WI: Thirty Years' War ends in a decisive victory for either side

raharris1973

Well-known member
I think most Catholic Bohemians would pack their bags and head for Austria.

Even the Catholic ones?

the Catholics have an ally in Muslim Turkey.

Does this restrain Barbary Piracy against Southern European coasts? Or is it like "hey, business is business" - with local emirs in North Africa wanting to profit from piracy and European (especially non-Catholic European) sailors tempted to go renegade and work with Barbary pirates for profit plundering the western Med?
 

ATP

Well-known member
Nice map -

What's the Protestant-dominant new version of the Holy Roman Empire called? And I presume anything Dutch, Swiss, and French is excluded from its territorial limits? It's new electoral system?

With this fundamentally divergence opening up in 1643, I wonder if this offers up a chance for substantially different histories of overseas colonization and emigration compared with OTL. The main outlines of the Americas, Labrador to Argentina, were already set. However, in the Americas the survival/non-survival of New Netherlands and New France is not a sure thing. France and Netherlands are both buffed up in home territory/populations. And the initial founding/exploitation Hudson's Bay is not set up yet (till late 1660s).

Even more room for variance is in the antipodes, the Cape (Cape Colony not founded till 1652), Australia, and New Zealand. There's opportunity in this ATL for Netherlands, Sweden, and even this new more northerly, Protestant, maritime oriented but still confederal and decentralized German empire to play a role in those areas.

Meanwhile, the Protestant win will place many, many Catholic Flemings and Dutch under Protestant-dominated government they'll probably dislike, possibly encouraging them to look for opportunities to move to Catholic lands if available. The Protestant win in Germany will likewise put many, many German Catholics under Protestant rule, probably encouraging many of them to look to move, and the Bavarian and Austrian spheres will only have limited real estate, filled with rugged mountains. Many German Catholics will fall under the Catholic, but Parisian-dominated regime of Bourbon France.

Bohemia with the German empire will be an interesting multilingual - German and Czech, and multi-religious - Hussite, Catholic and other Protestant, also Jewish melting pot or salad bowl.

Great story,with one problem.Till 1648 Poland have 30.000 strong army with winged hussarls unstoppable by anything on battlefield,good infrantry,field artillery and engineers.
And till 1645 we have one of the best commanders in the world,hetman Koniecpolski who defeated Gustald Adolphus when he once tried to fight in open field/Trzcianna 1627/.He never dare to tried that again.

So,Poland in those scenario would maybe not win,but certainly not lost.
No matter how many enemies
 

raharris1973

Well-known member
Great story,with one problem.Till 1648 Poland have 30.000 strong army with winged hussarls unstoppable by anything on battlefield,good infrantry,field artillery and engineers.
And till 1645 we have one of the best commanders in the world,hetman Koniecpolski who defeated Gustald Adolphus when he once tried to fight in open field/Trzcianna 1627/.He never dare to tried that again.

So,Poland in those scenario would maybe not win,but certainly not lost.
No matter how many enemies
good point - don't eff with the winged hussars
 
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WolfBear

Well-known member
Even the Czech-speaking ones?

I can't answer on S.'s behalf, but it's worth noting that Czechs and Austrian Germans can assimilate rather well in each other's culture: Just look at Franz Ferdinand's marriage to the Czech Sophie Chotek, for instance!
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
Even the Czech-speaking ones?
Sure. The end of the war takes place well before the age of ethnic nationalism really gets going. At this time, religion is still the primary factor when it comes to a distinctive group-identity. They'd go to Austria and speak German there -- or in any case, their children would.

(Meanwhile, Bohemia itself, now part of an otherwise completely German state, is going to end up more Germanised than in OTL, I expect. Czech could eventuelly end up being 'just' a recognised regional language, like Frisian is in the Netherlands.)


Great story,with one problem.Till 1648 Poland have 30.000 strong army with winged hussarls unstoppable by anything on battlefield,good infrantry,field artillery and engineers.
And till 1645 we have one of the best commanders in the world,hetman Koniecpolski who defeated Gustald Adolphus when he once tried to fight in open field/Trzcianna 1627/.He never dare to tried that again.

So,Poland in those scenario would maybe not win,but certainly not lost.
No matter how many enemies
Nothing is unstoppable by anything, and certainly not "no matter how many enemies".

Poland-Lithuania was much stronger during the Thirty Years' War than it would later be, obviously, but let's look at this realistically: if the Catholic side loses the war badly, and all other powers bow out, then Poland-Lithuania is left pretty damn isolated. At that point, its neighbours can dictate peace terms, and nobody is coming to help. The notion that Polish forces would just be invincible supermen endlessly holding their ground under those circumstances is not credible.

In the event, I have Poland lose the corridor at that point, which is a limited matter still, and seems like a realistic outcome to me. The further carving-up of the Commonwealth comes much later in my write-up, specifically in the period preceding 1717. At that stage, Poland was much weaker, and faced considerable internal turmoil.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Sure. The end of the war takes place well before the age of ethnic nationalism really gets going. At this time, religion is still the primary factor when it comes to a distinctive group-identity. They'd go to Austria and speak German there -- or in any case, their children would.

(Meanwhile, Bohemia itself, now part of an otherwise completely German state, is going to end up more Germanised than in OTL, I expect. Czech could eventuelly end up being 'just' a recognised regional language, like Frisian is in the Netherlands.)



Nothing is unstoppable by anything, and certainly not "no matter how many enemies".

Poland-Lithuania was much stronger during the Thirty Years' War than it would later be, obviously, but let's look at this realistically: if the Catholic side loses the war badly, and all other powers bow out, then Poland-Lithuania is left pretty damn isolated. At that point, its neighbours can dictate peace terms, and nobody is coming to help. The notion that Polish forces would just be invincible supermen endlessly holding their ground under those circumstances is not credible.

In the event, I have Poland lose the corridor at that point, which is a limited matter still, and seems like a realistic outcome to me. The further carving-up of the Commonwealth comes much later in my write-up, specifically in the period preceding 1717. At that stage, Poland was much weaker, and faced considerable internal turmoil.

1.True.
2.Koniecpolski smashed Swedes in 1627 so hard,that they feared to face us on battlefield till he died.
And ,except winged hussarls who in that time could go through everything,we have money and good infrantry&artillery,too.
We would not lost sea,becouse Gdańsk with its own private army and fortyfications which could not be broken even in Napoleon times was there.
And germans townspeople there was protestants,but preferred polish kings - in 1792 even fought prussians on their own for short time.

Since polish armies till 1683 smashed almost any enemy no matter how strong he was,it would simply don worked.

Only reason why we lost historically was loosing our armies to cossacks in 1648 - which was possible,becouse their commanders were idiots or senile.
Not going to happen till 1648,and even after that wery unplausible.
Our King Jan Kazimierz send army under idiots to fight cossack/Pilawce 1648/ becouse he feared strong commander/which we have plenty/ and thought that idiots would do.
He would not made that mistake against protestant might.He would send best commanders,and they would either win or stop enemy.

P.S polish winged hussarl become less and less effective in time becouse they simply less trained,which was possible becouse commanders just go to their homes and leaved things to substitutes.Not going to happen here,too.
 
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Batrix2070

RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Nothing is unstoppable by anything, and certainly not "no matter how many enemies".
It's a bit ironic considering that the Polish Army of that period could take it as their motto. No matter how numerous the enemy is, Poland can cope if nobody fucks with the royal treasury, or better still, if it is allowed to establish an independent military treasury which would cover the costs of the army and the navy on a regular basis (the OTL was lost because it seemed that it would be enough after all, but here, with the hostile attitude of the Protestant HRE towards Catholic Poland, you can be sure that the nobility will decide that something has to be done about the financing).
Besides, the whole Old Polish art of warfare, which stood on a very high level (just that there was often not enough money for a serious army because the nobility did not agree because they were afraid of absolutism, although often all the Vasa wanted was to put this mess in order), did not look on numerical superiority as the key to success but in efficient leadership, maneuvering ... Let me put it simply: if you read what contemporary Polish officers wrote about the art of war, you will see the same things that Sun Tzu discovered.

And one must remember that taxes in PLC were low all the time for everyone! Therefore, Danzig, at the mere thought of being caught in perhaps a similarly religious HRE, would sooner burn himself than get caught. Better for them to be first in the village than second in Rome. And I must add that in 17th century PLC you could already see a well developed basis for proto-nationalism, such as Królewiec, although it was German in theory, it was in fact the center of Polish Culture, and a huge one at that.

I understand that you wanted to make Poland an equivalent of the Catholic Switzerland surrounded by the sea of Protestants, but as I say, the victory of one side in the Thirty Years' War changes history completely. Especially that a hostile HRE immediately causes an awakening of the nobility of the Crown, because it was Poland proper which kept the whole business going, and for 300 years there was peace there until the Swedish Deluge, because no one got in, and that's why we could afford constant wars in the East and in the North.

Any threat to the Crown immediately causes all lethargy to disappear in PLC and for good. No sooner does the PLC move forward to ravage the entire East of the HRE than it allows itself to be reduced to a rump state.

The East, while important to the PLC, will become less important if the entire western border of the PLC becomes a threat. Forget that Poland will ever let itself be torn out of Royal Prussia, Gustavus Adolphus tried and failed miserably. A whole HRE that can threaten the Crown almost everywhere including the capital city of Cracow?

You can be sure that the HRE exhausted by civil war will face a series of defeats and the loss ofthe whole of Silesia, New March and the eastern part of Pomerania. In a sense, it would make Poland suddenly want to move the border as far to the west as possible, so that the fighting would take place on territories of lesser value to it, and preferably on HRE territory.

It is literally putting a knife to the belly and heart of the entire Commowealth, not a sudden and unexpected invasion from north to south. This is a threat to the existence of the Commowealth, and as I mentioned in Poland, the foundation of proto-nationalism arose and was often stronger than religious faith, otherwise this business would have collapsed long ago with the invasion of the infidels.
I can rather see that it will end with a Polish-German border similar to the times before the feudal dismemberment of Poland and the Crown, awakened from the lethargy of peace, will always watch out for the Protestant Emperor making what in OTL was one of the longest and most peaceful borders in Europe here will be the front line. I do not see any possibility that Poland will be knocked down and reduced to a minior state with a HRE victory.
PLC may then be less willing to fight Moscow and lose more territory to them, but these are fringes of little value to itself, not a knife to the throat.
 
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ATP

Well-known member
It's a bit ironic considering that the Polish Army of that period could take it as their motto. No matter how numerous the enemy is, Poland can cope if nobody fucks with the royal treasury, or better still, if it is allowed to establish an independent military treasury which would cover the costs of the army and the navy on a regular basis (the OTL was lost because it seemed that it would be enough after all, but here, with the hostile attitude of the Protestant HRE towards Catholic Poland, you can be sure that the nobility will decide that something has to be done about the financing).
Besides, the whole Old Polish art of warfare, which stood on a very high level (just that there was often not enough money for a serious army because the nobility did not agree because they were afraid of absolutism, although often all the Vasa wanted was to put this mess in order), did not look on numerical superiority as the key to success but in efficient leadership, maneuvering ... Let me put it simply: if you read what contemporary Polish officers wrote about the art of war, you will see the same things that Sun Tzu discovered.

And one must remember that taxes in PLC were low all the time for everyone! Therefore, Danzig, at the mere thought of being caught in perhaps a similarly religious HRE, would sooner burn himself than get caught. Better for them to be first in the village than second in Rome. And I must add that in 17th century PLC you could already see a well developed basis for proto-nationalism, such as Królewiec, although it was German in theory, it was in fact the center of Polish Culture, and a huge one at that.

I understand that you wanted to make Poland an equivalent of the Catholic Switzerland surrounded by the sea of Protestants, but as I say, the victory of one side in the Thirty Years' War changes history completely. Especially that a hostile HRE immediately causes an awakening of the nobility of the Crown, because it was Poland proper which kept the whole business going, and for 300 years there was peace there until the Swedish Deluge, because no one got in, and that's why we could afford constant wars in the East and in the North.

Any threat to the Crown immediately causes all lethargy to disappear in PLC and for good. No sooner does the PLC move forward to ravage the entire East of the HRE than it allows itself to be reduced to a rump state.

The East, while important to the PLC, will become less important if the entire western border of the PLC becomes a threat. Forget that Poland will ever let itself be torn out of Royal Prussia, Gustavus Adolphus tried and failed miserably. A whole HRE that can threaten the Crown almost everywhere including the capital city of Cracow?

You can be sure that the HRE exhausted by civil war will face a series of defeats and the loss ofthe whole of Silesia, New March and the eastern part of Pomerania. In a sense, it would make Poland suddenly want to move the border as far to the west as possible, so that the fighting would take place on territories of lesser value to it, and preferably on HRE territory.

It is literally putting a knife to the belly and heart of the entire Commowealth, not a sudden and unexpected invasion from north to south. This is a threat to the existence of the Commowealth, and as I mentioned in Poland, the foundation of proto-nationalism arose and was often stronger than religious faith, otherwise this business would have collapsed long ago with the invasion of the infidels.
I can rather see that it will end with a Polish-German border similar to the times before the feudal dismemberment of Poland and the Crown, awakened from the lethargy of peace, will always watch out for the Protestant Emperor making what in OTL was one of the longest and most peaceful borders in Europe here will be the front line. I do not see any possibility that Poland will be knocked down and reduced to a minior state with a HRE victory.
PLC may then be less willing to fight Moscow and lose more territory to them, but these are fringes of little value to itself, not a knife to the throat.

All true.Winged hussarls was capable of making 80km per day on steppe,so they could catch any army.And arleady have dragoons to cover them as infrantry.

Reason why winged hussarls failed - first they were commanded by rotmistrz,who go home and pay porucznik/lieutnants/ to lead unit.
Then porucznik did the same and paid namiestnik to lead unit.

Even then,they still could fight and win - but after 1702 towarzysze/companions/ who hire 2 retainers and fought together as kopia stayed at homes,too,and retainers stopped training and becomed "funeral calvary" - becouse they were good only for attending funerals.

Winged hussarls from 1643 - they would destroy any army in open field.
And they would never fell as units if enemy was so close to capitol.

P.S polish gentry was nation,not proto-nation,since bishop Kadłubek invented it in 13th century.
In 1643 most townspeaople,including german protestants,feel as poles,too.

P.S
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
@ATP and @Batrix2070 -- I cannot agree with your views on the matter of Poland-Lithuania and its supposed invincibility. Yes, Poland was at the times of the Thirty Years' War much stronger than it would end up in later times, but this does not make it the bastion of super-human strength that you both fondly imagine it to be.

When it comes to the OTL strength and triumphs of Poland-Lithuania, you both ignore that in such cases, all enemies were at the same time facing multiple major enemies of their own, and were not free to dedicate their full strength to fighting Poland-Lithuania. The scenario I have posited here sees the Protestants winning the broader war, which leaves them free to then opportunistically deal with Poland in the aftermath, while all other disputes have been settled. This is quite different from OTL, and would not go nearly as well for the Poles. That a complete dismantling of Poland-Lithuania at this stage would be extremely improbable is true... but that's of course not what I proposed. A Polish defeat against the Protestant powers (already victorious, unburdened by major conflict elsewhere) resulting in limited territorial loss? That's very plausible.

My notion of a further defeat of Poland-Lithuania in the early 18th century is a separate matter, and I've outlined in the text how other powers could be kept from interceding on behalf of the Poles. This leaves only the contention that because the Protestant powers are an "existential threat" in this ATL, Poland-Lithuania would suddenly reform and not go down the drain as in OTL. Your arguments on that point do not convince me. In OTL, Poland-Lithuania kept right on squabbling and messing up, even as the partitions were already underway. Those were an actualised existential threat, whereas the ATL existence of a strong Protestant German Empire is "merely" a potential existential threat. If the actualised thread does not prompt the required reforms in OTL, the potential threat may not reasonably assumed to do so in the ATL. Therefore, we must assume that Poland will -- as in OTL -- squander its opportunities for reform, and will instead decline and become vulnerable, as in OTL.

There are certainly ATLs in which comprehensive reform of Poland-Lithuania can be imagined, but as I have outlined, this particular scenario is not set to be one of them.


------------------------------------------------------------


Now that we’ve dealt with a Protestant victory: How does a Catholic Victory go? HRE actually being a meaningful empire?
Yeah. Just as the Protestant victory sees them establishing a pretty coherent empire that leaves out the altogether too Catholic bits, I think that a Catholic victory will have the HRE much-strengthened, but with some doggedly Protestant regions in the North shorn off (becoming separate states, allied to Scandinavia). In this context, I'm particularly thinking of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Lübeck, Holstein, Hamburg and Bremen. (East Frisia and Oldenburg, conversely, would presumably be held by the HRE.)

We'd see several reversals of the trends that I have suggested in the Protestant victory scenario. Switzerland would be purged of Protestants to a considerable degree (and would stay in the HRE). Similarly, whereas in the Protestant victory scenario we see Bohemia and Hungary swing to Protestant dominance, in this ATL, they'd instead be held firmly under Catholic control. (And, more so than in OTL, they'd be purged of Protestants.)

Similarly, my Protestant victory scenario has the German Empire make gains at the expense of Poland-Lithuania, but here the reverse would be true: East Prussia would be annexed by Poland-Lithuania, and its Protestants would soon be very much encouraged to find a new home in Brandenburg. (And due to the circumstances surrounding both France and Saxony in this scenario, neither the Prince of Conti nor Augustus the Strong would easily be able to get the Polish throne, so Jakub Ludwik Sobieski -- the Austrian-backed candidate -- is likely to become King of Poland.)

In the Protestant victory scenario, many Catholics would leave the Protestant Empire. In this scenario, many Protestants would leave the HRE and head for the Protestant states up North. In particular, Saxony would be brutally punished by the Habsburgs, and the Protestants there would be smart to flee in time.

The overall success of the Catholic side would probably also affect the outcome in the Netherlands, with all of Brabant and Limburg (as well as some Catholic border regions in the country's East) being split off the Dutch Republic. (Which would become something of a Calvinist rump state.)

France would also face consequences, having joined the Protestant side and having made the wrong bet in doing so -- although France is not easily assailable. I could see them losing the wider Calais region to the Spanish Netherlands.

Spain is better off for a while, but can't easily overcome its structural issues. The Austrian Habsburgs are increasingly going to become the dominant branch, leading the powerful Catholic alliance that also keeps France encircled (much more effectively than in OTL). If the Spanish Habsburgs still end up literaly dying out, they'll make damned sure that Spain is inherited by other Habsburgs, not by Bourbons.
 
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Earl

Well-known member
So Mega Hapsburg Empire from Belgium to Budapest (maybe Amsterdam as well if they crush the Dutch). This is…something which may or may not fall apart within a few hundred years but it will certainly be glorious to look at for awhile
 

ATP

Well-known member
@ATP and @Batrix2070 -- I cannot agree with your views on the matter of Poland-Lithuania and its supposed invincibility. Yes, Poland was at the times of the Thirty Years' War much stronger than it would end up in later times, but this does not make it the bastion of super-human strength that you both fondly imagine it to be.

When it comes to the OTL strength and triumphs of Poland-Lithuania, you both ignore that in such cases, all enemies were at the same time facing multiple major enemies of their own, and were not free to dedicate their full strength to fighting Poland-Lithuania. The scenario I have posited here sees the Protestants winning the broader war, which leaves them free to then opportunistically deal with Poland in the aftermath, while all other disputes have been settled. This is quite different from OTL, and would not go nearly as well for the Poles. That a complete dismantling of Poland-Lithuania at this stage would be extremely improbable is true... but that's of course not what I proposed. A Polish defeat against the Protestant powers (already victorious, unburdened by major conflict elsewhere) resulting in limited territorial loss? That's very plausible.

My notion of a further defeat of Poland-Lithuania in the early 18th century is a separate matter, and I've outlined in the text how other powers could be kept from interceding on behalf of the Poles. This leaves only the contention that because the Protestant powers are an "existential threat" in this ATL, Poland-Lithuania would suddenly reform and not go down the drain as in OTL. Your arguments on that point do not convince me. In OTL, Poland-Lithuania kept right on squabbling and messing up, even as the partitions were already underway. Those were an actualised existential threat, whereas the ATL existence of a strong Protestant German Empire is "merely" a potential existential threat. If the actualised thread does not prompt the required reforms in OTL, the potential threat may not reasonably assumed to do so in the ATL. Therefore, we must assume that Poland will -- as in OTL -- squander its opportunities for reform, and will instead decline and become vulnerable, as in OTL.

There are certainly ATLs in which comprehensive reform of Poland-Lithuania can be imagined, but as I have outlined, this particular scenario is not set to be one of them.


------------------------------------------------------------



Yeah. Just as the Protestant victory sees them establishing a pretty coherent empire that leaves out the altogether too Catholic bits, I think that a Catholic victory will have the HRE much-strengthened, but with some doggedly Protestant regions in the North shorn off (becoming separate states, allied to Scandinavia). In this context, I'm particularly thinking of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Lübeck, Holstein, Hamburg and Bremen. (East Frisia and Oldenburg, conversely, would presumably be held by the HRE.)

We'd see several reversals of the trends that I have suggested in the Protestant victory scenario. Switzerland would be purged of Protestants to a considerable degree (and would stay in the HRE). Similarly, whereas in the Protestant victory scenario we see Bohemia and Hungary swing to Protestant dominance, in this ATL, they'd instead be held firmly under Catholic control. (And, more so than in OTL, they'd be purged of Protestants.)

Similarly, my Protestant victory scenario has the German Empire make gains at the expense of Poland-Lithuania, but here the reverse would be true: East Prussia would be annexed by Poland-Lithuania, and its Protestants would soon be very much encouraged to find a new home in Brandenburg. (And due to the circumstances surrounding both France and Saxony in this scenario, neither the Prince of Conti nor Augustus the Strong would easily be able to get the Polish throne, so Jakub Ludwik Sobieski -- the Austrian-backed candidate -- is likely to become King of Poland.)

In the Protestant victory scenario, many Catholics would leave the Protestant Empire. In this scenario, many Protestants would leave the HRE and head for the Protestant states up North. In particular, Saxony would be brutally punished by the Habsburgs, and the Protestants there would be smart to flee in time.

The overall success of the Catholic side would probably also affect the outcome in the Netherlands, with all of Brabant and Limburg (as well as some Catholic border regions in the country's East) being split off the Dutch Republic. (Which would become something of a Calvinist rump state.)

France would also face consequences, having joined the Protestant side and having made the wrong bet in doing so -- although France is not easily assailable. I could see them losing the wider Calais region to the Spanish Netherlands.

Spain is better off for a while, but can't easily overcome its structural issues. The Austrian Habsburgs are increasingly going to become the dominant branch, leading the powerful Catholic alliance that also keeps France encircled (much more effectively than in OTL). If the Spanish Habsburgs still end up literaly dying out, they'll make damned sure that Spain is inherited by other Habsburgs, not by Bourbons.

1.They would win against Poland before 1643,right? then they would be stopped,becouse hetman Koniecpolski was genius,and winged hussarls of that time need field fortyfications to be stopped.
There is reason why Swedes do not dare face him in open field.
And polish mixed 30k army would be enough to stop 100k armies,if protestant manage to gather that much.

If you want defeated Poland,you need fall of our army first.Not possible with protestant Juggernaut on border.
In OTL it happened becouse gentry belived that we are safe.Not possible now.

2.Mostly true,with one exception - german protestants in East Prussia WANTED polish Kings,becouse they were more free under their rule.
In OTL Hohenzollern must purge polish supporters there,which was mostly not catholics.
 

Batrix2070

RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
If the actualised thread does not prompt the required reforms in OTL, the potential threat may not reasonably assumed to do so in the ATL.
*Swiveling Head* So you are taking OTL for granted despite the fact that what happened OTL was a series of events resulting from completely different events that will not occur, ignoring that there were serious OTL forces that were often a hair's breadth away from completing reforms?

One such thing was that the nobility did not want war and King Ladislaus IV Vasa wanted to by which he tried to provoke a war with Turkey which eventually led to the outbreak of Cossack uprisings who would serve his plan for war with Turkey. But when the Hetman took a died after a session with his young newly married wife the whole thing got out of hand because he was the one who kept them in line and Wladyslaw IV who was then quite out of control because he wanted a war he knew about and was constantly denied. And when the last fuse for the Cossacks in the form of Wladyslaw disappeared with his death, we later have Jan Kazimierz, who tried desperately to salvage what he could from this mess, although he himself with some wrong decisions led to the fact that most of the experienced soldiers were slaughtered in the stump, which greatly weakened the Polish army, but as ATP mentioned it was due to Casimir's fears and underestimation of the Cossacks.

No less Jan Kazimierz himself was close to completing the necessary reforms but the Swedish Deluge destroyed the Crown and with it most of the middle nobility supporting the King, turning the PLC into an oligarchy but nevertheless he almost succeeded only there was one small problem. The King's foolish stubbornness in the election of Vivente rege which screwed up the whole thing, but it was the effect of his wife who had much more influence on him than on Ladislaus IV.


It is ATL, for one thing, that gives Ladislaus the chance of the war he wanted without, by the way, his machlokes in the style of provoking someone to attack him. As you mentioned yourself, the HRE will want to take control of Prussia, so it will most likely move to attack.

So Vladislav will not incite the Cossacks to move on Turkey. Secondly, the expressed threat from the HRE changes the attitude of the nobility to finance Wladislaw IV's reforms, which OTL resisted because the nobility did not want war. But here it will be noticeable that the HRE has the desire to push eastward at the expense of Poland, necessarily the nobility will agree to increase the army and finances to maintain not a licentious army of a few thousand men, but at least 30,000 men in view of the fact that the threat from the HRE will be much greater than Moscow, Sweden or Turkey could ever pose because their attacks anyway hit the outskirts and not straight into the center of the PLC.

The OTL nobility, by the way, agreed to this whenever Poland had to defend itself, the greater the threat the more they agreed to a larger army. The Protestant HRE is a much bigger threat than anything else, bigger than the Swedes at the time of the Deluge and even then after Gustav alienated the Poles to no end it made them spare no expense and John Casimir began to enjoy considerable recognition similar to that of his brother which he unfortunately burned through by demanding too much.

At the same time, the war with the HRE will most likely fall during the period of the Poles' beloved Wladyslaw IV Vasa, and the latter, moreover, was not bad at warfare from his Hetmans (another thing is that his brother also knew how to command, worse, but he could).
Hence for the HRE with the fact that the armies of the Crown and Lithuania will grow to unprecedented proportions this war will be hard, very hard.

But there is something that can satisfy both me and you. Namely, the Vasas ruled on the... Silesia. They had a couple of principalities there, OTL that's where John Casimir fled from the Swedes and led the resistance when he was bequeathed those principalities.

ALT it could be a much better pretestk for the war than Prussia. Because in view of the fall of the Hasburgs, the brothers of Ladislaus IV who were also Catholics and seeing how eager the prostestants are to drive Catholicism out of the empire will terminate obedience to the Emperor and resort to the protection of the Polish King which may become the reason for the war.

In the case of a Polish victory, the Principalities remain with Poland and the HRE relinquishes its claims to them as well as freed from vassal dependence.

In the case of a HRE victory, the principalities return to the HRE but most likely ravaged by war and the Catholic inhabitants of Silesia permanently emigrate to Poland deserting the province. In their place will come Protestant Germans. (And I'm not so sure that the Czechs will be so eager to emigrate to Austria, rather the Germans will leave there and the native Czechs and Moravians will pack their bags and come to Poland).

I think that instead of moving Poland back to a rump state, there will simply be a series of wars in which once one or the other will be victorious. But the border will remain as it was. In the east one can expect some losses to Moscow, no less in the west the wars will be fought over Silesia and the HRE will pay very dearly for trying to hold these lands.


There are certainly ATLs in which comprehensive reform of Poland-Lithuania can be imagined, but as I have outlined, this particular scenario is not set to be one of them.
You should have been so upfront that you just intended it that way because yes, you wanted to achieve balance in Europe so you made a surrounded Catholic Poland and a surrounded Protestant Switzerland. And the fact that it doesn't make sense is another matter.

That's very plausible.
With the addition, at the cost of huge losses on the Protestant side and small gains. As I mentioned above, the war may be more about Silesia and the attempt to keep it in the HRE. In my opinion, the whole conflict will end in a stalemate and a series of conflicts erupting from time to time.
BTW that is something very similar to the 11th century when the German Empire/Kingdom fought constant wars with the Duchy of Poland. The result was basically negative for Germany, they won once out of four wars only to lose everything a few years later. And I remind you that they were in a much better situation than the one you propose.
 
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raharris1973

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@Skallagrim, @ATP and @Batrix2070 -

Looking at the map in particular, perhaps your positions are not so drastically opposed and irreconcilable as you think they are and they may sound like on the surface.

A point of agreement between the Skallagrim map and Batrix2070's reading of Polish priorities is that western Poland-Lithuania's largest territorial losses come in the east, and western, actual, Poland, is the core of the Commonwealth's strength.

Perhaps, @Batrix2070, it is quite a bit of an overestimate to assume that Poland's reaction to an emerging new Protestant HRE menace would be to re-secure control of its old western lands like Silesia and parts of Pomerania and to guarantee perpetual control over Royal Prussia (ie East Prussia). Perhaps @Skallagrim, the boundaries drawn on the map were bit too generous to the Protestant HRE on the Polish frontier, and annexation of Gdansk would be unlikely, annexation of royal Prussia possible but not guaranteed, and even if it did happen, the new improved HRE wouldn't have such wide and thorough land corridor from Pomerania to Prussia controlling all so much of West Prussia or Pomerelia. The area kept Slavic affiliations pretty continuously. Likewise, the Poles might have won some gains in upper Silesia.

In the 1600s reduced Poland while isolated would be a tough nugget, so while further decline and partition, or puppetization, by the time the 1700s are over could be one possibility, in the new ATL set up by your initial PoD, it's not the only one and Poland could be a compact and independent nation stay continuously through 1800 and beyond - it's history after the 1650 would be an open, and yet unwritten, book.
 

Batrix2070

RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
What I proposed was a maximum plan as an opposition to Skallgarim's maximum plan.

In reality, I think that at most parts of Silesia will fall into Polish hands, more precisely Upper Silesia and part of Lower Silesia east of the Oder River. In addition, I can see them trying to take control of the former Lubusz Land or New March, but only east of the Oder and south of West Pomerania. Pomerania, it depends, maybe yes maybe no.

And in my opinion, it is not the unfortunate Prussia that the bloody wars will be fought over, but the cursed Silesia.

annexation of Gdansk
Impossible, Poland will bleed for this city, something the PLC normally does not do as long as it is Polish and Polish diplomacy at the cost of even other cessions will defend it to the death. It would take the HRE to collapse Commowealth to the ground to capture this city. OTL, by the way, that is exactly what happened, just the way Prussia took Danzig.
annexation of royal Prussia
Small pieces of the west, a possibility, but no further. There is no belt of German settlement there. Except for German Danzig, almost all residents of Royal Prussia are Kashubian or Polish. In turn, the Kashubians, as you can see, naturally fled to the east (because their headquarters were originally where Szczecin is) so their resistance will be high. And it should be added that in addition to Danzig to Protestant Ducal Prussia east of Warmia was dominated by Catholicism here, which is another region from which Protestants would have to rug the Catholics.

Likewise, the Poles might have won some gains in upper Silesia.
As above, the possibility of seizing Silesia, or not but most likely bloody and fierce fighting.
 
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WolfBear

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(Meanwhile, Bohemia itself, now part of an otherwise completely German state, is going to end up more Germanised than in OTL, I expect. Czech could eventuelly end up being 'just' a recognised regional language, like Frisian is in the Netherlands.)

Or like Sorbian within Germany, around the Cottbus area?

Nothing is unstoppable by anything, and certainly not "no matter how many enemies".

Poland-Lithuania was much stronger during the Thirty Years' War than it would later be, obviously, but let's look at this realistically: if the Catholic side loses the war badly, and all other powers bow out, then Poland-Lithuania is left pretty damn isolated. At that point, its neighbours can dictate peace terms, and nobody is coming to help. The notion that Polish forces would just be invincible supermen endlessly holding their ground under those circumstances is not credible.

In the event, I have Poland lose the corridor at that point, which is a limited matter still, and seems like a realistic outcome to me. The further carving-up of the Commonwealth comes much later in my write-up, specifically in the period preceding 1717. At that stage, Poland was much weaker, and faced considerable internal turmoil.

I didn't realize that Prussia already had ambitions on the Polish Corridor even before Frederick the Great! I mean, Yes, there was Royal Prussia, but its autonomy had largely disappeared in or shortly after 1569:


(Really, when you think about it, the Polish Corridor was one of the most interesting and longest-contested historical borderlands out there!)
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Summer-and-Winter.png

What I really like about this map is that it gives Russia a border on the Carpathian Mountains by allowing it to annex all of Moldavia, including the western, future Romanian part of Moldavia that includes cities such as Iasi.

Europe_topography_map_en.png


The Baltic ports for Russia (specifically both Libau and Windau) are also a nice touch, as is the fact that Poland gets a Curzon Line-style eastern border over two centuries earlier than it did in real life.

Must suck for the Hungarians being landlocked, no?
 

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