WI: A French Holy Roman Emperor

Alright, so, what if at some point the Electors of the HRE chose a French-king to be the HRE and then continuously elected his successors similar to how they did with the Habsburgs. What effect do you think this would this have on France and Europe?
 
What do you mean "french king" if you mean a french prince within the empire then that is far easier than the French King being selected.
 
Yeah but I was asking more about what would happen afterwards (especially if France continued to have a hold on the Imperial title)

Well if we use Francis I, then there would be a war between France and The Habsburgs. Who the Prince Electors and minor German states would support is debatable. OTL France lost nearly every war with Spain and the Empire(hell Francis I was even captured and help in Madrid!) but if he focuses solely of the low countries and the Empire, ignoring Italy, he might have a chance.
 
Well if we use Francis I, then there would be a war between France and The Habsburgs.

Absolutely.

Who the Prince Electors and minor German states would support is debatable.

That depends on the promises the respective side make. And of course they'll oppose the one who looks as if he could become the supreme winner of that struggle.

Nevertheless, this could become a major French-wank. Say France gets Franche Comte, Sundgau, Breisgau and large parts of the Austrian Netherlands and the Hapsburgs loose the crown of Bohemia to another German noble house. That's not entirely unlikely. But it gives France a so much better starting position for the next round of wars.

On the other side, even with far smaller gains of France, the Ottomans might break Hapsburg power once and for all, and then the French king/HRE will go crusading to liberate Vienna and Hungary from the infidels. That he'll also end with large territories in the East is merely coincidal...

OTL France lost nearly every war with Spain and the Empire(hell Francis I was even captured and help in Madrid!) but if he focuses solely of the low countries and the Empire, ignoring Italy, he might have a chance.

The war will be between France and the Hapsburgs. Since the Hapsburgs sit in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, all those will be frontlines. also don't forget that it requires quite some powerbase to fight and loose repeatedly against a power that controls American gold and the trade of the Netherlands.
 
What do you mean "french king" if you mean a french prince within the empire then that is far easier than the French King being selected.

I agree, though that also depends on the definition of French prince. For example the emperors from the house of Luxembourg were quite influenced by French culture. Not to mention the fact, that the first language of the multilingual (French, Dutch, Spanish...) HRE Charles V was French. That didn't mean their politics were pro French though; it meant just as often the opposite.
 
Well if we use Francis I, then there would be a war between France and The Habsburgs. Who the Prince Electors and minor German states would support is debatable. OTL France lost nearly every war with Spain and the Empire(hell Francis I was even captured and help in Madrid!) but if he focuses solely of the low countries and the Empire, ignoring Italy, he might have a chance.

If as I remember Francis I was interested mostly to the Duchy of Milan (and not in South Italy who was contended between France and Spain) then the conflict in Italy is not inevitable. Milan was contended between Charles V and Francis I because the Duchy was an HRE's feud and the French house of Orleans (aka both Louis XII and Francis I of France) descended from a daughter of a former Duke of Milan who had lefts rights on the duchy to her descendants (in case of extinctions of the main line of the Visconti family). If Francis is the HRE then he will have the Duchy without wars and if Francis I will became Emperor instead of Charles V the two branches of the Habsburg will split much earlier (when Charles V will give the entire Austrian inheritance to his brother Ferdinand) and with Charles not being Emperor he will be out of the Empire and only the ruler of Spain and Low Countries. At this time I think who also without Charles being HRE the only way in which Ferdinand will not became King of Hungary and Bohemia is preventing the death of his predecessor and brother-in-law Louis II of Hungary (and giving him children from his wife Mary of Habsburg, sister of Charles and Ferdinand). If Louis will die as OTL (he was only nineteen and childless) then his heiress will be his sister Anna (and her husband the Archduke Ferdinand) and the King of France can make little from preventing it without a war not much justifiable.
 
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