Sievershausen and beyond

WI Maurice of Saxony hadn't died at the Battle of Sievershausen?

He was only 32 years old and already one of the most powerful men in the Holy Roman Empire. Had he lived longer, I believe the sobriquet "The Great Elector" would have applied to him. He might have made Saxony into what Prussia later became. For a start, let's say he receives most of Albert Alcibiades' lands at the end of the 2nd Margrave War.
 

Susano

Banned
He was a very crafty and cunning man, thats for sure. Allying with the Emperor, then later turning the very armies entrusted to him against said Emperor, driving him out of Germany with an alliance of just a handful of princes... he was clever, certainly. OTOH, saying "Saxony could become Prussia" is a bit determinist. Prussias rise was to a large part random happenstance. Theres nothing that says there has to be an east German great power.

Had Maurice lived longer, he would certainly have meddled further in Imperial Politics, that seems to have been his forte. However, tbh, I dont know just what this would have entailed. IOTL, the period between 1555 (Augsburg Religious Peace) and 1618 (Start of 30s Year War) was a largely peaceful one. Its second half was determined by re-increasing religious strife and tension, with the AUggsburg Rleigious peace slowly falling to pieces, but there was no largescale confrontation between great powers in this time. So, yeah, I have no idea, to be quite honest:eek:
 
OTOH, saying "Saxony could become Prussia" is a bit determinist. Prussias rise was to a large part random happenstance. Theres nothing that says there has to be an east German great power.

I gave you Prussia as a German state that managed to smack down the Habsburgs and rise to the level of a European power.

Maurice could take most of the Brandenburg-Kulmbach territories, establishing Saxon power in Franconia. He could help the Emperor take back the 3 Bishoprics from the French (IIRC he himself had previously helped France acquire them) and be rewarded with one, 2, maybe all 3 of them, establishing Saxon power west of the Rhine. The Wars of Religion could still break out in France, providing all sorts of opportunities for an ambitious German Protestant ruler.

And the Electorate of Saxony doesn't end with Maurice. England will soon have a Queen Elizabeth and she may want to marry this time. The Dutch could still revolt, and in OTL they were quite willing to submit to a foreign ruler to protect them from Spain. An Albertine Wettin could later gain the Polish throne, after the last Jagiellon king dies (he'd have to convert to Catholicism, of course). The Czechs and Hungarians weren't exactly happy about Habsburg rule and I'm pretty sure their crowns were elective. And the Ernestine Wettins, who knows how they'll end up - it's a safe bet that some future elector will aim at reuniting the 2 branches.

I'm not saying that you can make Maurice into a Frederick the Great, but he could've built the base for a future Frederick the Great in his realm. The Great Elector, remember? Or maybe not a Frederick the Great, a better analogue could be Gustavus Adolphus or Stephen Bathory.
 
Just to give everybody else some perspective, here's 2 maps:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Schmalkaldic_war_1947.jpg

This one shows the Ernestine and Albertine branches of the House of Wettin. The Saxon electoral title had passed from the former to the latter (of which Maurice was a member) according to the 1547 Capitulation of Wittenberg, one of the first great defeats of Protestantism.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Fsm-Bayreuth_1791.png

This one shows Brandenburg-Kulmbach, which despite its name is in Franconia, not Brandenburg. Its margrave, Albert Alcibiades, was a particularly aggressive ruler who would lose his lands not long after his defeat by Maurice of Saxony at Sievershausen (yet it was Maurice who died in that battle). I'm assuming that, had Maurice survived, he would've received a considerable share of the spoils at the end of the war. For orientation, notice Coburg and Plauen on both maps.

The 3 Bishoprics were Metz, Toul and Verdun in Lorraine. They had been held by France since 1552, IIRC, and Charles V wanted them back. Not back in Habsburg hands, since they had never belonged to his dynasty, but back in the Empire. Had Maurice helped him in this endeavor and had it been successful, the elector could have obtained at least one of the bishoprics for himself.
 
IOTL his wife died in 1555, and he still had no heir. Who could be a good candidate to be his new wife? It would be interesting if she is someone who would give him some important inheritance.
 
IOTL his wife died in 1555, and he still had no heir. Who could be a good candidate to be his new wife? It would be interesting if she is someone who would give him some important inheritance.

Well, Elizabeth Tudor was a nice Protestant young woman, and at the time it did seem like her older sister would have children. More realistically, a German Lutheran. Maybe a Hohenzollern, maybe an Ernestine Wettin if that branch of the dynasty agrees to a reconciliation, maybe a Scandinavian.

Edit: It could be this one, this one (see number 5), this one, or this one.
 
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