raharris1973
Well-known member
Here's a scenario, what if Leopold I'd Austrian/HRE forces were able to keep pressing the Ottoman forces, undistracted and undiverted by Louis XIV's Nine Years War in the west? Here is one projection of the potential results:
At the time the Safavids are at their worst and in steep decline, close to their end, so, despite appearances, they will likely *not* be able to exploit consequent Ottoman weakness in Iraq, Anatolia, and the wider Middle East. Egypt and Arabia have a shot of breaking away though.
The Hafsarids would probably peel off Iraq and eastern Anatolia. Venice gets a new lease on life, holding onto Morea and possibly retaking Crete or even Cyprus.
Long-term, the question is whether Austria and Russia can come to a modus vivendi. With Austria vassalizing Wallachia and northwest Bulgaria and Serbia, and Poland doing the same for Moldavia, and the Crimean Khanate still existing, Russia is still in no position to touch the Balkans, which is *very* interesting for the future. I can see France propping up the Venetians and Italian states as a buffer.
Now what can be our excuse for France to *not* menace the Habsburgs from the west and divert them? It is a tall order. I suppose a Louis XIV consumed with more thorough purging, beyond just enforcement of the edicts against the Protestants? Perhaps he makes moves to further reduce independence and privileges of nobility and clergy to centralize revenue collection and codify royal powers for revenue collection and breaking resistance to it, such that he provokes but also crushes uprisings and puts France on a path to head off its later revolution?
Or perhaps Louis XIV just has a bunch of conservative years, fortifying, building up a war chest, pursuing colonial endeavors without major wars, training the grand dauphin. That seems quite uncharacteristic, and it allows his competitors to make moves and strengthen themselves unopposed and unsabotaged, but his budget and country could use the rest.
Or Louis XIV just idiosyncratically chooses to focus his warlike activity away from Habsburg interests in the Spanish Netherlands, Italy, and HRE? Perhaps going for naval/colonial first strategies - competing with the Dutch, Spanish, and English (when governed by enemies like William) primarily in colonial and trade spheres rather than with army invasions. Or, he goes all in with Army and Navy with intervention in the British Isles in favor of James II and the Jacobites, and perhaps extends that to global colonial struggle with English colonies. Or, goes after Spain and the Balearics, Army and Navy, hammer and tong, as well as its overseas empire, especially trying to expand its profitable Saint-Domingue colony and sugar plantation system more broadly to the rest of Hispaniola and to Cuba and Puerto Rico, seeing that as France's ultimate cash cow.
There's always killing off Louis XIV in some accident, assassination or illness circa 1686-1688. But then you have Le Grand Dauphin take over at age 25-27, youngish, but not really that young, and no guarantee he'd be any less warlike.
At the time the Safavids are at their worst and in steep decline, close to their end, so, despite appearances, they will likely *not* be able to exploit consequent Ottoman weakness in Iraq, Anatolia, and the wider Middle East. Egypt and Arabia have a shot of breaking away though.
The Hafsarids would probably peel off Iraq and eastern Anatolia. Venice gets a new lease on life, holding onto Morea and possibly retaking Crete or even Cyprus.
Long-term, the question is whether Austria and Russia can come to a modus vivendi. With Austria vassalizing Wallachia and northwest Bulgaria and Serbia, and Poland doing the same for Moldavia, and the Crimean Khanate still existing, Russia is still in no position to touch the Balkans, which is *very* interesting for the future. I can see France propping up the Venetians and Italian states as a buffer.
Now what can be our excuse for France to *not* menace the Habsburgs from the west and divert them? It is a tall order. I suppose a Louis XIV consumed with more thorough purging, beyond just enforcement of the edicts against the Protestants? Perhaps he makes moves to further reduce independence and privileges of nobility and clergy to centralize revenue collection and codify royal powers for revenue collection and breaking resistance to it, such that he provokes but also crushes uprisings and puts France on a path to head off its later revolution?
Or perhaps Louis XIV just has a bunch of conservative years, fortifying, building up a war chest, pursuing colonial endeavors without major wars, training the grand dauphin. That seems quite uncharacteristic, and it allows his competitors to make moves and strengthen themselves unopposed and unsabotaged, but his budget and country could use the rest.
Or Louis XIV just idiosyncratically chooses to focus his warlike activity away from Habsburg interests in the Spanish Netherlands, Italy, and HRE? Perhaps going for naval/colonial first strategies - competing with the Dutch, Spanish, and English (when governed by enemies like William) primarily in colonial and trade spheres rather than with army invasions. Or, he goes all in with Army and Navy with intervention in the British Isles in favor of James II and the Jacobites, and perhaps extends that to global colonial struggle with English colonies. Or, goes after Spain and the Balearics, Army and Navy, hammer and tong, as well as its overseas empire, especially trying to expand its profitable Saint-Domingue colony and sugar plantation system more broadly to the rest of Hispaniola and to Cuba and Puerto Rico, seeing that as France's ultimate cash cow.
There's always killing off Louis XIV in some accident, assassination or illness circa 1686-1688. But then you have Le Grand Dauphin take over at age 25-27, youngish, but not really that young, and no guarantee he'd be any less warlike.
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