The Universal Monarchy

Who came closest to establishing the Universal Monarchy?


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I'm torn between Charles V and Napoleon. Charles united the overwhelming majority of the West - about the only region of significance not under his control in some fashion was France itself. OTOH, he made no effort to ensure that this status would last beyond his lifetime, what with partioning his patrimony, and Ferdinand was ruling the Austrian bit for quite a while before Charles carked it.

Napoleon, on the other hand, showed every interest in making sure his Empire would continue on into the future. While he did have inferior seapower to the British, that's kind of the general rule once the British figured out having a navy is important for an island nation. Given time, he probably could have constructed a significant fleet, but it'd run into the issue of the British being just better at it than his fleet. Also, IIRC the Revolutionary French decided that all naval officers were nobility and did nasty things to them, which had a fairly debilitating impact on the French navy. The issue for me with Napoleon is that he doesn't seem to have had the same degree of stability in his domains that Charles did - his control seems to have been more based on fear of his armies than anything else, whereas Charles gained his domains through the accepted methods of the time and then retained it.

I can't pick between the two, so I'll go with the traditional third option.
 
Easily Charles V. Napoleon was way too late for a universal monarchy, and lacked the legitimacy to create one, although marrying a Hapsburg certainly helped.

Charles V could conceivably have stopped Protestantism and united Europe, no matter how unlikely this outcome.

In Napoleon's era, nationalism was taking root, Protestantism were firmly established, and Britain and Russia were too powerful and too unreachable.
 
Napoleon. He had almost done it when he invaded Russia, only Sweden, Portugal and debatably Russia and the Ottomans still held out on the continent. That campaign was also his worst; somebody on this site (can’t remember who or where) said it was as if he was replaced by a rubbish, unimaginative general solely for the duration of that campaign.
Oh, and good use of Latin!
 

Eurofed

Banned
Napoleon without question. He had almost won. He just needed to make an organic effort to win the loyalty of European nationalists, wiping out the old states in Germany and Italy totally, including Austria and Prussia, and rebuilding them with Low Countries and Denmark as unitary states in imperial real union with France (instead of the OTL vassal patchwork mess), with Poland and Hungary as independent vassals, make himself the explicit heir to the Romans and Charlemagne and take care that loyal middle classes make up most of the administration outside France. Win Sweden to your side for good by giving them support to annex Norway and keep Finland. Full control of this Empire's borders would have made internal enforcement of the ConSys pretty airtight, and Britain was not going to fare well by trading with Russia alone in Europe. The ConSys was hitting them pretty bad in 1811-12.

He also needed to deal with Russia with a more intelligent strategy adequate to his usual standards. If the Tsar wants a rematch, instead of invading the frozen endless steppes on a wild goose chase, take a defensive stance in Eastern Europe, close to your logistic bases in Poland and Hungary, and smash Russian army after Russian army with your strategic genius until Russia is exhausted and its nobilty officer corps bled white. After Russia is done with, use your undivided might to crush the Spanish insurgents and annex Iberia to the Empire, chasing Wellington in the sea with tail between his legs.

European nationalism was in its formative stage during Napoleon's time, and it would be quite easy to remold the loyalties of the middle classes to the ideal of united imperial Europe (and plenty of cultural and political precedents existed in the Romans and Charlemagne). With a prosperous, stable Empire, and Napoleon giving back some liberal reforms, as he planned to do in his late years, European middle classes would flock to imperial administration, making imperial rule unshakable after the defeat of Russia. Britain would be powerless to challenge this continental hegemony, which in due time can easily outbuild its naval supremacy.

In comparison, Charles V was orders of degree less close to success than Napoleon. He did no real effort towards the political unification of Germany and Italy to a degree comparable to Spain, the HRE remained a feudal patchwork mess, and France remained defiant. And he was successful neither in suppressing the Reform neither in taking lead of it and bringing it to its full potential, remolding its Empire's religious allegiance into an Anglican-like Imperial Church (which would have allowed him to unify the HRE). Control of the New World colonies does not balance the equation with Napoleon's achievements and closeness to success.
 
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Charles V had a horrible enough time even with what little he had, its needs to be later when communications and transport is sufficient that managing a country the size of the US is doable.
 
Easily Charles V. Napoleon was way too late for a universal monarchy, and lacked the legitimacy to create one, although marrying a Hapsburg certainly helped.

Charles V could conceivably have stopped Protestantism and united Europe, no matter how unlikely this outcome.

In Napoleon's era, nationalism was taking root, Protestantism were firmly established, and Britain and Russia were too powerful and too unreachable.

I thinka distinction should be drawn between "universal monarchy" (monarchical state covering Europe) and "Universal Monarchy" (English/British foreign policy bogeyman). "Legitimacy" was never really a worry (from opposite sides of the spectrum, nobody opposed the UM like Cromwell, but when the French revolutionary forces took Belgium, all the old alarm bells were sounded); Catholicism, despite the domestic persecution and red scare, wasn't really a foreign policy concern either (it was seriously argued by William III's spin-doctors that since "Catholicism is bad" and "Louis XIV is bad" were the two commandments of British policy, and since the Pope was against Louis, allying with the Pope was absolutely a Protestant foreign policy manouvre).

Now, obviously Britain being invaded is a stretch and we were perfectly safe by the time Napoleon had dominated Europe; but it's an anxiety and not a reality.
 
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