WI: No Switzerland

How? I don't know, it becomes cut up between France, Germany, and maybe even Italy somehow or something. Point is, Switzerland as a nation, never exists.

What happens? Are the butterflies too large to predict? How does European politics get affected?
 

Tsao

Banned
When it ceases to exist is very important in regards to the situation in Europe.....
 
Switzerland's evolution into a state was a long and slow process, not a sudden leap. Do you want to wipe away everything, including the very first military alliance between independent states? Or pick a mid-term value when they were starting to resemble a unified country?
 
Switzerland's evolution into a state was a long and slow process, not a sudden leap. Do you want to wipe away everything, including the very first military alliance between independent states? Or pick a mid-term value when they were starting to resemble a unified country?

Hmm. Well, the first for now.
 
Well, the first Swiss alliance was to resist Hapsburg encroachments in the area back before the Hapsburgs were even a major player on the international stage. So I guess the logical thing you're looking at there is the Swiss just being part of a larger Austria, eventually.
 
How? I don't know, it becomes cut up between France, Germany, and maybe even Italy somehow or something. Point is, Switzerland as a nation, never exists.

What happens? Are the butterflies too large to predict? How does European politics get affected?

Perhaps some POD around the French Revolutionary / Napoleonic Wars? Remember that France actually annexed several French-speaking areas and reorganized the remainder as the "Helvetian Republic" at one point.
 
you couldve have the habsburgs retain their swiss territories (its where they originally started) and then beat th confederracy down, unlike otl where they were forced out
 
Maybe the Zahringer family which originally ruled there doesn't die out (iirc in 1218). So "Switzerland" (or its core region) remains a monarchy, and at some later date becomes politically united with some larger unit. The Swiss develop more like the Tyrolese, becoming the loyal subjects of some princely hoiuse or other.

Alternatively, change the wider history of Germany. Say Frederick II dies about 1210, leaving Otto IV as undisputed Emperor, and when the Zahringer line fails, he or his sucessor immediately puts in a new lord, rather than the region being left masterless (save the usually nominal authority of the Emperor himself) for the next seventy years or so, with the result that the Habsburgs then butted in on people who had got used to looking after themselves. Thereafter, not too different ffrom my fist suggestion.
 
Furthermore during the period where the houses of Luxembourg and Habsburg were rivals for the position of dominant house in the empire, some of the Luxembourg rulers gave several Swiss territories in the traditional sphere of influence of the Habsburgs privileges.

Alternatively I wonder, what would have happened if duke Rudolf II of Habsburg (son of Roman-German king Rudolf I of Habsburg and father of John Parricida) hadn't died at the age of 19. Which would have made the implementation of the treaty of Rheinfelden more likely. In which Rudolf II had to waive his rights on Austria & Styria to his older brother Albert I of Habsburg in exchange for (parts of) the Habsburg ancestral lands. Later Rudolf II was appointed duke of Swabia (which had become mostly honorific; in theory it gave ducal authority in Swabia, in practice he would have start to expand his authority from the territories ruled by him, which were supposed to be the Habsburg ancestral lands in Aargau, Sundgau, Breisgau etc.) by his father king Rudolf I.
So a split between a senior Austrian Habsburg (Albertine) branch and a junior Swabian Habsburg(Rudolphine) branch might be interesting.
This Swabian branch stay much more focussed on this region.

The division will look like this:
(Austrian branch: dark purple; Swabian branch: light purple)

(Although I did already suggest this in previous no Switzerland thread)

altHabsburg1291.GIF
 
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Well, the first Swiss alliance was to resist Hapsburg encroachments in the area back before the Hapsburgs were even a major player on the international stage. So I guess the logical thing you're looking at there is the Swiss just being part of a larger Austria, eventually.

I agree with that.

Question is what effect it will have if the gravity center of the Hapsburg realms goes west - toward France. The combination of the Swiss territories and Vorderösterreich makes a significant territory. It's very possible that the Hapsburgs manage to expand it further - thus Hapsburg presence on the Rhine wouldn't be minor at all. Quite a difference.

Not to mention that Swiss mercenaries were feared enemies at the time. ITTL, much more of them could end up fighting for the Hapsburgs...
 
Perhaps some POD around the French Revolutionary / Napoleonic Wars? Remember that France actually annexed several French-speaking areas and reorganized the remainder as the "Helvetian Republic" at one point.

Not per the OP; Switzerland already exists by then (and had for four hundred plus years at that point). Furthermore even under French rule it was a separate entity and not directly incorporated into France proper; 'allied' Swiss troops were part of the French occupation forces in Spain until 1814.

The easiest POD is simply to have the Swiss cantons incorporated separately into the Hapsburg domains starting in the mid-fourteenth century, as has been stated above. Once they are separately part of the HRE and not united in a confederation it will take the dissolution of the HRE for them to unite. Even that is not a given; the Swiss had their own little civil war in 1847 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderbund_War)(fortunately short and relatively bloodless), so might well not have joined together even then.

Another possibility is for the Romans to conquer the area and then expel the Helvetii, replacing them with colonies from several different areas, thus creating cultural divisions among the inhabitants which impede their formation of a single political entity.
 
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