Justin Green said:
What if the winter king had won in the early days of the 30 years war. The Palpatine are united with Bohemia-Moravia via personal union. The enlarged palpatine go on to unite Germany.
I think I remember that from somewhere. An old RPG scenario of mine, to be precise
1619 - Victory at Plzen
In 1619 an Imperial army under the command of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria prepared to enter Bohemia, where an uprising of the Protestant Estates General against the fanatically Catholic Emperor had placed the Palatinate Count Frederick (husband to a Stuart princess) on the throne. The imperial commander Count Bucqoy had positioned himself in Plzen to interdict the supply lines of Bohemian forces threatening Austria and Bavaria and to plunder the countryside. A force under Ernst von Mansfeld, a Protestant commanmder, laid a desultory siege to the town for two days. Then a musket ball from the defenders killed Mansfeld, placing his young subordinate, the Dutchman Maurice van Geldern, in command of a vengeful and enraged army that loved its dithering but caring and charismatic commander. Maurice rose to the challenge and led the troops in a charge that overwhelmed Plzen's defenses. The way to the enemy's heartlands lay free!
The Bohemian army, reinforced by Hungarian and Palatinate troops and a 2,000-man mercenary force financed by the Dutch Estates General, met the Bavarians in a head-to-head clash at Regensburg in 1620. After a bloody battle the troops under the command of Tilly only broke after their commander was killed by a Hungarian carbineer. Maximilian of Bavaria fled to Italy after finding himself unable to defend his country, Munich being sacked by the Bohemians and Hungarians the same year. By 1622, troops of the Protestant Union, now including Upper Austrian, Hungarian, Palatinate, Saxon, Brunswick, Dutch and Danish troops, reached Vienna and only abandoned their siege after payment of a substantial ransom. The emperor was humbled and defeated. His Spanish allies, already accounting for most of the Catholic side's war funding, sent their commander Spinola into Protestant Germany, in turn pulling the Netherlands into the battle of a war drawing wider circles by the hour. Several savage battles and great suffering followed, ending only after Spinola's army retreated into Spanish Flanders in tatters, mauled by the legendary Maurice van Geldern's army. By 1628, the redistribution of power in Germany was sealed in the Peace of Kassel. The new dominant powers were mostly Protestant - the kingdom of Bohemia, the duchies of Wurttemberg, Mecklenburg, and the Palatinate, and the influential Dutch and Danish - with only few Catholic states - Austria, Lorraine, and a much diminished Bavaria - remaining. Spain withdrew from the northern theater after this debacle and concentrated on its Mediterranean power position against France.
His presence not being required in Germany, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden continued to concentrate his efforts in the Baltic. His army, formnidable even against the well-drilled Spanish and Austrians, was a holy terror to Polish cavalrymen and Russian strelki. The halting resurgence of the Russian state after the Troubles of the 1610s was brutally cut short after Russian troops lewad an abortive foray against Swedish Narwa. Swedish troops defeated the armies of the Czar with almost contemptuous ease, shattering the reputation of the Romanovs and eventually reducing Moscow and Novgorod, Ukraine and the Crimea to impotent vassal states. The riches of Siberia flowed mostly through Swedish hands, with traders from Archangel and Bergen plying the sea routes to Mangaseya and points east.
The world of a century past is still dominated by three major power blocs - Catholic Spain with its Italian dependencies and rich colonies, a giant in decline, France at the height of its splendor, undecided in the religious conflicts but vigorously pursuing its political interests, and the Northern Union under the leadership of the mercantile Netherlands and the great military power of Sweden. England, long a faithful friend of the Union (with whose Bohemian allies dynastic ties connect them), has lately begun striking out more vigorously overseas and may soon come into conflict with the Dutch and French in America. In Germany, Bohemian power is on the wane and a surprisingly forceful Mecklenburg (now including the former bishoprics of Bremen and Verden) is beginning to flex military muscle acquired along Swedish lines. Central Asia is largely dominated by Persia and an increasingly imperial-minded China under its modernising emperor Kang Tsi. The story of Peter the Great is getting ready to retell itself...
