So I was wondering if France had stumbled, say in the face of England or Spain, would an Austria free of French intervention be able to consolidate power and reform the HRE into a more centralized nation state?
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Protestantism killed the HRE not France.
France in her infinite kindness only freed the catatonic corpse of its hellish existence.
France in her infinite kindness only freed the catatonic corpse of its hellish existence.
There was a window of opportunity to significantly increase the power of the Emperor during the 30YW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Prague_(1635)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Prague_(1635)
- The Edict of Restitution of 1629 was effectively revoked, with the terms of the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 being re-established as at 12 November 1627. However, according to the Reservatum ecclesiasticum Protestant administrators of Prince-Bishoprics and Imperial abbeys still gained neither seat nor vote in the Imperial Diet. Ferdinand II continued to push the Counter-Reformation in the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy.
- Formal alliances of States of the Empire among themselves or with foreign powers were prohibited. This applied to both the Catholic League and the Protestant Heilbronn League, which thereupon dissolved.
- The armies of the various states were to be unified under the command of the Princes as generals of the Emperor, to establish an Army of the Holy Roman Empire as a whole, which would fight against invading troops.
- Amnesty was granted to those princes who had fought against Imperial troops, with the exception of the exiled descendants of the former "Winter King", Elector Palatine Frederick V (1596–1632).
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Hard to say. Uniting under the threat of a foreign power power is pretty common. With no real threat from France the german princes may have been even more willing to seek power for themselves. In the end it was in response to a threat from France that they ended up uniting. The big chance at an earlier unification was the 30-years war and France did play a part in opposing the Habsburgs there.
Had the Emperors not had to deal with a hostile France they would have had more resources to consolidate control over its princes and popes.
France had little to do in the conflict with the pope. The only time where France intervention was major was in the 30 HYW which was the cause of the HRE's cancer: protestantism.
The Emperors had to deal with France which was a constant drain of resources, with out the French menace , the Empire would have been able to focus on consolidation of power and bringing Italy in general to heel.
I also suspect the main "threat" of the Ottomans was their French Allies more so then themselves.
Again during the Emperor-Pope conflict France was absent. France had nothing to do with the failure of Frederick II to defeat the Lombards League for exemple.
France had her own problem to deal with during that period with her own unruly vassals like a certain King of England and others and it was the Emperor who was intervening in France not the reverse.
Also I don't see how the Ottomans were not a menace were they besieged the freaking capital twice and the city was saved by foreign intervention two times too.
France had her own problem to deal with during that period with her own unruly vassals like a certain King of England and others and it was the Emperor who was intervening in France not the reverse.
Also I don't see how the Ottomans were not a menace were they besieged the freaking capital twice and the city was saved by foreign intervention two times too.
Right. France was a relatively week power until the end of the Hundred Years War. The conflict with the Habsburgs that developed afterwards took place mainly in Italy where it could find local allies, it didn't attempt anything big on the northern front. After the Reformation, France was equally hampered by internal division but it recovered earlier, finally allowing it to meddle in Germany itself.
The failure of the HRE to reform into a central state before the Thirty Years War therefore can't have been caused by France. One can point to a number of problems throughout the late Middle Ages. But many of these were not problems from the perspective of all inhabitants, many liked the division of power and responsibility, they considered the HRE a functional polity. Many thought it preferable to the abrogation of local privilege by the king of France. It is a peculiarly nineteenth century view of history that makes us see lack of centralization as a defect. Contemporaries began to worry when decentralized power allowed wrong religions (heresy or popery) to flourish. As SorelusImperion rightly points out, the Reformation actually led to a nearly successful push to centralize. French intervention didn't break the HRE, it continued much as before, but it prevented further consolidation of Habsburg power.
I think the HRE foundered far earlier due to excessive entanglement in Italy that allowed the princes at home greater and greater autonomy. It was to the Hohenstaufens, not the Hapsburgs to make something of the HRE.
Centralization was heavily fueled by shared identities and culture. It was effective when used as a rough precursor to nationalism (France, Prussia) and less able to hold onto centralized power when merely leveraged as rights or religious identity (Russia, Turkey/Ottomans).
The HRE was not held back by France. It was held back by a ruling family with ties across Europe and a system of alliances and patronage to control it. Centralizing the HRE meant unacceptable sacrifices - either ceding authority or cutting loose the wealthiest two parts of Europe, low countries and northern Italy. It ran afoul of family ties towards Spain. It conflicted with dominance of Hungary and then various Slavic conquests.
The reformation is also a weak scapegoat. This did not halt reform, so much as a lack of centeal authority and overextended emperorship allowed this attempt at reform to run wild when so many before Luther with similar ideas had been snuffed.
France was weak and isolated. If anything they were a motivator to keep a grip and maybe consider, and even got used much later to centralize the former HRE, but under Prussia. Further, Prussia herself could take the blame for basically shutting attempts down until THEY could be the boss. I would name them #1 external cause for failure here, just as much as they mucked up the Polish government even.
In short, I think the HRE only failed to centralize mostly because the rulers just weren't interested on focusing on it until too late, when the low countries were lost and half-outsider Prussia had influence. I welcome criticism of my theory!
The HRE was not held back by France. It was held back by a ruling family with ties across Europe and a system of alliances and patronage to control it. Centralizing the HRE meant unacceptable sacrifices - either ceding authority or cutting loose the wealthiest two parts of Europe, low countries and northern Italy. It ran afoul of family ties towards Spain. It conflicted with dominance of Hungary and then various Slavic conquests.
The reformation is also a weak scapegoat. This did not halt reform, so much as a lack of centeal authority and overextended emperorship allowed this attempt at reform to run wild when so many before Luther with similar ideas had been snuffed.
France was weak and isolated. If anything they were a motivator to keep a grip and maybe consider, and even got used much later to centralize the former HRE, but under Prussia. Further, Prussia herself could take the blame for basically shutting attempts down until THEY could be the boss. I would name them #1 external cause for failure here, just as much as they mucked up the Polish government even.
In short, I think the HRE only failed to centralize mostly because the rulers just weren't interested on focusing on it until too late, when the low countries were lost and half-outsider Prussia had influence. I welcome criticism of my theory!
Identities are forged and not a given. I think you underestimate how long the Habsburgs, Romanovs and Ottomans dominated vast and diverse Empires all of which were much more centralized than the HRE. A successfull centralization of the Empire was not dependent on giving up any parts of the Empire it was dependent on achieving stability and a Balance of power that was favourable to the Emperor.
Lack of identity clearly isn't the reason for the failure of the HRE: Sure, it *might* be considered a factor in Italy and to a lesser extent Bohemia, but the rest? Largely german-speaking areas. The reason the dutch are a separate nation today is a result of the disintegration of the HRE, not its cause.
I'd agree with the fact that for a lot of people at various points, decentralization was the favoured option: Centralization is generally considered a shitty thing unless there is significant pressure. (at least one historian I read argued that the disintegration of the Ritsuryo state and the bureaucratic Heian-era polity was simply that once the percieved threat of China diminished there simply wasn't the same incentive to keep all this state bureaucracy and rigid centralization going)
If anything you could argue the aggressive early-modern french state pushed the HRE towards centralization (along with as mentioned, fear of religious dissension) by acting (along with the Ottomans) as a potential outside threat.
I think it was Wilson in Europe's Tragedy who argued that after the 30-years war things largely returned to "normalcy": The Princes disbanded their armies (they were too expensive anyway) Imperial institutions continued, etc. And that it was Louis XIV's push (where he aggressively courted and to some extent funded princes) that really tore things down: It showed that what had happened in the 30-years war wasn't an abberation but could be repeated.
I'd agree with the fact that for a lot of people at various points, decentralization was the favoured option: Centralization is generally considered a shitty thing unless there is significant pressure. (at least one historian I read argued that the disintegration of the Ritsuryo state and the bureaucratic Heian-era polity was simply that once the percieved threat of China diminished there simply wasn't the same incentive to keep all this state bureaucracy and rigid centralization going)
If anything you could argue the aggressive early-modern french state pushed the HRE towards centralization (along with as mentioned, fear of religious dissension) by acting (along with the Ottomans) as a potential outside threat.
I think it was Wilson in Europe's Tragedy who argued that after the 30-years war things largely returned to "normalcy": The Princes disbanded their armies (they were too expensive anyway) Imperial institutions continued, etc. And that it was Louis XIV's push (where he aggressively courted and to some extent funded princes) that really tore things down: It showed that what had happened in the 30-years war wasn't an abberation but could be repeated.
I think this agrees with my point. The HRE was not centralized because the Emperor was more interested in a stable balance that allowed wealth extraction than a tightened hold. A decentralized empire was easier to manage and less volatile than one where an emperor would have been trying to snub rivals while expanding immediacy.
I did not mean to put down those empires. I would argue they were 3 of the most successful in history. Rather, they just were not motivated to centralize control the way ones like the boxed-in Hohenzollerns were.
The Islamic empires like the Ottomans were especially disadvantaged in centralizing because decentralized rule over minorities provided an extra tax while requiring less excuse to punish any unrest. At least for a Christian ruler there was a benefit to having religious conformity. The issue became that the cost of heavy enforcement was high while ruling over subjects who could dictate religion locally was easy, so they usually focused elsewhere.
I argue that had the French crown held much of Europe and most of the Americas in the family, while the Imperial crown was stuck with nothing outside its borders, the reverse would have taken place with Vienna having a Versailles and Sun Emperor.
Even before protestantism, it didn't gone well in the Empire: too powerful stem dukes who achieved to get the hereditary of their charges (IIRC, the Empire become a feudal empire under Frederic the First) but quite rarely acted in the interest of the Empire; strong hostility from the pope who decided to be an higher authority than the emperor who get to be elected without the approval of the emperor; in early time suspicions between stem nations; suspicions between stem nations and italian nation; some good emperors who died too young; coherencies of policies between emperors who had to negotiate terms of their election with electors...
The problem of East France, who dominated the Empire, wasn't that Electors were wary of a too strong emperor, because contrary to many nationalist readings of history, it is a good thing. The problem was that they were wary of a too strong emperor and quasi exclusively acted in their own personal interest.
IMO what stopped centralization of the HRE basically happened as early on as the Investiture controversy. The Hohenstaufer seemed to be sort of trying to "fix" this and maybe had some chance if even more things had gone their way, but when they didn't last more than a few generations I think the fractured nature was pretty much cemented then (esp. when it essentially was made into law with the Golden Bull).
Now obviously things could have always gone differently. Some sort of Conquerer-Emperor rising up and just gobbling up the rest, but eh. It's not a map-painting Paradox game and it seems to me that mostly people didn't want to mess too much with the status quo (until the 30 Years War ^^; ).
(also, not saying this was the only reason or anything, but if you look at the French dynasties - once the Capetians took power, they lasted some 400 years, and then it went to their dynastic branches. The HRE early on just never had that sort of massive time period where people couldn't go "well, in your grandfather's time there was still a different dynasty ruling, so might as well change it again now...")
Now obviously things could have always gone differently. Some sort of Conquerer-Emperor rising up and just gobbling up the rest, but eh. It's not a map-painting Paradox game and it seems to me that mostly people didn't want to mess too much with the status quo (until the 30 Years War ^^; ).
(also, not saying this was the only reason or anything, but if you look at the French dynasties - once the Capetians took power, they lasted some 400 years, and then it went to their dynastic branches. The HRE early on just never had that sort of massive time period where people couldn't go "well, in your grandfather's time there was still a different dynasty ruling, so might as well change it again now...")