I am currently Writing an alternative history book, I think I need other people's opinion on the country in order to improve myself. I'm not very good at summary so it would be rather short, and it doesn't seem to allow Doc file upload, so I will just post it here. Name: Holy Roman Empire of the German, Lombard and St. Stephen Crown Abbreviation: Holy Roman Empire, The Reich, Habsburg Empire, Germany Motto: Thousand years of glory, thousand years of hegemony Anthem (working in progress): Gott, Kaiser und Reich Capital City: Vienna Formation: Imperial Federation: 1866/8/24 Restoration of Holy Roman Empire: 1870/12/24 Official Language: Latin (in name only), German, Hungarian, Czech, Italian, Slovenian, Croatian, Slovakian, Vlach, Polish, Ukrainian, Occitan, French (banned). Population: 137,559,400 (1910). Currency: Reichsthaler (1870-1885), Reichskrone (1885- ) Government: Federal parliamentary low constitutional monarchy. The Reich are a federational monarchy consist of 45 member states. National matters would be discussed and voted in Reichstag, all member state have 1 vote except Prussia (2 votes) and Austria (5 votes). The Emperor have the highest jurisdictional power towards all matters. Emperor and president of the Reichstag: Franz Josef I von Habsburg Lothringen (1848- ) Imperial chancellor, foreign minister, minister of internal stability and vice-president of the Reichstag: Albrecht von Ravensburg, count of Ravensburg (1848- ) Legislature: Reichstag Allies (as of 1910): Kingdom of Spain (Habsburg), Kingdom of Two Sicilies (under control by Spain), Empire of Mexico (Habsburg), Empire of Japan, Kingdom of Greece, Shahdom of Persia, Duchy of Wallachia, Kingdom of Bulgaria. The Papal State (protectorate) Member States: Caesardom of Austria Grand Kingdom of Bohemia Kingdom of Prussia Kingdom of Hungary Kingdom of Croatia Kingdom of Bavaria Kingdom of Saxony Kingdom of Hanover Kingdom of Bosnia Kingdom of Galicia Kingdom of Jerusalem (modern Israel and Jordan) Grand Duchy of Hesse Grand Duchy of Tuscany Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz Grand Duchy of Oldenburg Grand Duchy of Luxemburg Duchy of Nassau Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen Duchy of Lothringen Duchy of Elsass Duchy of Schlesien Duchy of Dauphine Duchy of Anhalt Duchy of Brunswick Duchy of Lombardy Duchy of Savoy Duchy of Holstein Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Duchy of Schleswig Duchy of Parma Duchy of Modena County of Ravensburg Principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont Principality of Lippe Principality of Reuss-Greiz Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe Principality of Liechtenstein Principality of Reuss-Gera Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt Free City of Lübeck Free City of Frankfurt Free City of Bremen Free City of Hamburg Territorial Claim: Entirety of Belgium. Entirety of Netherlands Entirety of Switzerland County of Provence (controlled by France) Island of Corsica (controlled by France) Island of Helgoland (controlled by Britain) Duchy of Kurland, Livonia and Estonia (modern Latvia and Estonia, controlled by Russia) All Spanish and Portuguese-speaking America (secondary) Rome (dropped) Background: After the collapse of Holy Roman Empire, Habsburgs have long dreamed of restoration of the Reich. The reformation brought by Albrecht von Ravensburg have finally give them hope. Allied themselves with Russian, with the white peace between British/French and Austrian/Russian, Austria have steadily walks toward militarism. With two more miraculous victories towards Sardinian and Prussian, Austria finally has the might and will to take on France during the succession crisis of Spain. With the collapse of French Second Empire and the reinstallment of house Bourbon, Habsburgs finally washed off their humiliation with French blood. By coronation from the Pope during Christmas Eve in Rome, The Reich have finally been restored. Notable policy and law: Greater Reich Plan (implemented in 1850): Austria will fight to the last man for the reclaiming of all lands that once belongs to Habsburgs, Holy Roman Empire and German peoples. This includes colony. Act of Evangelical Peace (implemented in 1867): Any citizen are free to practice any sect of Christianity, all member states are forbidden to convert any other member state’s population. The Reich forbid any religion that is not Christianity, the punishment for heathens would be forceful conversion, if failed so, execution. Act of Imperial Unity (implemented in 1870): The Reich would be a single entity in front of the world, All member states are forbidden to take diplomatic action independently. Pax Imperium Christianus (implemented in 1895): Any monarchy nation with Christianity as state religion may appeal to the Reich for military protection, should they feel threatened by heathen neighbors. Notable organization: Ravensburg Institute of God’s Armament: A research facility completely independent from the Reich, owned personally by the emperor and the imperial chancellor. Researching and developing all kinds of “miracle weapons” such as rail cannon, super-heavy battleships, zeppelin carriers, nuclear weapons etc etc. Imperial Institute of Intelligence: The secret service of the Reich, operating worldwide engaging in espionage, sabotage, destabilize and assassination etc etc. Nichibotsu Shrine: After the friendly diplomatic relationship with Japan, The Reich authorized the building of a Shinto shrine in Vienna, and all members of the shrine are exempt from Act of Evangelical Peace. Notable events: The Tenth Crusade (1892-1895): In response of the genocide slander of Christians in Balkan region by Ottoman Empire. The Pope have called for a crusade to push Ottoman out of Europe completely. The Reich, Spain, France, Two Sicilies. Greece, Russia and eventually, Persia had joined this act of aggression war of justice. With the partition of all non-Turkish parts of Ottoman Empire and liberation of entire Balkan, the war ends with full victory of the crusaders. Unfortunately, king of Two Sicilies was tragically died by “accidents” and left the crown vacant, allowing the personal union of Two Sicilies and Spain. The Cleanse of Jerusalem and Constantinople (1894-1897): After the fall liberation of Jerusalem and Constantinople, The Reich proceed to Massacre unarmed civilians in the region. And completely wiped out all Muslim populations within 3 years, achieving body count of 1.7 million. Embargo of Switzerland (1910- ): After reclaiming eastern Burgundy and savoy by Austria in 1870 and the restoration of Holy Roman Empire, The Reich become the sole nation that borders Switzerland. The Reich seek to reunite Switzerland back into the empire, but Swiss "stubbornly" uphold their neutrality. Despite massive amount of promise The Reich gave to Switzerland (autonomy, kingdom title, does not need to send troop when The Reich is at war. etc.), all attempt of negotiation fell fruitless. After almost 40 years of failure, The Reich finally had enough, and issue fully embargo of Switzerland, nothing goes in or come out of Switzerland, hoping to use starvation to "clear their misguided mind" and "persuade" them into "voluntary" rejoin The Reich. The world in 1910: Sorry for the poor grammar, my English aren't very good.
I am left to wonder why this world includes the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Galicia, yet the only Romance Languages included in your list are French (banned) and Occitan. No Castellano? No Catalan? Though there would be other minor Romance Languages present as well, these two, in the timeline of your presentation, would be major linguistic players. Is the exclusion a plot element of the "succession crisis of Spain"?
Kingdom of Galicia are not Spanish Galicia, but Austrian Galicia, which have another name as Austrian Poland.
Regardless, the Romance Languages I mention would be present in those areas no matter the reformatting of political allegiances. The map of current-day Spain has looked very different over the course of time, and we still have Castellano and Catalan today, though those names reflect historical divisions. What people refer to generically as "Spanish", in the modern era, is actually called Castellano by those of us who know the linguistic make-up of modern Spain since we know that there is more than one native language spoken there. In the same way that you do seperate Czech and Slovak in your list of languages as the seperate languages they most certainly are, though the areas wherein those languages are spoken were once joined into a single country, so too would Castellano and Catalan exist as distinct linguistic entities. Sorry, linguist and interpreter by trade. I cannot help but notice this inconsistency when you have included the rest of the major linguistic players across Central Europe, and especially when the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula are specifically mentioned and included.
I'm sorry but I'm a bit confused here, Spain wasn't a part of The Reich, it was another branch of Habsburg monarchy, there is no reason to add those languages in because they don't really have those population anyway. But thank you very much on this language information, I would have use of it.
I'm just realizing that I missed this, yes. They are allies only, not part of the Reich. My mistake. Sorry, my beloved Castellano was missing and I jumped the gun. I will add, though, that given how differently your history is playing out, I cannot imagine that borders in the New World would look anything like they do in the real modern era. Mexico was once much, much, much bigger and included that vast majority of the American South-West and all of the smaller countries south of modern Mexico right up to the edge of South America. It would seem to me to be a wild coincidence that the borders would turn out the same as real-life events eventually created.
Due to the change only starts happening at 1850, Mexico still got beat up by US and annex all those lands, current Mexican regime which only starts working at 1867 were very eager to reclaim it back. And you are right about the south America part, I wasn't researching too much, I think I really should.
note: it took be a while to write this so perhaps someone already beat me to some of these points. I am not sure if this is intended or not, but you a missing a lot of the historical HRE member states. There are lists out there but I warn you, there is a LOT of them. Way to much for me to list here (I don't know them all, and I doubt anybody actually knows them all, besides it would take be about a week to write them all) The Spanish rulers of the Habsburg family where commonly referred to as "Spanish Habsburg" To differentiate them from the Austrian Habsburgs. But either way it should be noted that the spanish typically kept loyal to their austrian cousins (and brothers and fathers and uncles all at once due to inbreeding). This is an alternate history, but there is a lot of events that need to be addressed. For instance, the HRE was a heavily decentralised state and any imperial diet or law had to be heavily enforced by the emperor. It was not uncommon for the HRE member states to just do as they liked. Especially if those where particularly influencial or powerful such as the Prussian during the Austrian leadership. What of the Burgundian Crown? Is this featured in this history? The russians would ally themselves with french to curb the HRE power in this instance as they did with the alliance of Austria-Hungary and Germany before world war 1. If mexico was still an emperial power ruled by the habsburgs then the HRE would have joined in against the americans following the destiny manifest. At which point I would say that the mexican would stand a much better change of winning so this might need to be thought of. How did the HRE get colonial lands that the french had claimed? the Austrians where historically not interested in colony and Prussia only partly so. Typically they traded any colonial gain for european concession of a typical territorial nature. Mind you trade ports in Qing Empire was also something almost all european powers would have gone for. There is not much point in colonizing central Sahara without having a link from Algeria. This was the main point of the french colonial posessions over the sahara. There really wasn't anything there valuable to anybody at the time. What happened with Denmark and the Schelswig-Holstein crisis? Perhaps look into this as this could result in a Denmark-Sweden-Norway alliance or uniting to combat the overwhelming strength of the HRE. The HRE would have an insane amount of languages and with nationalism abound in the 1870 they would have found it extremely difficult to get certain cultures to abide willingly. Also, just a note all those minorities and cultures would have demanded, and probably been granted, self governing rights or something similar. This was done to simplify bureaucracy but actually made planning on a wide scale very difficult. See Austria-Hungary's logistics during World War 1 for a better idea. Constantinople and Jerusalem massacres make sense, but not what happens later. The ottoman empire was still a strong and dominate power at the time thought not without it's difficulty. Flanders would be claimed by Spain and not Austria under legal hereditary laws of the time. This is of course assuming that the geneology of the Habsburgs remained the same. Would the 3rd french empire and suceeding republic do anything against the HRE? After the french defeat during the franco-prussian war, revenchism was very high in france.
Also, just a note, Russia never annexed Mongolia. The unification of Saudi Arabia (Nejd, Hejaz and Ha'il) would probably still happen. Talking about unifications, Italy would still probably have large revolts as they primarily did not agree with HRE rule. Just saying they probably wouldn't be too happy. Also, another note. You would need to change something to the history of the states of the HRE because the Habsburgs where not the only that wanted the throne. A lot of other families claimed it and some (like the Hohenzollen in history) actually had the military might to do it.
Thank you for the great reply, I would try to explain these one by one. About the member states numbers, it was intended, at the last few years of the old HRE, there were wayyy too much member states and make administration extremely difficult. So I cut down most of them and only left those which was still around in Austro-Prussian war. Spanish Habsburg was a compromise with the already falling Spanish bourbon, exchanging france with spain, the name is my fault, I should wrote more clearly. The restored HRE were close to confederation, basically member states doing what they like in their own land except independent diplomacy and war, this is a huge pain that Austria are working hard on it. From my research here, one of the title of habsburg were "King of Burgundy", so I'm using "Kingdom of Burgundy" instead of "Duchy of Burgundy", perhaps my research were wrong. After the tenth crusade, basically russia and the reich have no more benefit of ally with each other, I'm planning for russia to backstab HRE when they are busy fighting fascist france. What Mexican need after Habsburg arrive isn't restoration of lands, but industrialization and making life better, only this will make mexican satisfy to be under habsburg rulership. Beside, HRE really don't have the naval power to cross atlantic to fight americans (yet). When the second empire of france collapse, there was a massive independence movement in french colony, new french govenment barely hold on to the current colony while HRE mow them down. Since Austrian experience first hand how fighting a colonial empire feels like back in 1853, they would like some of those extra resource too. Sahara was my fault, I will change that. Schleswig and Holstein became two separate member state in HRE (Schleswig were still in heavy dispute though), and indeed I'm planning for Denmark to join ww1 against HRE. That's the problem, basically everyone have some self governing rights to reduce nationalism, except slovenians, they are pretty loyal. Trade centralizing with Reduce revolt risk. Ottoman.... I'm currently thinking of Hungary when writing partition part, so I think it is indeed way to extreme. Flanders part was my fault, I will try to fix that. Yes they will, France got beaten up so hard that they developed fascism. Bourbons, trying to retain relationship with The Reich, are suppressing it left and right. But it's not enough, the anger of french would explode eventually.
Russia historically had a plan that roughly called "yellow Russia", basically annex all land north of chinese great wall. Haven't research too much about Saudi Arabia, I'll look into it. Garibaldi got hanged, but the nationalism are still strong, they are not happy and will revolt when chance arrive. Hohenzollern never had the throne, so their claim would be way weaker than Habsburgs, besides, they got beat up hard back in Austro-Prussian, but I will see what I can do.
There are still a lot of states that I reckon should be included. These I would say are: Aachen, Munster, Cleves and Limburg. Also Thuringia would be part of it. I also reckon that Westphalia (Westfalen) should be include. And also it would be in Austria's favor to return prussian Rhineland to independ people like the duchy of Berg. Frisia would also be a special territory as it is primarily dutch in ethnicity. (btw, so is cleves and Limburg). The Kingdom of Burgundy was a kingdom that existend primarily as a state during the One Hundred Year Wars. The spanish and french royality married to the burgundy royal family which ment that spain, or france depending on which house rules what country. Either way, it was a very important kingdom as the Kingdom of Burgundy carried the claims over almost all of belgium, netherland, rhineland, switzerland, Central France. Also, Switzerland is independant, woooow!. But anyway, the Canton of Neuchatel (principality of Neuchatel) was ruler by the prussians. Just saying this could be a valid Casus-Belli for the Austrians. Also, if switzerland is surrounded Austria could almost entirely dictate their terms. And on a side note, The swiss wanted their own government. Austria could maybe make them side with them if they promised them complete autonomy inside swiss lands. I suspect they would accept this, but again it depends how you want to make them. Also, perhaps one thing you should consider is the Greek "Megali" Ideas, which was an idea they had to reclaim a lot of the lost lands in anatolia, constanople and such. the HRE could use the promise of those claimed land to get support against the ottomans. Also, they probably would allow these territories and maybe more to be annexed by greece as it weakens the ottomans more.
Here is the states I would include. as part of the HRE. Note that they probably include those that you have already included. I not going to include titles as those as effectively whatever you want. But you can google any of this to find their historic title. Prussia Pomerania Danzig Mecklenberg (both) Saxony Silesia Krakow Lubeck Hamburg Holstein Schleswig Bremen Oldenburg Frisia Cleves Munster Westfalen Lippe-Dietmolt Brunswick Hanover Gottingen Thuringia Magdeburg Anhalt Saxe-Weimar Saxe-Gotburg-Gotha Saxe-Meningen Hesse-Kessel Hesse-Dermstadt Nassau Frankfurt am Main Saar Palantinate Trier Aachen Berg (Ruhr Valley) Cologne Alsace/Elsass. Bavaria Baden Wurttenburg Bohemia-Moravia Nitria Transylvania Banat Republic Hungary Slovenia (as a cultural semi independant state) Innsbruck/Tyrol Leichenstein. Galicia Lodomoria Bukovina Osterreich (Austria) Milan-Lombardie Venice Savoy or Piedmont. Genoa, Tuscuny Lucca Parma Modena Florence (as independant city) Ravenna (Romagna) Bosnia Ragusa Trieste Split Then you could have Burgundian lands which would include: (mind you this depends how you want to split up the burgundy. so you could give these following states to spain, france or the HRE): Flanders Wallonia Brabant Picardie Bourgogne Dauphine Geneva/Genf Holland. Amsterdam Limburg *Luxemburg* (probably disputed) Bar Lorraine Franche-Comte (Besancon) Nevers Auxerre and the Rhone Valley, which would include Provence, Arles, Dauphine. Also, just reminding you. The HRE here with spain as ally would become one of the biggest powers. They would threaten the balance of power too much and other countries would rally against them (as in the napoleanic wars). I would definitly see and franco-russia alliance. And as a whole, the coalition against the HRE. Or perhaps a defence pact I would suspect would include: China (whichever govermnet you want, Qing, communist, democratic, monarchist, etc...) Korea France Russia GB Scotland (Because of the Auld Alliance) Portugal (alliance with britain) Belgium (if indepedant) Netherlands, Batavia, or United Provinces (same as belgium) Possibly Prussia as an usurper to the throne. Local italian rebels and autonomists the USA (against mexico) Not to include dominions, satellites and commonwealth of the countries mentioned above. Which would include ppl like Canada, Newfoundlany, British Colombia, Australia, etc... Ottomans Balkans Peoples (primarily Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania) perhaps also Albania if independant from ottomans. Egypt. Arabian Peoples (Ha'il, Hejaz, Nejd, Oman, Yemen, Asir, Bahrain, Trucial States, etc...) Poland Basque and Catalan people (depending on situation) Moroccan rebels Mashriqi Peoples in the levant. So primarily islamic cultures that want jerusalem back. Perhaps even shepardic jews and other jewish peoples too depending on who they side with or the circumstance.
I'll put it this way: I like this as a setting. It's a great alternative to explore a lot of the themes that crop up in the "What if the Nazis...WON?" premise which is so overused. Teasing out the enormous amount of violence inherent in late 19/early 20 c. European nationalist projects, but in a way that is new and interesting. However, once you get down into the details of the history, it started to fall apart for me. Your point of departure is after the real-life Hapsburg empire fell apart for the last time (in the early 19 c.), but that means that your proposed neo-Hapsburg empire would have to deal with the Vienna Congress system (as some above me had pointed out), whose entire purpose (and it largely succeeded) was to keep one power from dominating in Europe. The Vienna system, for example, is what caused France and Britain to defend the Ottomans from Russia in the Crimean war--they needed to keep the Ottomans around, no matter how weak they were, as a balance to Russia. But in your history, the Hapsburgs just walk all over the Ottomans and...what? Nobody else in Europe does anything to stop them? This means that either a) your Hapsburgs have grown so powerful, in the span of only a few decades, that they can overrule the Vienna system single-handedly, which seems implausible to me, or b) the Vienna system doesn't exist in this timeline. But you haven't addressed the question either way. I'd say if you want to keep this setting--which, like I said, I think would be interesting and is certainly worth exploring--you're probably going to have to move your point of departure from real history back much farther, probably to pre-Napoleon times. Or invent some other, really important outside events to explain how this country could exist in a 19 c. which otherwise isn't all that different. ETA: all this historical nitpicking is, of course, just me talking. It's entirely possible that most of your readers won't care. So, just take it as my $0.02. ETA (part 2): And of course, I don't know how much of this history you're planning to incorporate into an actual narrative. If I was reading a story in this setting that never mentioned any of the backstory, I'd probably just fill in the history with my imagination and think it was dandy.
Sorry for the late reply. I was a bit concerned that it would push Prussia too far if Austria want to liberate Rhineland, by the way, wasn't Limburg part of Netherlands? Frisia is great, I'll add it in. I'm currently thinking of making Swiss drop their neutrality and attack HRE in WW1, I'll see what I can do.
Thank you for showing the problem, I'm trying to make every war after 1853 as either defensive war or make Britain too busy to join, this is the only way I can think of dealing with congress. About Ottoman, Austrian sided with Russia in Crimean war, and forced a white peace with France/Britain. And they make sure to take enough ally with then during the crusade to make British think twice when interfere. My current plan for the timeline is from 1849-1921, and after I finish this part if I still time, I will expand it to 1777-1962. I was originally intended to write a nazi protagonist in 1944, but dropped it when I found out it's wayyy too overused.
Swiss neutrality is enforced by their constitution. I find it unlikely they would just "drop" it. Limburg was part of the netherlands, and still is. But during the belgian independance, Prussia laid claim over limburg stating it had a large ethnic german population, which is true. The problem with any alternate-history scenario is that you need to account for all the events that created the world the way it is. And usually, this becomes incredibly difficult and complex. There is a lot to think about and really it entirely depends on 'nit-picky' you want to be.
The Swiss only have 3 choices: Starve to death, Join HRE or Fight. If they don't want to join The Reich or starve to death, fighting their way out would be the only choice. You are right, it's really hard to take account of everything, especially with such a long time span, the only thing I could do is check again and again and fix as many error as possible.
Mostly because they are the banker of the world, if they drop neutrality and join HRE, no one will do banking with them anymore since they cannot be trusted as unbiased when comes to conflict between HRE and other countries. Secondly, from my knowledge, there was a lot of bad blood between HRE and Swiss back in the old days. Thirdly, the member state system of HRE were temporary policies, it's not supposed to last forever, HRE will either centralize or dissolve again by internal war, Swiss want none of these. Lastly, massacre of Muslims back in the crusade was a huge PR blow to the Reich, who know if the same violence won't fall on them?
I'm a little confused about why the Reich lays claim to Portugal and Spain's former possessions in the Americas, while Spain is still independent of the Reich. Surely it would more sensible to back Spain's claim. Anyway, this means that the independent Latin American nations are probably going to ferociously oppose being recolonized by their former colonial masters. Attempts to take them back would run afoul of the Monroe Doctrine, further ensuring the U.S. is in the anti-Habsburg camp. Taking these two things together means that Mexico and what appear to be Spain's remaining colonies in the Americas (so no Spanish-American War, I assume) are going to be fighting a two front war with help far away if war ever breaks out.
You are right, it's my mistake, I was meant to write "claimed by Habsburg" instead by The Reich. The Reich's central idea is never back down from territorial claim ever again, but they understand America are the biggest enemy in new world, I was planning for The Reich to try to recover the Latin America sometime after WW1.
