very very very interesting hypothesis, which often has fascinated me too.
Its implementation, however, goes to meet some of the problems that we have to correct.
In the spring of 1741, Karl Albrecht of Bavaria concluded an alliance with Spain, Prussia and a short time later with France. In the autumn of this also joined the Electorate of Saxony. However, the alliance proved to be a double-edged sword: The French had no interest in leaving the place of the Habsburgs the Wittelsbach family, and offered only half-hearted support.
There also was no truly effective cooperation between the Prussian, Bavarian and French armies.
Karl Albrecht has made a mistake then military: instead take Vienna as demanded by Frederick II, the Bavarian-French army was ordered to French pressure to Bohemia. It was important to France to break up the Austrian heritage. On 26 November Prague was conquered and Karl Albrecht settled on 19 December 1741 in Prague crowned king of Bohemia.
On 24 January, he was unanimously elected also with the voice of George II as Emperor. About Dresden and Munich, he moved to Frankfurt for the coronation as emperor. On 12 February 1742 was the glorious imperial coronation in Frankfurt by his brother Clemens August.
His hapless Field Marshal Count Ignaz von Törring he wrote a day after the feast:
"My crowning yesterday went ahead with a splendor and a cheering without equal, but I saw myself at the same time of stone and gout pain incurred - sick, without land, without money, I can truly with Job, the Man of Sorrows, Compare. "
(Die Chronik Bayerns [The Chronicle of Bavaria], 1994, p 245)
Meanwhile, Maria Theresa had reached a truce with Prussia and just two days after the coronation of Karl Albrecht the Austrian-Hungarian army could march in Munich. Emperor Karl VII had lost not only the Habsburg countries, but also his own country. Thus he lived powerless in exile in Frankfurt, in Barckhausenschen Palace, could only distribute one or the other honorary titles. In allusion to the saying aut Caesar aut nihil, (emperor or nothing) for Karl VII the nickname et Caesar et nihil (both Kaiser and nothing) was coined.
During the Second Silesian War, Emperor Karl VII died on 20 January 1745 of gout.
His son and successor Maximilian III Joseph was too young and too underpowered to claim the Imperial throne, to which none of the princes voters would still supported.
France and Prussia had no interest in making disappear the Habsburgs, and Russia still remained pro-Austrian.
But we imagine that Karl VII has conducted better his military campaign, the support of the French army was decisive, while the troops of Maria Theresa were defeated.
We also imagine that gout has granted at least a more few years to Karl VII, so that his death Maximilian III Joseph has 20 years, and then a subject easier to support for the succession to the imperial crown.
Maria Teresa and the Habsburgs would have lost all their possessions into the Empire, which would be passed to the House of Bavaria, with the possible exception of the Austrian Netherlands, which would be given to Augustus III of Saxony and King of Poland as part of the legacy claimed by his wife Josepha.
In Italy Maria Teresa would have been only the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, whose sovereign was the husband Francis Stephen of Lorraine, while Milan, Mantua with Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, would pass to the Infante Philip, son of Philip V of Spain and Elizabeth Farnese, and the husband of the daughter of Louis XV.
Here it would be interesting to carry out the project matrimonial between the son of the Infante Philip, Ferdinand, with Maria Beatrice Ricciarda d'Este, daughter and sole heir of Duke Ercole III of Modena: was born in northern Italy a state big enough and strong enough to do competition to the Savoy for unification.
Belgium could become an independent state and autonomous a century earlier than in reality.
In Germany the House of Bavaria would have been at the head of a state big enough and strong enough to compete with Prussia for the Unification.
But we have now to deal with another major problem: the sterility of the marriage of Maximilian III Joseph.
On the him death would have been born probably a war of succession because Joseph II, now only King of Hungary, would claim the imperial crown against the Elector Palatine Karl Theodor. Joseph over the years could have strengthened his army, made more faithful because the Hungarians would have considered him the "their" king. And in Germany the other principles voters would support the candidacy of Karl Theodor to the imperial crown?
In order to prevent war and ensure the succession of the House of Bavaria, I suggest two hypotheses of marriage to Maximilian III Joseph:
1. one of the unmarried daughters of Louis XV, who had been his ally in the War of the Austrian Succession;
2. the Infanta Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain, youngest daughter of Philip V of Spain and Elisabeth Farnese, and in reality wife of Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia (which might marry Maria Anna Sophia of Saxony, the real wife of Maximilian III Joseph; even if the marriage had proved sterile, the Savoy would still have had the Duke of Chablais or the Savoy-Carignano to continue the dynasty)
you like these ideas?