WI the Swiss Confederacy is never formed/doesn't survive?

prime-minister

This might be an idea that's been floated before, but what might have happened if Switzerland as we know it today had not held together (either the Confederacy is never founded or it collapses due to infighting between the cantons)? Would the different cantons be absorbed into neighbouring countries (maybe on language lines with the Kingdom of France or Napoleon's Empire annexing the Francophone parts, the Hapsburgs or HRE getting the German-speaking ones, and Italy taking over Ticino and the Grigioni), or form an assortment of much smaller independent sovereign states like Luxembourg and Liechtenstein?
 

LeCHVCK

Parts of it would be Milanese, parts of it would be Savoyard, some parts would remain either as free cities or low level nobility, while the majority of the territory would probably be subsumed into further Austria. At least if we're talking of the late medieval ages.
 

Madhukar_Shah

Well I'm presuming this means the Swiss states remain integral parts of the kingdom of Germany in the HRE and follow the general trajectory of other territorially fragmented regions of the Kingdom. Maybe the HRE is able to keep the Franche Comté with Switzerland integrated, and I'd assume the hapsburgs do a lot better in the Italian wars with the extra strategic access to Italy and Swiss forces. Basically- France should be ticked off whatever happens.
 

Jürgen

We would likely have seen the major city states which in OTL joined the Swiss Confederation continue their expansion and consolidate territories under their control. While the independent cantons would have been overrun like other all other European peasant republics.
 

kholieken

Banned
would some Cantons successfully survive alone ? Republic of Grisons ? Free Canton of Uri ? Free City of Geneva ?

San Marino and Monaco is surrounded by Italy and France but survive.
 

glore7

It would significantly change late 15th century and early 16th century politics as the Habsburgs would be far more powerful than they already were. It would also make navigating the Spanish Road much easier for the Habsburgs and perhaps change the outcome of the Burgundian Wars.
 
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