century state is a very, very different thing from an eighteenth century one. Philip IV's France would have been much more like Augustus III's Poland (or, for that matter, Charles VI's Holy Roman Empire) than it was like any actually effective eighteenth century state.
 
What I am simply saying is that the HRE emperor is more powerful within the HRE in 1780, let alone 1630, than the king of France was in the Kingdom of France in 936, 1060, 1137, and 1180.

The king of France in 987, or even 1187, had a very very difficult prospect of centralizing their kingdom, more than the HRE emperor in 1630.

In fact, I could even imagine a scenario in the 18th century where the emperor centralizes the Empire in the 19th.

Prussia is dismembered in the aftermath of the seven years war. The emperor regains Silesia. Then they successfully swap the Southern Nethelands for Bavaria sometime after.

Then in this TL's version of the Napoleonic Wars, the Empire somehow does not gets abolished. Say the ruler of France simply proclaims himself imperial vicar or something. Then after the French defeat, the emperor gains the Rhineland.

Then during the upsurge of Nationalism in the mid nineteenth century, the HREGN is centralized under a federal system under the emperor, and Hungary is given to a younger son.
 
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