Could they achieve that to begin with?What the title says. Why didn't the Spanish Empire, starting with Charles V, conquer or annex France when the Spanish were militarily superior and snatched Italy out of the French during the Italian Wars?
What the title says. Why didn't the Spanish Empire, starting with Charles V, conquer or annex France when the Spanish were militarily superior and snatched Italy out of the French during the Italian Wars?
Why would they want to do it though? Sure the French king was usually a pain in the neck (or the eye as in Henri II's case) but what would Spain gain from it. Even after the Valois boys all kicked, Felipe II was cognisant that it was only the ultras (Guises and Catholic League) who would support him.
As to the Habsburgs conquering France, they'd prefer that it lose parts (Burgundy to themselves, and Aquitaine or Normandy to their English allies) and be weaker rather than wiping it entirely from the map.
The Manchu, whose polity had only about 10 to maybe 15 million people, conquered the whole Ming realm. I think that Spain with Charles V could have conquered France or at least force it into a kind of union, whether dynastic or otherwise, like Spain did with Portugal and England (with Mary the Catholic). But my question is why the Spanish/Habsburg didn't do it, or even try it for that matter, since it seems they didn't even try it in the first place.France had about the same population as the whole Habsburg empire combined. It is one thing to defeat a country on neutral territory and another to actually conquer it.
The Manchu, whose polity had only about 10 to maybe 15 million people, conquered the whole Ming realm. I think that Spain with Charles V could have conquered France or at least force it into a kind of union, whether dynastic or otherwise, like Spain did with Portugal and England (with Mary the Catholic). But my question is why the Spanish/Habsburg didn't do it, or even try it for that matter, since it seems they didn't even try it in the first place.
Could they achieve that to begin with?
Not having a powerful rival in its immediate border. The French and Aragonese had been fighting over Italy for 300 years by the time of the Cateau-Cambresis treaty in which France finally agreed to stop its claims over Naples and Sicily and other parts of Italy that the Aragonese and Habsburg annexed or conquered, and they would continue to have wars with each other until Napoleon conquered Spain, after which Spain effectively stopped having any major wars against France, at least that I know.
The Castilians would be very offended by you saying that they, usually a French ally before 1474 IIRC, had anything to do with what was going on in Italy.
That said. The last war where France and Spain actively fought each other (aside from the Peninsular War since that's always been more of a Spanish Civil War where Britain and France were simply supporting opposing sides IMO) was the War of the Quadruple Alliance.
As to why balkanize it instead of conquer it? How about because if they did, the Habsburgs would be even more alienated in Europe than they were OTL (during the reign of Karl V it was basically the Habsburgs vs everybody else. Sometimes they had England onside, but that depended on who Henry VIII was married to this week). By conquering France the Habsburgs who are already stretching themselves thin are stretching themselves even thinner. So, get France to give back the Burgundian inheritancr and lose a fair deal of its Channel Coast and we're good. Rump France - particularly one prone to squabblings among its princes (Valois, Bourbon, Navarre, Lorraine etc) - is better than no France. Since anybody who MIGHT'VE supported the Habsburgs is now gonna be afraid that they're gonna be next.
The Manchu did it when the Chinese state collapsed and when peasant rebels did most of the work for themThe Manchu, whose polity had only about 10 to maybe 15 million people, conquered the whole Ming realm. I think that Spain with Charles V could have conquered France or at least force it into a kind of union, whether dynastic or otherwise, like Spain did with Portugal and England (with Mary the Catholic). But my question is why the Spanish/Habsburg didn't do it, or even try it for that matter, since it seems they didn't even try it in the first place.
I was thinking of two starting points, the Battle of Pavia in 1525 where Francis I was captured, and the French Wars of Religion, two instances where the French main government was collapsing.The Manchu did it when the Chinese state collapsed and when peasant rebels did most of the work for them
The French state was never in a state of collapse from 1500s onwards
if you assume somehow France goes through a Ming level collapse then yeah maybe you could have seen Hapsburg snatching up territories
Now that I think about it, didn't the French Wars of Religion in essence balkanise France?
I was thinking of two starting points, the Battle of Pavia in 1525 where Francis I was captured, and the French Wars of Religion, two instances where the French main government was collapsing.
The Manchu, whose polity had only about 10 to maybe 15 million people, conquered the whole Ming realm.