WI HRE Joseph I lives longer?

Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor ruled 1705-1711 and died aged only 32. He seems to have been quite capable in governing and politics. His armies defeated the Hungarian rebels and with British and Dutch support his armies under Eugene made some significant success against the French in both the Low Countries and Italy. His death of smallpox could easily be butterflied.
So, any thoughts on how his survival would change history? Austria was involved at the time in the War of Spanish Succession and the Allies were doing quite well, but even before Joseph's death the British were trying to extricate themselves from the war and take what they can. Joseph's brother, OTL Charles VI still held on in Catalonia and the Spanish Netherlands and Italian lands were under Allies' control. Would his survival effect the war, prolonging it or shortening it, making some different conditions? What happens to Charles? And seeing Joseph respected Eugene of Savoy and appreciated his advice how would this influence Austria itself? Any ideas are welcome :D
 
While I am not as familiar with the specific details pertaining to his personal role in the War of the Spanish Succession, a skimming of the Wikipedia articles on Joseph, Charles VI (his heir), and the War of the Spanish Succession seem to suggest that Joseph was very keen on keeping the war going in order to reconquer the regions of Elsaß-Lothringen from the French. However, it seems that this interest in a prolonged war was not the only factor contributing to the disunity among the allies; as you said, England was trying to get out as well. In the end, I think the war will end about the same way as it did OTL: Spain transfers all of her Italian and Netherlander possessions to the Austrian Habsburgs, Phillip V becomes King of Spain, and renounces his claim to the French throne.

What's more interesting to me, however, is an additional minor PoD on top of yours: Joseph I doesn't get syphilis, and sires another male heir, who survives to inherit the throne when Joseph I eventually kicks the bucket, and also is able to produce another male heir. This could have massive repercussions: A butterflied War of Austrian Succession, and thus, Austrian retention of Silesia. I can't stress enough how important I think Silesia to be: it's resources and location led to its eventual role as the most industrially developed region in Eastern Europe, and on top, it would be another purely German possession for the Habsburgs. Its worth pointing out, however, that the pragmatic sanction also included a clause that made Charles' realm indivisible - but this could also be achieved later on during his reign ITTL, I suppose.

I also would like to highlight how utterly devastating the war of Austrian succession was for the Habsburgs. At the beginning of the war, Austria was incredibly deep in debt, and only had a mere 100,000 florins in the bank, leading to mass desertion among Austria's already strained and sporadic army. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle resulted in the loss of Silesia, Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, and temporary loss of the Austrian Netherlands (France would return them to Austria soon after).

Joseph and Charles will still face some daunting tasks:
  • Reforming the Austrian Army (which will probably only occur if Austria takes heavy damage in a major war - this could still be achieved ITTL with an Austrian victory, albeit with heavy losses, in some new war)
  • Getting Austria out of debt - though I suspect this will happen during the industrial revolution if Charles VI or his heir play their cards right in encouraging the growth of Silesian industry to achieve OTL levels of wealth - this might even occur without any needed policy changes.
  • Getting some fresh blood in the Austrian Habsburg line, while not suffering any succession crisis as a result of bastards or other such shenanigans. Inbreeding was reaching critical levels of seriousness by the time of Joseph.
Overall, however, these are not insurmountable, and assuming Austria is able to survive the aforementioned war, could lead to a far stronger Austrian position into the 1800's and beyond.
 
Agree with Hadaril. I can't stress enough how much Joseph needs to keep to his wife at least until they had a sizeable brood of heirs. On the marrying outside the same gene pool. The later Habsburgs actually made some attempts Leopold I with Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark (mother of Charles XI of Sweden) and Charles VI with Caroline of Ansbach (later Queen of GBR), couldn't convince them to convert though.
 

Vitruvius

Donor
Yeah, not much is different unless Joseph has a son and him simply living longer won't accomplish that as it was clear by the time of his death that he wasn't going to have any more children. Though in the long run there is the possibility that him living longer means his brother has a son. If Joseph lives then Charles stays in Barcelona, since he won't have to return to Austria, that also means he stays with his wife, OTL the two separated with her staying behind in a Barcelona. I'm not optimistic that Charles could accomplish much there in the last few years of the war, I he probably doesn't get the Spanish throne but has to settle for Spanish Italy, being made King of Naples, Sicily etc at the end of the war. But if he gets his wife pregnant in say 1612 and has a son that at least secures the Habsburg line in the long run.
 
I actually did a few discussions on Josef I if your interested. I've also been toying around with a possible TL on the Emperor. Basically Wilhelmine Amalia dies of smallpox in 1711 instead of Joseph and the Emperor remarries to Elisabeth Farnese. This gives Austria Parma and Tuscany later down the line. Second, I'm not 100% sure about Josef's STD. OTL he and Wilhelmine married married in early 1699 and had children in late 1699, 1700 and 1701. The STD was passed to Wihelmine in 1704, yet no pregnancies are reported in 1702 and 1703. Considering the previous speed of a pregnancy a year, there could have been complications during the 1701 pregnancy/childbirth that rendered the Empress sterile. Now I've never seen this mentioned or explored by historians but it should be considered a possible explanation. Or make the STD a minor POD. I still think the 1701 pregnancy caused her sterility.

Third, the Southern Netherlands. Joseph doesn't strike me as the kind of person to accept the Anglo-Dutch barrier treaties, so I think that's unlikely to be ratified by Vienna in TTL. Then there's the Ostend Company. OTL the Austrian version of the East India company was quite successful in the short time it existed before Emperor Karl VI bowed to British pressure and suspended the company in 1727, later dissolving it entirely in 1731, in return for an alliance and ratification of the pragmatic succession. I don't see Ostend (assuming it's still founded, which is likely) being dissolved. Even if Josef dies with out a son there's no reason (not that there really was one OTL) to bend over to the rest of Europe for the succession as he's the oldest son and his daughters would obviously inherit over Karl's daughters.

Fourth, Bavaria. I recently proposed that Josef was aiming to annex Bavaria during the Spanish succession war. This would give Austria a significantly expanded German population, strengthen the hereditary lands in terms of security (Bavaria had one of the largest armies in the Empire, which would be added to the Austrian Army) and finance (during the occupation of Bavaria the Electorate brought in about 1.5 to 3 million florins a year for Vienna). Not to mention that it would neatly nip the Wittelsbach alliance that caused the Austrians so much grief in the first half of the 18th century in the bud. Now I've read in Quest and Crisis (latest English bio I can find on Josef, but it was published in 1978 so I'm taking it with a bit of a grain of salt) the Emperor seemed to have decided against it by the end of 1706. But in the same vain Max Emanuel of Bavaria offered to trade Bavaria for part of the Spanish inheritance up till the Treaty of Utrecht. Perhaps Josef makes the trade or, as I suggested in a thread earlier, annex Bavaria unilaterally. Perhaps the Wittelsbachs are given some kind of compensation later own, like a bit of Bavaria is broken off for them?

Fifth, Italy. Naples and Sicily are likely to go to Archduke Charles as compensation for the failure to get Spain itself. Sardinia would probably go directly to Savoy instead of to Austria and a swap after the Quadruple alliance war. Or Sardinia could be offered to Max Emanuel for Bavaria. Savoy would still get the parts of Milan that it got OTL but without the elevation to a royal dignity. Now we could easily combined this with the Josef-Elisabeth Farnese match. This would mean that most of Northern Italy is ruled directly from Vienna. Parma and/or Tuscany could still pass to a second son but not necessarily. If Carlo VI (as Charles would still be here) still dies without a son, then Maria Theresa would likely marry a male cousin (assuming one is available) and become co-ruler of Naples and Sicily, so no need to invest him with a Secundogeniture fief. A third son could co to the Church as a Prince-Elector (either Trier or Cologne).

This is all I've got right now. Like I said I have an outline for a possible TL and don't want to post my entire plot here.
 
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It would be interesting if Charles, after becoming king of Naples and Sicily, becomes a widower and then he is the one to marry Elisabeth Farnese, giving to his line the claims to Parma, Piacenza and (later) Tuscany. If only it's agreed to give to him Milan too in the peace treaty, we could have a situation of Italy starting to be unified under the Habsburgs.
 
It would be interesting if Charles, after becoming king of Naples and Sicily, becomes a widower and then he is the one to marry Elisabeth Farnese, giving to his line the claims to Parma, Piacenza and (later) Tuscany. If only it's agreed to give to him Milan too in the peace treaty, we could have a situation of Italy starting to be unified under the Habsburgs.

I hadn't actually considered that, no doubt due to my bias against Karl VI. However, Milan was already escheated by Emperor Leopold at the same time as the Mutual Pact of Succession in1703, with a promise of investiture to Josef. So Milan was to remain with the Austrian branch of the dynasty.
 
Well, both Joseph and Charles married Brunswick princesses which was some fresh blood. The fact that they didn't have any sons was just bad luck I guess. But while it was too late for Joseph to father any more children, Charles could do it ITTL, especially if he stays longer with his wife.

Now, if Joseph lives would it influence the war directly? Charles would not give up Catalonia easily unless he is totally defeated there. Also IOTL because of the Imperial election the French intervened on the middle the Rhine and Charles recalled Eugene from Flanders. Without it and with Marlborough still there the Allies can score another victory or two in northeast France.

Would Joseph surviving slow down the secret British negotiations with France? The Emperor, other German allies and the Dutch were all against these negotiations since it it secured mostly British gains and left the other allies out.

And as for Bavaria is it plausible for Joseph to take it? He wanted it and Max Emmanuel was ready to give it up. He could be compensated in Italy but what exactly? Is Sardinia enough? Maybe Sicily? And would the French accept it? More importantly, would other Germans allow it? It is an Electorate after all (although only ater 1648) so what happens to its vote? Would the other Electors see it as too much?
 
And as for Bavaria is it plausible for Joseph to take it? He wanted it and Max Emmanuel was ready to give it up. He could be compensated in Italy but what exactly? Is Sardinia enough? Maybe Sicily? And would the French accept it? More importantly, would other Germans allow it? It is an Electorate after all (although only ater 1648) so what happens to its vote? Would the other Electors see it as too much?

He wanted Sicily OTL, but will probably only get Sardinia (or Corsica - Josef I planned to trade that off as well from what I read (despite Corsica technically belonging to the Genovesi) to a Portuguese infante - however, looking at those infantes' ages in 1711, I wonder if it wasn't Karl VI?). As to the electoral vote, Bavaria's was already suspended (alongside Cologne's), and I think there was some handshaking that the Elector Palatine got his original vote back and parts of the Palatinate that Bavaria had swiped in '48.

Would Joseph surviving slow down the secret British negotiations with France? The Emperor, other German allies and the Dutch were all against these negotiations since it it secured mostly British gains and left the other allies out.

Britain's secret negotiations with France are a little bit more nuanced than Britain just wanted out. Back at Westminster, there was a change in power going on - Marlborough's party was failing fast and being replaced by the opposition (sorry, I can never remember which party was Marlborough's: Tory or Whig). The one party backed the Hannoverian Succession and the other didn't - although as could be expected, support wasn't necessarily unanimous. Abigail Masham had replaced Lady Churchill in Anne's affections, and as a result, Harley (?) had the ear of the queen. Harley's party was against the war, against the excessive favour (as they deemed it) that had been shown to the Churchills etc, and several other things. (Sorry if this is a bit vague, but I'm citing from memory from a Marlborough bio I read over a decade ago). So they were looking for a way out of the war (Anne wasn't deathly sick yet, but her health might've factored into it) that they wanted the Pretender out of France or to succeed her (can't remember which side they came down on) and that England/Scotland wasn't still caught up in a war on the continent if she underwent her own succession crisis.
 
Well, both Joseph and Charles married Brunswick princesses which was some fresh blood. The fact that they didn't have any sons was just bad luck I guess. But while it was too late for Joseph to father any more children, Charles could do it ITTL, especially if he stays longer with his wife.

Now, if Joseph lives would it influence the war directly? Charles would not give up Catalonia easily unless he is totally defeated there. Also IOTL because of the Imperial election the French intervened on the middle the Rhine and Charles recalled Eugene from Flanders. Without it and with Marlborough still there the Allies can score another victory or two in northeast France.

Would Joseph surviving slow down the secret British negotiations with France? The Emperor, other German allies and the Dutch were all against these negotiations since it it secured mostly British gains and left the other allies out.

And as for Bavaria is it plausible for Joseph to take it? He wanted it and Max Emmanuel was ready to give it up. He could be compensated in Italy but what exactly? Is Sardinia enough? Maybe Sicily? And would the French accept it? More importantly, would other Germans allow it? It is an Electorate after all (although only ater 1648) so what happens to its vote? Would the other Electors see it as too much?

Again there's enough circumstantial evidence for Josef to be able to father a son with a second wife, but I digress.

Josef I's survival would effect the way the war ends, but not the end itself. The British Tory government was determined to have peace, with or without the rest of the Grand Alliance. Josef's death and Karl's accession to the Austro-Imperial throne was simply the excuse for the rest of the Alliance to save face. Without British money, arms and troops the war would still grind to a halt. The Allies would have to make peace or risk a Bourbon comeback being able to retake territories in Flanders and Italy. Not a gamble I can see anyone wanting to make. No, better to come to terms form a position of strength. While Karl would leave Catalonia kicking and screaming, he doesn't have much choice. The Archduke had no independent force under his command; his troops were provided and payed for by Britain, Holland and Portugal. Yes an Army of Catalonia was later raised after the Catalan Estates decided to continue the war in 1713, but that only had around 13,000 men and lost to the Spanish at the third siege of Barcelona. So ultimately Karl would leave with his tail between his legs.

For Bavaria, hard to say. Both Bavaria and Cologne (ruled by Max Emanuel's brother Josef Clemens) were under the Imperial ban and the Bavarian electorate had been formally suppressed. The rest of the Electors could be bought off at with territory and subsidies this point and if Max could be compensated with a Royal crown outside the Empire it would be in theory a win win for everyone. No one is going object too strenuously to punishing the few Princes who sided against the Reich.

This is what I see as the likely division of territory: most of Milan, Finale and the Netherlands go to Austria, parts of Milan go Savoy, Sardinia is traded for Bavaria, the Two Sicilies pass to the Archduke and Felipe V keeps Spain and the Americas.
 
So, if I'm reading this right, should Josef survive and perhaps marry a second wife and have kids that way, at the end of the War of Spanish Succession, the division between the brothers would be:

Joseph gets Netherlands, Milan

Charles gets Naples and Sicily?
 
So, if I'm reading this right, should Josef survive and perhaps marry a second wife and have kids that way, at the end of the War of Spanish Succession, the division between the brothers would be:

Joseph gets Netherlands, Milan

Charles gets Naples and Sicily?

That's the likely scenario.
 
And as for Bavaria is it plausible for Joseph to take it? He wanted it and Max Emmanuel was ready to give it up. He could be compensated in Italy but what exactly? Is Sardinia enough? Maybe Sicily? And would the French accept it? More importantly, would other Germans allow it? It is an Electorate after all (although only ater 1648) so what happens to its vote? Would the other Electors see it as too much?

Alternatively. his elder daughter might marry the Bavarian Electoral Prince instead of the Saxon one. If Joseph outlives Charles, but has no son, that unites Austria and Bavaria another way.
 
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