Spain's Rebirth

There are few who can argue that Spain was a diminishing power well before French Revolution and Napoleon's... influences. Economic stagnation, internal political identity crises, so on and so forth. By the end of the 19th century, Spain had lost virtually all of her remaining colonial holdings.

So it begs the question - did Spain have the capacity to gain a 'second wind'? If so... how?
 
They expended a lot of energy in fighting over liberalism - it's possible that if the Constitution of 1812 is kept that there is less of that. Royalists may flee to some colonies, but others might be able to be kept.

How to do that, though? Was the fact the royal family wasn't part of the discussion to blame? As it is, while I considered a Spanish rebirth in my TL, I found it pretty hard to do, given the times, though something will happen elsewhere in the next part of my TL. But, if I couldn't make it happen despite what happens in Spain (well, not exactly *in* Spain) it might be tricky. (Then again, what happens "not exactly *in* Spain" probably would cause more reactionary stuff in Spain itself.)
 
You probably need a non-historical, liberal, and extremely competent, successor to the Spanish throne as early as possible.
 
You probably need a non-historical, liberal, and extremely competent, successor to the Spanish throne as early as possible.

Someone willing to work with the liberal Cortes after 1812 would stand a better shot of stabilizing Spain, and might be able to keep parts of Latin America.
 
Just butterflying the Carlist wars would do wonders ... maybe Isabel II as a man?.

In one ASB TL Charles IV runs to America after the Napoleonic invasion instead of abdicating ( ala Portuguese ), this part is not ASB and would make him king by the time of "La pepa", He would be a lot of a better constitutional monarch than his son ( ok, that means nothing knowing his idiot son ) but maybe we should add the butterfly of his wife dying sooner, he loved her a lot and did ANYTHING she asked him ...

His idiot of a son is a problem but if he, as OTL only has only a daughter would have to pact with the Liberals as per OTL, but with them already in power instead of the stupid tug of war between them and the absolutists of his reign ...

This would leave absolutists much more weaker than OTL.

American colonies would be independent in the medium term, thats sure but could be in a less traumatic and sudden way, that would be much better for all parts.

The only problem I see with this is that an Spanish-US war is almost inevitable in the 40´s or 50´s that way ... and the butterflies makes impossible to predict this war´s end ...
 
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