Colonial Scenarios of "Spain" if Portugal, Castile and Aragon were Unified

My broad model for this scenario is, not without some particularist resistance but ultimately successfully thanks to practical benefits of cooperation and pressure from the monarchy, the three kingdoms agree to share their efforts in all areas of significant expansionist/colonial interest for united Iberia (the Americas, Asia, Italy, and North Africa). They open up all the colonies to settlers from any area of Iberia and agree to share the defence burdens and economic benefits of every area. It helps that the economic rewards of colonial expansion in the Americas and in Asia are similar and equally plentiful and that all three kingdoms historically shared an interest for expanding the Reconquista to North Africa. The latter can easily be expanded into a strategic drive for hegemonic control of the Western Mediterranean. This obviously includes Italy, especially as long as France seems driven to seize it and the Ottomans to project power in the area and control/support the Barbary states. Besides its other obvious strategic and economic benefits, control of both Iberia and Italy is exceedingly useful if you wish to be the colonizer of North Africa.

On the other hand, unless the PoD involves a survival and entrenchment of the OTL Habsburg Iberian Union, I assume TTL Iberia won't be ruled by the Habsburg and hence much less invested in fighting wars in Europe for religious reasons. At the very least, they are going to spare all the energies they spent IOTL fighting the Dutch, since, in all likelihood, the PoD means the Dutch Revolt is butterflied away. Most likely, there is still going to be some important colonial competition with England/Britain, but not as vicious as OTL. On the gripping hand, they are still going to fight the French a lot of the time for Italy and the colonies, and be even more invested than OTL in fighting the Ottomans across the Med because of North Africa.

Of course, it also depends on which PoD one picks for a successful and enduring Iberian Union. It may vary, but I usually assume things are simplest with a choice of two easy ones, broadly speaking: a) Miguel da Paz survives and establishes a dynasty (or someone equivalent occurs, the details of dynastic PoDs perennially befuddle me) b) Charles V divides his possessions in a different way, giving the Burgundian Inheritance to the Austrian branch, and the Iberian Union is established just like OTL.  

As far as I can tell, there was no compelling or especially good reason for Charles to give the Burgundian Inheritance to Spain instead of Austria in the first place, so it seems a decision that can be easily changed. IMO it was a poor choice and I tend to blame a mix of age, poor health, disillusionement, and favoritism for his son, for it. As for the reason why he gives it to Austria ITTL, I tentatively assume he has a leap of insight (unlike his son Philip, he was familiar with the area and better aware of its issues) and/or one last burst of energy that counters the above issues and drives him to a more functional division.

Perhaps he gets aware that his brother Ferdinand was better suited than his son Philip to deal with the issues of the Low Countries in a constructive way (with Ferdinand's flexible religious and taxation policies, it is very likely the Dutch Revolt is going to be butterflied away). Perhaps he gets aware of the underlying geopolitical factors that make TTL division more functional: Spain has the wealth of the colonies and its strategic attention is better focused on the Med, Italy, the Americas, and Asia, at least when it does not have to fight off France and the Ottomans. It does not really need the revenues of the Burgundian Inheritance or the added distraction of defending it from France. Austria has much better use for such revenues and the union of the Burgundian lands and Austria-Bohemia form a rather more natural geopolitical bloc that increases the standing of the Habsburg emperors within the HRE and its ability to defend itself from its various enemies (France, hostile German princes, the Ottomans). Perhaps he gets mindful that the Burgundian lands are an integral part of the HRE (and unlike North Italy, one whose bond to the Empire did not significantly fray before the Dutch Revolt) and hence better belonging with the branch holding the Imperial throne. Perhaps (and most likely) it is a mix of the above.  

Well, to change the character of the Reformation radically with this kind of PoD would in all likelihood require we push it back to the beginning of Charles V's reign, to ensure he takes a substantially different approach to it. This is quite possible, of course. On the other hand, even a different division of his inheritance is going to have significant effects on its late course. To begin with, no Dutch Revolt means the Calvinists are going to have much weaker a power base, and stay much more the extremist fringe of the movement across Europe, unless somehow they get to be much more successful than OTL elsewhere from the HRE. The latter is of course possible but not so likely; on the other hand, this kind of change might well have substantial ripple effects on the French Wars of Religion and the English Civil War.

Moreover, a stronger power base for the Austrian Habsburg quite possibly means they feel emboldened to continue in their tolerant policy vs. moderate Protestants, and hence the Thirty Year War is averted, toned down, or takes a substantialy different course, much less favorable to their enemies. Some kind of armed confrontation was probably necessary to clear out the internal and external issues the HRE was burdened with, but it need not be as destructive as the OTL conflict nor have a similar outcome. Chances are with this kind of divergence Habsburg efforts to centralize the HRE are ultimately successful, although not necessarily or even likely to the point of unbridled absolutism or a decisive victory against Protestantism. We are likely going to see some kind of compromise that broadly resembles a premodern version of the German Empire, only with the Habsburg in charge and their Austrian, Bohemian, and Burgundian lands in the fold.

As it concerns the second point, yeah, this is an integral component of the unionist back-scratching compromise that I see happening between the Crowns. Castile allows Portugal and Aragon access to the American colonies in exchange for getting the same in Asia and North Africa, Portugal does the same for the Asian holdings in exchange for getting Castile's and Aragon's manpower and money to defend and develop them, all three sides get a share of investments and profits in Italy and North Africa, and their defence from France and the Ottomans. It is a win-win deal, and this is why I can see foresighted monarchs and ministers pushing it through the resistance of particularist nobles and bureaucrats. This kind of deal is in all likelihood an important element of the drive that eventually pushes through the legal unification of the three Crowns into a British-style United Kingdom of Iberia down the road.

I am in broad agreement about the colonial settlement you describe. I only expect North Africa to be one of the areas where the demarcation lines between the three Crowns blurry the fastest, since due to proximity to the Iberian motherland a joint conquest and colonization effort makes the greatest sense here. Nonetheless, at least for a while, I can see a broad division that awards Morocco to Portugal, Algeria to Castile, and Tunisia-Libya to Aragon. The latter also because it is the natural extension of Aragonese South Italy, and we can surely expect the Italians to be as eager partecipants in this enterprise as the Iberians. By the way, ITTL I seriously expect Iberia to seize direct rule of independent Italian states in North Italy (i.e. Parma, Modena-Ferrara, Mantua, Tuscany) when their native dynasties lapse. In the long term, I only see Savoy, Genoa, Venice, and the Papal States being able to say independent from, if mostly in a client-state relationship with, Iberia.

I do expect the Iberian colonization drive to sweep Northwest Africa as a whole, from Morocco to Libya, and apply to the region the same policies they used during the Reconquista to consolidate their grasp on conquered lands. This is going to include settlement of a sizable number of Iberian and Italian colonizers, especially in the coastal and Atlas Mountains regions, overwhelming pressure on Arab/Berber natives for religious conversion and cultural assimilation, ruthless persecution up to and including large-scale ethnic cleansing of the ones that cling to Islam and Arab culture, openly or covertly. Any promise of the conquerers for religious and cultural tolerance almost surely shall be not worth the ink and paper it is written with, and swiftly torn up at the first serious show of defiance. The many Muslim refugees that flee or are kicked out are in all likelihood going to flood the Islamic Sahel kingdoms on one end, and the Ottoman Eastern Med on the other end.

We may easily expect an anti-Ottoman alliance between Iberia, Genoa, Venice, and Austria, especially if (as I expect) this divergence enables successful centralization of the HRE, and this in turn allows to contain and reverse Ottoman penetration in Hungary with German help. A Iberian-Italian-German-Hungarian coalition (quite possibly joined by the PLC) that engages in a sustained military effort can do a lot to reverse the Ottoman onslaught in the Balkans and take back at least part of, quite possibly all, the region with sufficient time and effort. Quite possibly, the time schedule of Ottoman decline and retreat from the Balkans may be accelerated by a century or two, and the liberation of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece advanced accordingly. The Ottomans were still quite powerful in this period, but far from invincible or the superior party to a strong European alliance, as the outcome of the Battle of Lepanto demonstrated. A Habsburg family compact in charge of a strong Iberia and a strong Austria that hegemonize Italy and Germany-Burgundy-Hungary respectively can be the hegemonic linchpin of such an alliance, if they are not too weakened and distracted by clashes with Protestants and HRE particularism. Liberation of the Balkans from the Ottoman yoke is surely going to take considerable time and effort, say at least several decades to a century at minimum and multiple wars unless the Christian powers get exceptionally lucky, but quite possibly instead of a Siege of Vienna we might get a Siege of Constantinople by the end of the 17th century or the beginning of the 18th century.

Of course, we may expect the French to do their best to get in the way, but there are ways to keep them greatly distracted and weakened in a pro-Habsburg TL. E.g. ITTL Henry of Navarre fails to convert to Catholicism or is killed in TTL equivalent of St. Bartolomew Day's Massacre, the Catholic League is mostly able to close ranks and agree on a candidate for the throne, Calvinists are defeated in the HRE and flee to France strenghtening the Huguenots, and the French Wars of Religion, succession strife, and civil wars between rival branches of the nobility continue to eat France alive and tear the kingdom apart well into the 17th century. Conversely, the HRE is able to achieve a successful compromise for federal centralization and tolerance between Catholics and moderate Protestants after not so destructive a domestic conflict that defeats radical Protestants and particularist princes. In short, France and the HRE/Germany swap their OTL 17th century roles; the Iberian Union does not decline or get split and keeps expanding in the colonies, Italy, and the Med; the Habsburg profit and mostly fulfil Charles V's ambitions; and the Ottomans get ripped a new one. 

It would not be a full Habsburg hegemony of Europe since England/Britain, Sweden, the PLC, and Russia are going to stay outside their sphere of influence unless they drastically weaken, but it would look close. In all likelihood Iberia and the HRE cannot do much more with France than helping/forcing it stay weakened, divided, and trapped in its post-HYW borders (quite possibly losing a few important bits here and there), but it be enough. Besides, a greatly strengthened Iberia and HRE and a seriously weakened France and Ottoman Empire are going to change the outcome of the colonial game considerably. Besides what we already discussed, Spanish Philippines and Portuguese East Indies formed a natural whole (like Brazil and Spanish America) that a strong united Iberia may easily consolidate and expand. A strong centralized HRE may obviously turn into a most serious competitor for England/Britain about North America, utterly displacing a divided and weakened France. When and if the anti-Ottoman alliance is done kicking them out of Northwest Africa and the Balkans, the next obvious targets are Egypt and the Levant. If Spain and the HRE stay strong and allied under the Habsburg family compact, they can do a lot to contain English/British competition in the Americas and Asia.

Ah, sorry I had forgotten to take the rest of Scandinavia into account. Well, in this kind of scenario where the HRE centralizes to fulfil its potential as one of the European top dogs, and can harness that and the the Hanseatic League resources from the Maas to the Vistula to dominate the Baltic trade more effectively than any other regional player, I expect the Scandinavian kingdoms to have serious second thoughts about the Kalmar Union being a damn good idea after all. Barring extraordinary developments, Denmark-Norway is surely going to be the weakest state actor in the North Sea/Baltic area (unless Scotland and/or Ireland somehow stay independent), so their likely choices boil down to Nordic unity, being the omega wolf of their playground, or the client of a stronger neighbor. In all likelihood, they may pursue political union by the same dynastic means that worked so well for Iberia and Britain.

By the way, unless things turn out exceptionally well for the PLC and it can avoid all of its OTL troubles and get full advantage from any equivalent of the Time of Troubles, my money is on a strong HRE pushing it away from the Baltic and absorbing Ducal Prussia and Royal Prussia w/o excessive difficulty sooner rather than later. The outcome of the PLC as a whole may vary a lot but in this kind of scenario, the PLC is almost surely going to have sea access in Lithuania and/or Ukraine, or none at all.

As it concerns the territorial outcome of a weak France vs. a strong HRE/Germany and a strong Iberia/Italy in the premodern period, it goes without saying that the French won't gain an inch beyond what they had in 15th century, shall lose the Flanders just like OTL, and in all likelihood also a few important chunks as well. Good candidates for such losses include French Navarra (for its obvious connections to the Spanish one), Picardy (because of its continuity with Imperial Low Countries), Champagne (geopolitical contiguity with the Burgundian Inheritance, and Burgundy at times tried to get it), the Duchy of Burgundy (as above plus Charles V tried to get it during the Italian Wars), Dauphine and Provence (former Imperial lands, Charles V tried to recover them as well).

Instead of a strong France pushing it to the Rhine and the Alps, we are going to see a weak France surely being frozen on the Maas and Chambery-Nice borders, and quite possibly being pushed back to the Yonne and the Rhone. I dunno if Iberia seizing most or all of Occitania is in the cards but seizure of Languedoc is certainly a possiblity on the table to build a land connection to Italy, cut off France from the Med, and exploit the ties between Aragon and Occitania. At least the Habsburg can make a strong bid to narrow the gap somewhat.

If the Habsburg do attempt to build a 'Midi Road' to connect Aragon with North Italy, they are also going to need Savoy, Saluzzo, Montferrat, and Genoa, so we may expect a serious effort to absorb these lands as well. Independent Savoy gets in the way of this objective as much as French Languedoc or Provence. Iberia may try to get it by dynastic marriage means, and gamble on the fact the House of Savoy ITTL has worse dynastic luck than OTL and gets extinct like other Italian princely families, or seize it by conquest, esp. if and when it joins the enemies of the Habsburg in one of its recurrent alliance switches.

We must take into account the very real chance of opportunistic English/British kings being seriously tempted to dust off their old claims on the Angevin lands and/or the throne of France. Not to mention the possibility of a semi-stable division between rival factions of the nobility, Catholic North and Huguenot West/Southwest, rival candidates to the throne, monarchists and proto-republicans, and a mix of all of the above.

Just like weakness of OTL Germany fostered the rise of the Prussian militarism, it is quite possible and even likely TTL weakness of France drives some chunk of it to take the same path. Much the same way, these circumstances seem ripe for the emergence of a Jeanne/Cromwell/Napoleon/Wallenstein figure, if any candidate with the right features exists. It is too early for a close analogue of the French Revolution until we get close to its usual schedule, but something more akin to earlier revolutions such as the Dutch Revolt or the English Civil War might be in the cards.

However, TTL 16th-17th century pit seems deeper and more difficult to climb out of for the French than the HYW one, since the Habsburg hegemony we have visualized is much stronger than England to begin with. Even taking into account the Ottoman front is going to absorb half the strength of the Habsburg bloc, if France gets weakened/shrunk/split too much (especially as it concerns territorial losses to other states), recovery of great power status may prove impossible past a point. Even Napoleon eventually lost when the cards got stacked too much against him.

TTL Habsburg bloc mostly needs an eclipse of France to get room to deal with its domestic and other-theater issues (German-Italian particularism, Reformation, colonization, the Ottoman threat, economic and unionist reforms in Iberia) without too much interference and distraction. Once that gets done to a sufficient degree, the Habsburg bloc becomes invincible in normal circumstances even for Bourbon France and the Ottoman Empire at their best (and the Ottoman decline, once it sets in, is only going to accelerate, also because everyone else in Europe hated them until Britain got paranoid about another great power threatening the route to India).

If Charles V had not been so hamstrung by HRE particularism and the Reformation (say the late 15th century Imperial Reform had gotten room to go much further, and/or favorable dynastic circumstances had caused his inheritance in Germany and North Italy to be substantially bigger, and the issues that caused the Reformation had been adequately settled by Church reform after the Western Schism - lack of Reformation and a bigger Habsurg inheritance within the HRE would have made successful Imperial centralization inevitable anyway), things would have gone much, much worse for the Valois and the Ottomans. Chances are by the end of his reign, this version of Charles would have restored Charlemagne's empire (although quite possibly with England grabbing the Angevin domains out of the wreckage of Valois France), conquered North Africa, and liberated the Balkans from the Ottoman threat (likely with a junior Habsburg in charge of a reborn Byzantine Empire).

I have limited knowledge on the specific issue you quote about Muscovite-Habsburg dealings, but for sure in a TL where a strong Germany-Hungary and a strong Iberia-Italy are joining hands  to rip the Ottomans a new one in the Med, North Africa, and the Balkans, the PLC and Russia are surely going to join in the crusading fun as soon as they can afford putting a few armies in the field. Just like we can surely expect a substantial acceleration of the time schedule of the Ottomans and their Muslim clients losing the Balkans and Northwest Africa, we can also expect the same for southern Ukraine/Russia and the Caucasus as well. As it concerns the overall outcome of the PLC and Russia, it depends a lot on how butterflies affect them.

At the very least, given the HRE's rise to match its full top great power potential since the 16th-17th century or so, we should really expect the Slav powers faring much worse than OTL at staking a claim on the lands the Germans show a serious interest in. At the very least, this means keeping Pomerania, Silesia, and Prussia wholly in Imperial hands. It may or may not branch out into an Imperial drive to gobble the lands of the Prussian/Austrian partitions if the PLC goes the OTL death spiral way (or turns too much of a problem), establishing a client-state relationship on a weak but salvageable PLC, or keeping it as a useful ally/buffer against Russia if it gets sufficiently friendly and viable. A drive for Eastern territorial expansion to build and buffer to protect more valuable Imperial lands also seems in the cards if Russia gets too weak and the PLC too strong as a result of a really bad Time of Troubles, Russia failing the Peter the Great modernization, and/or no Golden Liberty anarchy.

By the way, since ITTL the HRE is going to centralize with the Hasburg on top, and the Habsburg domain is going to be considerably larger with the Burgundian inheritance and the lands of a few princes that side the wrong way and lose, we may likely expect the throne of Hungary being given to a junior branch, as a concession to the loyal princes to affirm the German-national character of the state and a way for the Austrian branch to focus on Imperial concerns. Good princely candidates among the historical enemies of the Habsburg to help swell their domain include Palatinate, Wurttenberg, Brandenburg, and Saxony, plus other minor members of the Protestant/Heilbronn Leagues, although of course a few may get pardoned as part of a compromise deal, switch sides, and/or be awarded to allies instead. Besides punitive one-sided land seizures, territorial swaps inside and outside the HRE are also quite possible as well.  

Full agreement on both points, with a few remarks. First, about the Partition of France, Poitou and Aquitaine/Guyenne/Gascony might go to Iberia or to England/Britain, depending on political/diplomatic butterflies, and taking into account these lands are going to be the main Huguenot strongholds if things stay similar to OTL in this regard. On one hand, there are strategic, economic, and cultural reasons why the Iberian kings may want to get all of Occitania in the partition, and they may be unwilling to let a Protestant hotbed survive close to their lands. On the other hand, they only need Languedoc, Dauphine, and Provence to build the land connection between Iberia and Italy, and the British/English kings may be eager to Aquitaine as well, since it was one of their most dearly held claims during the conflicts with France, and if England went Protestant as usual, English Protestants may be anxious to bring the Huguenot lands in their fold. It might go both ways, honestly. One possible compromise that may go through is Iberia gets all of Occitania, England gets Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Maine, Poitou, Saintorge, and Angoulême, and the two powers settle the religious issues by enforcing/encouraging a population exchange of Catholics and Protestants between their new lands (which is likely to happen spontaneously to a degree anyway).

Apart from this, the territorial pattern of the Partition of France between Iberia, the HRE, and England/Britain seems relatively easy to puzzle out. There might be conflicting claims between England and the HRE about certain lands, such as Ile-de-France and Orleannois, but I expect the HRE to win out since they are the strongest side. After it gets done, it would be truly optimal if dynastic butterflies do enable a reunification of the Habsburg domain (it would have happened in OTL too, if the War of Spanish Succession had gone wholly Austria's way). After a century of so of state-building in Iberia, Italy, and Germany, I assume a rebuilt Carolingian Empire/WRE encompassing Iberia, most of Italy, Germany-Bohemia, most of France, the Low Countries, and North Africa, would not not be too unwieldy to manage. Its size would of course be vast enough that a federal and proto-parliamentary system would be required, but that could be accomplished by merging the Imperial Diet, Spanish Cortes, and Estates-General in one assembly, giving full representation in it to Bohemia, Italy, and Christianized North Africa as well, and expanding the Imperial Circles system across the Habsburg domains.

The Spanish seemed to have mastered the trick of managing a vast colonial empire effectively through their Viceroyalties system, so it would just be a matter of scaling it to include their additional colonies in the Americas and Southeast Asia (and eventually giving the settlers representation in the Imperial Diet if they wish to avoid rebellions). Hungary-Croatia (likely going to absorb the Danubian Principalities), and more so liberated Serbia-Bulgaria-Greece would likely and best stay autonomous under the rule of junior Habsburg branches because of religious and cultural differences between Western/Latin and Eastern/Orthodox halves of Europe. On the other hand, I can also see a real chance for Hungary too being absorbed in the fold of the reborn WRE w/o excessive trouble, if it gets sufficient representation and federal autonomy.

About the second point, yes as well, with the caveat that North Africa would become a valid source of settlers for the American colonies only after its Christian population has been sufficiently built up, by settler colonization and forced conversion/assimilation of the Arab/Berber population (the ones that accept to stay and undergo it rather than resist and flee/be kicked out). If OTL Reconquista is anything to go by, I expect about a century might be warranted to complete the process. In the meanwhile, and in addition, Spanish Italy (more or less everything except Venice and the Papal States, past a point) would be a valid source of settlers for North Africa and the Americas, besides Iberia itself. And once the Partition of France is done and the new lands pacified (including rooting out the Huguenots), Occitania is going to become another important source of settlers.

If we use the Partition of Poland as a strict analogy for the Partition of France, it is kinda tricky to tell if there is going to be one of the three partitioning powers that ends up getting a lion's share like post-Napoleonic Russia did (and hence their portion ends up playing the role of Congress Poland), or the partition ends up looking rather more balanced. Also let's not forget that even in Poland's case, the original partition scheme did no look so substantially skewed in Russia's favor (although to a degree it did) before Napoleon upturned the table of Europe. Geopolitically speaking, there are a few regions of France that are guaranteed to end up to each power because of territorial proximity, strategic-economic interest, and/or historical ties. Others might end up to one or the other siee because of potentially conflicting claims and political-diplomatic butterflies. However, since in these circumstances the HRE and Spain look like the stronger side to England and they are bound in a long-standing and well-oiled alliance, where England is the weakest side and an opportunistic latecomer, I expect most of the conflicts to be settled in favor of the Habsburg bloc.

Nord, Artois, Picardy, Champagne, and Burgundy surely go to the HRE. Of course, ITTL Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comte never stopped being Imperial lands in the first place. Ile-de-France is a potential claim conflict between England and the HRE but I see it in all likelihood going to the Imperials for the prestige of having the former French capital and the economic value. To a lesser degree, this is also valid for Orleanais by extension. Dauphine, Provence, Languedoc, Bearn, and Foix surely go to Spain. Of course, ITTL Savoy, Nice, and Corsica never stopped being Italian lands in the first place, and Italy gets absorbed by Spain. Lyonnais is a potentially conflicting claim between Spain and the HRE but I see it in all likelihood going to Spain for various reasons. Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, Aunis, Saintonge, and Angoulême surely go to England. Calais in all likelihood never stopped being an English land in the first place ITTL, or at least it is surely recovered in the partition. Guyenne-Gascogne potentially is the big issue of contention between England and Spain, but in all likelihood I see it going to Spain for various reasons. The potential trouble of the area being a Protestant stronghold almost surely gets settled by the Huguenots immigrating somewhere else. If England is still Protestant ITTL, this almost surely means the British Isles and the English Partition (also because its southern portion is another Huguenot stronghold). Central France is a kind of leftover toss-up but I see this kind of sub-partition that ends up being adopted as a sensible compromise: Nivernais, Bourbonnais, and Berry to the HRE; Limousin and Auvergne to Spain. Not sure if England or the HRE ends up getting Marche.



Well, if we seek an alt-historical analogy for how the TTL Habsburg bloc is going to work internally and towards the rest of Europe, I do not regard 'classical' (with A-H) Central Powers bloc as a good one, because Greater Spain is going to be much more powerful and stable in comparison to the centralized HRE/German Empire than the Francis Joseph zombie. IMO, a somewhat better analogy would be a no-Habsburg Central Powers bloc, with Greater Italy being the junior (but not so weaker) Med partner to Greater Germany and Hungary being Hungary. Except ITTL I see Spain being more or less equivalent or close to the HRE in prestige and economic/military power, so perhaps the best analogy would be a proto-EU with the HRE being Germany and Greater Spain being the equivalent of France. Of course even that analogy gets imperfect since we would miss a clear equivalent of Italy: Hungary, neo-Byzantine Serbia-Bulgaria-Greece, and Denmark-Norway would realistically never be able to get close to great-power potential.

This also because, with the big exception of the French lands, I never see either the HRE or Greater Spain suffering anything close to the domestic stability problems that A-H suffered. The Dutch-Flemish and the German-speaking Swiss, Alsatians, and Lotharingians are absorbed in a successful HRE before they get a chance to develop a separate national consciousness. The Czech, the Prussian/Silesian Poles, and the Slovene almost surely get assimilated at least to the level of the Sorbs. The French-speaking lands almost surely get to be the one serious minority headache for the Empire, although to a degree the Imperials could play out the card of the HRE being the successor to the Carolingian Empire to lessen malcontent. Of course, proper enfranchisment and cultural/federal autonomy would help a lot.

As it concerns Greater Spain, the cultural, linguistic, and geopolitical between Iberia and Italy are so strong and compelling (with Spanish-speakers and Italian-speakers being partially intellegible) that I can see the Italians settling comfortably in a bed with a successful Spain, and regarding the whole enterprise as sufficiently close to a reborn Roman Empire, provided they get an equal place at the table with enfranchisment and federal autonomy, and unification of their lands under Spanish rule. The latter seems relatively easy to accomplish, since sooner or later Greater Spain may get a good excuse to annex all the secular Italian states, and despite his inevitable bitter complaints the Pope does not really need anything more than Latium before secularization, and the Vatican City afterwards, to secure his independence. Success of Greater Spain is surely going to greatly tone down the autonomy unrest of Portugal, Catalonia, and the other Iberian regions in comparison to OTL, and proper enfranchisment and a bit of federal autonomy can take care of the rest. Forced religious conversion and cultural assimilation of North Africa is surely going to keep the empire busy for a while, but afterwards it shall make the region not really different from Sicily or Andalusia.

As it concerns the general balance of power between the HRE and Greater Spain, I work under the broad assumption that the former gets USA+Canada (England/Britain eventually gets booted out of North America just like OTL France) and the latter keeps Spanish America + Brazil and the Malay Archipelago. Harder to tell what happens to India, China, and Japan-Korea, but a real possibility is the HRE replaces Britain as the hegemon of India. TTL England/Britain is the weakest of the seafaring great powers (ownership of the Low Countries makes the HRE an hybrid land-sea power just like France) so I can see them getting the scraps like OTL France, say Indochina and a few bits here and there. Not taking most of sub-Saharan Africa into account yet because of the usual climate and disease issues making it inaccessible to preindustrial European colonizers. East and Southern Africa as usual might be the exceptions and it is a dice's toss which of the three powers ends getting these lands.

Surely an accelerated collapse of Ottoman power in the Med means the Islamic polities in the Indian Ocean get under attack of European colonialism considerably faster. Once the Habsburg bloc is done kicking the Ottomans out of the Balkans and Northwest Africa, the Middle East becomes the obvious next target. Neo-Byzantine Serbia-Bulgaria-Greece is the obvious claimant to (western) Anatolia, although we must also take into account potential Russian ambitions in the region (unless the PLC mostly cuts Russia out of the Black Sea). Egypt and Greater Syria are even more of a target for strategic, economic, and prestige reasons. I'd see them being set up as some kind of neo-Crusader states (especially as it concerns the Holy Land; rather than Israel, we can easily see a reborn Kingdom of Jerusalem as the destiny of Palestine-Lebanon) under the imperial patronage of the Habsburg bloc, although direct colonial control is also a distinct possbility, especially as it concerns the most valuable areas such as the Suez Canal. Of course, a lot of this is going to take place before secularization, much less modern notions of human rights for dark-skinned folk, takes roots, so stronger European powers getting serious about colonization in the Med area before the French Revolution means a lot of Muslims/Arabs being forced to change religion and language at gunpoint, or else leave or die, once the power of the Islamic polities is broken. Middle Eastern Christians are going to switch place in the totem pole with Muslims, and become the new elites and local power base for colonization in a mixture with European settlers.