What if Emperor Charles wins the Spanish Crown instead of Philip of Anjou in WotSS

raharris1973

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WotSS = war of the Spanish Succession

What if Charles reunifies the Empire of Charles V because of a combination of better allied military performance in Spain and more British support?

Although reunified Spain-Austria makes for a powerful combination, at the time, most British Whigs were judging that the combination would not be a greater danger than a Bourbon Spain and would still be balanced out by the Sun King's France.

In OTL, war weariness in Britain aided the Tory rise and British interest in settling for OTL's Utrecht deal.

Perhaps if allied forces perform better in Spain itself and if the British capture another Spanish treasure fleet defraying costs somewhat, perhaps the Whigs can hold on?

What would be the consequences for the Spanish empire, and Europe, for the rest of the 18th century if Spain remains Habsburg, and actually in personal union with Austria for one generation, if not more?
 
Well Charles VI will never be able to reunite the Empire of Charles V unless his brother Joseph I had a son and both of them (Joseph I and his son) died only after the end of the Spanish War of Succession (aka when he is already recognized by everyone as Carlos III, King of Spain and everything else. Plus a son of Joseph likely will preventing Charles II of Spain from the latest change of heir in his wills as originally Carlos II, after the death of Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, designated Archduke Charles as heir before replacing him with the Duke of Anjou only shortly before dying. And if Carlos II’s last will had named Archduke Charles as his universal heir well the Duke of Anjou will find harder supporting his claim as his OTL legitimacy from the will here will go to the Archduke
 
Joseph died just before the end of the Spanish Succession War, it was Charles VI's ascension as Holy Roman Emperor being one of the major reasons why the other allies opposed to France wanted to drop the war.

Its during this time period where maintaining the balance of power in Europe was regarded as a very important thing, and while Philip of Anjou threatened to undo it due to his being really close to the French succession (even though if he and his children were regarded in this case, it wouldn't be until the tail-end of the 19th century before any from his family would be legitimate heirs to the French throne in OTL, Treaty of Utrecht be damned). Charles III actually becoming Emperor was regarded as equally bad.

It's actually a case that bad that Great Britain sought a prince who was neither a Habsburg nor a Bourbon, latching first the Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, and there may have been a plan (though I can't seem to find the source, assuming it hasn't been repudiated) to have Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy as King of Spain (repudiating Savoy to France in exchange).

Britain was amenable to Charles as King, so long as Leopold I, or failing that (as happened IRL), Joseph I (or his son, Leopold Joseph assuming he doesn't die of the smallpox outbreak ITTL) would be Emperor once the war ends.
 

raharris1973

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Charles III actually becoming Emperor was regarded as equally bad.

Not by all. The most committed Whigs thought France was such a menace that an HRE-Spain combo would be the appropriate balance. Different English politicians calibrated their ideal balance of power a little differently.

In any case, Charles III being Emperor and King of Spain is only the upper-end, super-deluxe version of the Habsburg wank. While it would be interesting, another interesting possibility would be if royal deaths and such worked out so that the Spanish and Austrian-HRE lines would remain safely separate in contrast to OTL, and the allies keep fighting until they win Spain. That changes alot of the 18th century too.

Either Habsburg victory scenario, as one house or two, could prolong potentially OTL's 15 year Anglo-French Entente of 1715-1730.
 
Well Super-Deluxe in the sense that it would be Habsburg Wank II: Wank Harder, considering it'd be bigger than the original (Charles I & V only being King of Spain and Holy Roman Empire, compared to the III & VI adding Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia to his direct rule). Only problem was that I think those Whigs were discredited in the end no sane person would want an HRE-Spain combo because no amount of Habsburg-wank leading to that personal union would be palatable just to spite the French.

The second interesting possibility would have to be the one to work as acceptable in this case. Again, it would require either Leopold remaining Emperor (which would require the war ending early, since Leopold I was already looking to be on his way out by the time war were declared), or Joseph I surviving. (with or without his son, Leopold Joseph) The former is probable, since his death was from smallpox and a PoD could be put in place where he somehow doesn't contract the disease that killed Louis, le Grand Dauphin and three children of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, the father of future OTL Emperor Francis I, (including the original heir to that throne, Louis.)

What would probably make this interesting is that, should Joseph die without siring another heir (if Leopold Joseph dies as per OTL), the union would still happen anyway, since Charles III would still be the heir, assuming no similar Treaty of Utrecht comes in place.
 
the popular view is that, as Noblesse Oblige said, the world powers did NOT want to see Austria and Spain united, and that any attempts to affect a union would result in a major war. However....

France was dog tired when Joseph died, and in this TL, beaten militarily. Britain was weary of the war - it's going to be a hard sell to turn about and aide the enemy you've just been at war with and fight the ally you been aiding. Is there will? Is there a way? In this scenario, war is coming sooner or later. France and Britain will ally and look to divide that empire up. Direct consequences of any peace: hard to see Austria cough up any of the Italian holdings, so Austria gets the whole enchilada of the Spanish empire. Or perhaps France, aided by Britain and Savoy force Italy from their grips and give it to Philip or Savoy.

An alternative is that Joseph lives. I think his wife is sterile at that point, due to venereal disease Joseph gave her (not sure if this rendered him sterile as well, but as long as the wife is alive and still his wife, there'll be no additional children), so if you want a male heir, Leopold Joseph has to hang on, too. If Joseph lives long enough, and Charles pumps out some kids, perhaps an Austrian heir can be found.

If the two kingdoms remain separate, Spain will remain a French enemy instead of becoming OTL ally. France may cozy up to Britain as OTL, but TL remain sort of in the same camp. Britain was most interested in balance of power, and isolating France creates too much unbalance, so France and Britain will find common interest. That may take the form of divesting Spain of colonial holdings at every opportunity.

Charles will still be Charles, and that doesn't bode well for Spain. He wasn't the most capable ruler.

This likely butterflies Elizabeth Farnese's rise to power. Perhaps Philip's first wife continues to live and give him more children, and hopefully that line has more capable genes than Charles III and IV (OTL III) offspring had. Charles OTL III had a brain, OTL IV was less than optimum.
 
the popular view is that, as Noblesse Oblige said, the world powers did NOT want to see Austria and Spain united, and that any attempts to affect a union would result in a major war. However....

France was dog tired when Joseph died, and in this TL, beaten militarily. Britain was weary of the war - it's going to be a hard sell to turn about and aide the enemy you've just been at war with and fight the ally you been aiding. Is there will? Is there a way? In this scenario, war is coming sooner or later. France and Britain will ally and look to divide that empire up. Direct consequences of any peace: hard to see Austria cough up any of the Italian holdings, so Austria gets the whole enchilada of the Spanish empire. Or perhaps France, aided by Britain and Savoy force Italy from their grips and give it to Philip or Savoy.

An alternative is that Joseph lives. I think his wife is sterile at that point, due to venereal disease Joseph gave her (not sure if this rendered him sterile as well, but as long as the wife is alive and still his wife, there'll be no additional children), so if you want a male heir, Leopold Joseph has to hang on, too. If Joseph lives long enough, and Charles pumps out some kids, perhaps an Austrian heir can be found.

If the two kingdoms remain separate, Spain will remain a French enemy instead of becoming OTL ally. France may cozy up to Britain as OTL, but TL remain sort of in the same camp. Britain was most interested in balance of power, and isolating France creates too much unbalance, so France and Britain will find common interest. That may take the form of divesting Spain of colonial holdings at every opportunity.

Charles will still be Charles, and that doesn't bode well for Spain. He wasn't the most capable ruler.

This likely butterflies Elizabeth Farnese's rise to power. Perhaps Philip's first wife continues to live and give him more children, and hopefully that line has more capable genes than Charles III and IV (OTL III) offspring had. Charles OTL III had a brain, OTL IV was less than optimum.
Well, maybe she can have something like that if either Joseph or Charles, who are her cousins, became widowed and decided who Parma (with a good chance to add also Tuscany) is a nice addiction to his lands...
 
OTL Charles III was at least a decent monarch, if not the best monarch Spain had during the early Bourbon-era (1714-1808), but I digress...

Personally, I don't think Leopold surviving would be a major factor should Charles sire two sons or more (the second son, if not someone further down would inherit the Imperial throne and the Habsburg domains in Central Europe). It might just end up getting more interesting should Charles still end up with daughters though as per OTL. At least Spain at that point has had a history of queens regnant in the past so the succession would be much more smoother than what had happened in Austria. Austria is still plenty screwed though...

...not to say Spain won't either, considering the kind of ruler Charles VI/Carlos III wound up being.
 

raharris1973

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Britain was most interested in balance of power, and isolating France creates too much unbalance, so France and Britain will find common interest. That may take the form of divesting Spain of colonial holdings at every opportunity.

So what are we looking at here for colonial partition?

British Florida, Puerto Rico and La Plata?

French Santo Domingo, Texas, Santa Fe and California?

Anglo-French partition of the Philippines?
 
OK for the sake of argument lets say Josef I never caught a venereal disease/Archduke Leopold Josef lives and that Carlos ultimately secures control of Spain. What then? First, what happens to the Monarchy? Does Carlos III gain the entirety of the Spanish inheritance or is it partitioned out like OTL. In my opinion a partition is likely. Unless our POD is Carlos II leaving the entire Monarchy to the Archduke or an early knockout blow to France, we'd still have a Felipe V that's been King of Castile for some years and who would have to be compensated somehow. Likely that means that Naples and Sicily (off and on promised to the Dauphin in the various Partition treaties) would go to Felipe. Milan was already handed over to Josef I in a secret treaty so that's also gone. The only real territories left are Sardinia and the Spanish Netherlands. Both could stay with Spain or be further partitioned (Sardinia to Savoy like OTL but not sure about Flanders). Then we have the man himself. In his OTL reign Carlos was a disaster, making concessions to the rest of the powers to get them to accept a treaty not worth the ink it was written with and then wasting resources on pointless wars that hurt Austria badly. Here, even if he still only has female issue, Carlos doesn't need to get a Pragmatic succession accepted thanks to Spain allowing female inheritance and the lack of nieces with a better claim than his own daughters. So right off the bat that's better for him.

Flipside though, I don't think we'd see the Nueva Planta decrees (or they would be repudiated by Carlos); that means Spain remains a union of the Castilian and Aragonese Crowns, rather than a centralized administration with a single system of laws, customs and taxes. So that's bad for Spain in the long-run and hampers any Spanish recovery from the long decline that was Felipe IV's last years and Carlos II's reign.However, this does mean we get Maria Theresa (potentially) as Queen of Spain. That would be a major plus. Ultimately I think Carlos III would leave more Spain diminished than Felipe V did but the scales could balance if MT is Queen Regnant and is as successful in Spain as she was in Austria.
 
Now, while I was focused more on just Spain proper (or to be more specific the Habsburg domains on the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands at the time of Carlos II's death), I could argue something of the sort here. I agree with the lands agreed upon in the partition, what with the Duke of Anjou getting the Neapolitan and Sicilian thrones (probably with or without the man actually getting the throne), Milan going to Joseph, and Sardinia going to Savoy (Dude kinda needs something to compensate for not getting Milan after all.)

That leaves us with the issue of the Spanish Netherlands...obviously not going to the Wittelsbach, so it's basically anyone's guess at that point.

As for internal policy, like I said, with Spain having had a history of female monarchs plus the succession being more liberal for female succession (which I think was more a holdover of Trastamara successions for Castile and Aragon), compared to the succession laws that came in with Philip V onwards (which in and of itself led to a whole host of problems down the road), Carlos III's reign in Spain would be at least a tinge better than in Austria in that regard. Not exactly putting faith in a man who thought it was a good idea to convince the other prince-electors to support his daughter, but I digress...

What I do find myself on the fence is the Nueva Planta decrees, which is bad for Spain in the long-run and hampers Spanish recovery, but also runs the possibility of at least avoiding some of the societal issues that Spain was plagued with. After all, while decentralization isn't always a good thing, the Nueva Planta decrees was the first step in centralizing Spain under Castilian laws and leadership (an ongoing battle that included the abolishment of all fueros in 1833-41, and even up to and including the Castilianization of Spain under Franco.) Basically, I'm on the fence of it because it feels like a catch 22.
 
OK for the sake of argument lets say Josef I never caught a venereal disease/Archduke Leopold Josef lives and that Carlos ultimately secures control of Spain. What then? First, what happens to the Monarchy? Does Carlos III gain the entirety of the Spanish inheritance or is it partitioned out like OTL. In my opinion a partition is likely. Unless our POD is Carlos II leaving the entire Monarchy to the Archduke or an early knockout blow to France, we'd still have a Felipe V that's been King of Castile for some years and who would have to be compensated somehow. Likely that means that Naples and Sicily (off and on promised to the Dauphin in the various Partition treaties) would go to Felipe. Milan was already handed over to Josef I in a secret treaty so that's also gone. The only real territories left are Sardinia and the Spanish Netherlands. Both could stay with Spain or be further partitioned (Sardinia to Savoy like OTL but not sure about Flanders). Then we have the man himself. In his OTL reign Carlos was a disaster, making concessions to the rest of the powers to get them to accept a treaty not worth the ink it was written with and then wasting resources on pointless wars that hurt Austria badly. Here, even if he still only has female issue, Carlos doesn't need to get a Pragmatic succession accepted thanks to Spain allowing female inheritance and the lack of nieces with a better claim than his own daughters. So right off the bat that's better for him.

Flipside though, I don't think we'd see the Nueva Planta decrees (or they would be repudiated by Carlos); that means Spain remains a union of the Castilian and Aragonese Crowns, rather than a centralized administration with a single system of laws, customs and taxes. So that's bad for Spain in the long-run and hampers any Spanish recovery from the long decline that was Felipe IV's last years and Carlos II's reign.However, this does mean we get Maria Theresa (potentially) as Queen of Spain. That would be a major plus. Ultimately I think Carlos III would leave more Spain diminished than Felipe V did but the scales could balance if MT is Queen Regnant and is as successful in Spain as she was in Austria.
Well you can always (and that would be fun) mirroring the Habsburg OTL trouble with the Bourbons...
That would be so easy:you just need to have Madame de Ventadour either not named as governess of the future Louis XV or unable to save him from the doctors and he will die together with his parents and older brother and his uncle Philippe, formerly Duke of Anjou will be the next King of France... Let also Charles, Duke of Berry dying of his OTL death so before his grandfather and the conclusion of ATL war and France will not be compensated with anything of substance...
Naples, Sicily and Sardinia will stay Spanish and Spanish Netherlands will be likely given to Austria or maybe the Duke of Savoy can be convinced to swap his lands with the Kingdom of Sicily and the Duke of Lorraine to swap his own with the Kingdom of Naples and Austria to swap the promised Milan with Flanders so we will have this partition: Piedmont will go to Spain together with Milan and Sardinia, Flanders will go to Austria, Lorraine and Savoy to France, Naples to the (former) Duke of Lorraine and Sicily to the (former) Duke of Savoy.

A POD in which Carlos II do not change idea at the last moment and left everything to Archduke Charles also would be good and in that case (plus Phillipe, Duke of Anjou as King of France) I can see Spain keeping Naples and Sicily plus Flanders with Sardinia to the Duke of Savoy and Milan to Austria
 
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Philippe d'Anjou as king of France and either La Savoyana survives or he remarries to Maria Elisabeth of Austria (Farnese weds elsewhere) could be fun to see. France has it's first depressed ("mad") king since Charles le Fou and Elisabeth being the swan's feet (the hidden underwater part driving this grand thing) keeping it all going. Queen Consorts taking power for their husbands is no good thing, but Maria Elisabeth did reasonably well during her tenureship of the Austrian Netherlands AFAIK
 
Eighteenth century dynastic and border changes are really hard to do because the balance of power doctrine was so ingrained that a seemingly minor change here will have billiard ball effects throughout Europe, and even the rest of the world due to the colonies. And this isn't even a minor change.

Also there are three ways to do this. One is France getting stomped in the war instead of OTL near stalemate which is both somewhat hard and has huge effects outside of Spain. And the British and Dutch will not want the new Hapsburg empire to get too big, and will be supported by the smaller German states and maybe Russia and Turkey.

The second is something like the military performance we got, but for whatever reason the Allied attack on Spain goes really, really well. Maybe Eugene or Marborough is commanding it and the French general is incompetent. However, that means Eugene or Marlborough are not where they were IOTL and the French do a good deal better in one or more of Italy, southern Germany, or the Netherlands. This is more likely but now there is a different Treaty of Utrecht.

Third, the war itself is avoided by a successful settlement among the great powers, ignoring the will of Carlos II, which involves the Archduke Karl being made King of Spain, with tons of other territorial differences throughout Europe. Then there is no war.

Its probably safe in any of these scenarios to predict that the Austrian Hapsburgs don't get all of their Treaty of Utrecht territories, with the Austrian Netherlands/ Belgium being at the top of the list for being disposed of differently. In a "stop France" scenario it is incorporated into the United Provinces, in some of the other scenarios it could go to Bavaria, France, or be split between any combination of the three. Central and southern Italy are decided differently since they were reshuffled quite a bit OTL between 1715 and 1735 and even minor events will butterfly that area. Hapsburg Spain will get Gibraltar back unless the British are being really perfidious, since the British were originally supposed be holding the rock in trust for the Hapsburg monarch.

Two more points. The office of the Holy Roman Emperor was elective and a non-Hapsburg did in fact become Emperor in 1740 OTL. Also Karl VI had no sons and there was another war over the Austrian succession, but maybe you want to butterfly that away and give Karl VI ("Carlos III") a son. Just like with Austria, a Pragmatic Saction was later needed to allow a woman, Isabella II, to become monarch of Spain, and that too set off a war.
 
Just like with Austria, a Pragmatic Saction was later needed to allow a woman, Isabella II, to become monarch of Spain, and that too set off a war.

Only because Felipe V had fiddled with the traditional succession laws (Isabel I/La Beltraneja had succeeded with no problem, same for Juana la Loca (technically)). Carlos IV passed a pragmatic sanction of his own in the 1780s/1790s to block his brothers from succeeding him if he had no male issue.
 
What Kevin Sullivan said. The Pragmatic sanction that led to the split between Carlists and Isabellinos had its seeds sown by Felipe V effectively introducing Semi-Salic Law in Spain (I'm certain, at least personally if it never happened IOTL, that there was some fight back on preventing changing the succession laws to full Salic.)

There will not be any such sanction under TTL, Carlos III should he still end up without a male heir. Austria on the other hand would still be doomed to a succession conflict since there has never been a female to succeed to the Habsburg Domains up to that point, assuming Leopold Joseph (the son of Emperor Joseph I) dies as per OTL, coupled with the fact that succession for the HRE did have some semblance of Salic Law, despite the position being an elected one (hence why Maria Theresa was never styled as Holy Roman Empress, at least not as Empress Regnant de jure, despite being very much so by fact.)

The way I see it, any potential Austrian succession would go one of these ways:

- Leopold Joseph survives, he inherits the Austrian Domains and becomes Holy Roman Emperor (we'll call him Leopold II in this scenario.) This would avert any Austrian sucession war, provided the boy somehow sires an heir (or better, more male heirs) if not, then it would only delay the issue.

- Leopold Joseph dies. Assuming a Treaty of Utrecht situation is in place, or Carlos III does not sire a male heir, or both. If that ends up being the case, unless that PoD is from within the first few months of the war, a succession war will break out among the competing claims of the husbands of the two daughters of Joseph I (IOTL, Friedrich Augustus II/Augustus III of Saxony-Poland-Lithuania, and Charles Albert/Charles VII of Bavaria), this may end up being a melee a trois if Spain repudiates such treaty or no such treaty exists should the son or daughter (and her husband) of Carlos III enters the fray.
 
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