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This is a Mark 2 of my original Rise of Austria TL. The POD here, as before, is that Joseph II does not marry Maria Josepha, but another woman, and as such has a son Ludwig Karl. The early parts of the TL are very similar to the beginning, but it diverges after 1848.


Extracted from Ludwig-Karl Hapsburg: A German Hero

Ludwig Karl Hapsburg lived from 1780 to 1850, and reigned for 52 of those years. He witnessed the disbanding of the Holy Roman Empire, the Napoleonic Wars, and ensured that his beloved Austria would remain a world power, through military, civil and economic victories at many places, from the halls of power at Vienna to Austerlitz and Constantinople, from the Hofburg and Schönbrunn to the bloody fields of Thrace.

What should we remember him for? His epic military victories, at Austerlitz against Napoleon and Constantinople against the Ottomans? His transformation of Austria into an industrial Great Power? His decision to unify Germany under the Hapsburgs? Purveyors of the 'Great Men' theory of history use his name as certain proof of their theory, for the things that he did have had immense effects on the world.

None of those things.

We should remember him for what he was.

A hero to his nation, a father to his men, a great man, unsullied by mud-slinging, who we can all look up to as glorious.
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