Plausibility Check: Spain vs. the Muslims

Conquering North Africa was indeed a recurring dream in both Spain and Portugal. There was constant talk for a long time after the fall of Granada about driving the Muslims back. Crusades were even proclaimed. This was a later effort (1578). This was another (1535).
 
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(Sigh. It sure is a lot of work preparing a TL. My TL isn't even about Spain, and they'll barely even be mentioned in the finished version. But if I can't justify their staying out of the Americas, then the whole thing collapses. So I'm having to focus this much on Spanish affairs when I'd rather be working on, you know, the countries my TL is actually about.)
Sorry I don't think you CAN justify it, especially if the other powers are founding new lands in America. Spain will think "if they can do, we will too." Even if it's not adventurers, I can see them forming native alliances and picking off some states as well as exploring. Being stunted in America will also change their relationship with Portugal, they could be more focused on African ports.
 
Put me in the camp that doesn't see good times for Spain from this -- looking at the chart jmrioi linked to, Spain's conquest of Mexico about doubled the amount of wealth they controlled, and allowed Spain to be an economic power in its own right, competing with the German states and the Lowlands.

Plus, this was less than a decade after F&I essentially gutted the middle class of their realm, expelling the Jews and Muslims; without wealth pouring in from the colonies, they would likely be bankrupt (or a financial burden on Charles) before too long.

In fact, without Mexico, I can see Charles, in splitting the realms after his death, being reluctant to leave such thriving cities to be pulled down by such a country as Spain, and leaving them to the HRE, Austria, or some such. And that would be the end of Spain as a serious power, maybe even as a nation.
 
I need to decide what Spain is doing and do more research into Netherlands independence before I can know if the Dutch will still be active here. I don't need them to be, but I also don't need them to not be.

The people that we call "Dutch" today weren't really a problem until the protestant reformation.
 
I can't for the life of me imagine what could possibly cause the Spanish to engage in a death-struggle with the Ottomans. All that would do is cause a strong alliance between the Ottomans and France, and push Morocco into the Ottomans' hands.

If Spain is going to concentrate on the Old World, doesn't trying to dominate Portugal make more sense? And Italy? Morocco and Algeria are populous and mountainous. This is a hopeless undertaking.
 
I can't for the life of me imagine what could possibly cause the Spanish to engage in a death-struggle with the Ottomans. All that would do is cause a strong alliance between the Ottomans and France, and push Morocco into the Ottomans' hands.

If Spain is going to concentrate on the Old World, doesn't trying to dominate Portugal make more sense? And Italy? Morocco and Algeria are populous and mountainous. This is a hopeless undertaking.
I think Morocco is a bridge too far for the Ottomans. Even Western Algeria was debatably vassaled and the Saadis in the south are Alids. Are even Christian conquests going to convince them to run full tilt at the Ottomans who have spent years screaming about Ali-loving heretics in Safavid Iran? OTL Spain even held Tunis until the 1570s and the Amasya Treaty with Tahmasp wasn't until 1555. The northern regions of Morocco are being held by the Kingdom of Fez and that kingdom was conquered by the Saadis in 1554 so it's bound to be weakening by 1530.

While I really enjoy Franco-Ottoman alliance TLs (Bronze Age New World) that alliance really didn't get started until after Pavia. So the Spaniards have a window from about 1520-late 1530s to run around in Morocco and if there's no Pavia (since the Spaniards might be weaker) Francis might not see the need to push for the alliance as hard as he did since he's in a better position and doesn't want to risk the propaganda effects as he had nothing to lose in OTL. Also wiki says that the loss of Tunis is what motivated the push into a formal alliance giving me this cite. If Spain focuses on Morocco and doesn't threaten Tunis as much, I can see the main Ottoman war effort once again devoted against Austria and essentially the western med left alone (save for naval expeditions, not territorial gains) as long as Tunis is secure and the Spaniards stay out of Algeria for the most part.

I think much of the Kingdom of Fez could conceivably be taken by the Spaniards up to the Mid-Atlas, especially if cooperation with the Saadis can be achieved (unlikely but you never know).
 
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I can't for the life of me imagine what could possibly cause the Spanish to engage in a death-struggle with the Ottomans. All that would do is cause a strong alliance between the Ottomans and France, and push Morocco into the Ottomans' hands.

If Spain is going to concentrate on the Old World, doesn't trying to dominate Portugal make more sense? And Italy? Morocco and Algeria are populous and mountainous. This is a hopeless undertaking.

Even though Morocco was not even in the Ottoman sphere of influence. Riight.
 
I'd disagree about the resources of the New World hurting Spain. Look at its population base compared to France, even in 1600. Without the silver of the New World, how is it going to be anywhere near as powerful as OTL?
 
I'd disagree about the resources of the New World hurting Spain. Look at its population base compared to France, even in 1600. Without the silver of the New World, how is it going to be anywhere near as powerful as OTL?
Well generally it's accepted that the mass of precious metals enabled Spain to finance wars of power without needing to develop an internal middle-class to tax it. Thus the monarch didn't have to fight with his nobles for tax revenue and there were fewer merchants because Spain had to be super-militarized because of the Reconquista. So too, a lot of nobles were tax-exempt (a method adopted to entice the lords to prosecute the Reconquista). Of course all the silver and gold made the value of the money plummet and while some good early work on scarcity was done by Spanish economists in the Silgo de Oro and the Ottomans had to debase the coinage because of it, Spain still went bankrupt more than once.

Without the New World resources, you are going to get less tax exempt nobles and more effort to develop internal elites that can be taxed to support the crown wars so you're going to have a less absolutist and more economically stable Spain in the long run and also, possibly, a more parliamentary style Spain because since Spain agriculture potential was not as high as France, I think they will need to focus more on trade/commerce like England relatively speaking and that generally means a middle class of trade and finance. This might be an opening for Italians in the Spanish territories to start some businesses in Spain but I'd rather not speculate in that regard right now.

They would be less powerful, but the country would probably be a better place to live politically and maybe richer in the long term--but weaker in the short term.
 
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