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cahnAnd, I mean, it doesn't have to be just 18th century characters, either!
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1730 Trending Topics: Mecklenburg
Date: 2022-01-01 05:24 pm (UTC)Brandenburg in blue, Hanover in yellow next to it, Mecklenburg-Schwerin in gray above it. You can see why G2 and FW are fighting over it all the time.
Karl Leopold: Hi, I'm--correction, I was--the duke of Mecklenburg. I tried going with the spirit of the times by taking power away from the nobles so I could have an efficiently centralized state. You know, like Louis XIV, Peter the Great, FW, Victor Amadeus II, Charles XI, Philip V, and half my other contemporaries. But for some reason, *I'm* the one with the bad rap! [Mildred note: Due to my inability to get the dissertation in question, I can't actually tell if he was worse than his contemporaries.]
Future Joseph II: I feel your pain.
Karl Leopold: So the revolting subjects problem got so bad, the Holy Roman Emperor released my subjects from their allegiance to me. Can you believe it!
Hanover: So us and Brunswick got put in charge of administering Mecklenburg. That worked great (imo) until...
George I: *dies in 1727*
Charles VI: Okay, new plan. Prussia gets to help out with the administering.
Hanover: I bet that's because you made a secret treaty with Prussia last year, you bastard!
Charles VI: I can neither confirm nor deny this terrible and unfounded allegation--where did your spies hear about this??? I thought we had better security than that--but in any case, I can dispense territory-occupying privileges to my new buddy FW if I want to!
Hanover: No, you can't! This decision didn't even come from the Imperial Diet, but from the Aulic Council/Reichshofrat, which is subordinate to you, and that's not cool! I protest this abuse of power.
Great Britain: Even though we normally side-eye getting too involved in Hanoverian affairs, it is a little scary if the Emperor thinks he can just go around administering the territories in the Empire at will. He's not like their monarch, he's an elected head with limits on his power, and he has to respect the rights and privileges of the principalities and their legitimate rulers!
France: Our position on anything that can possibly be interpreted as Habsburg abuses of power is predictable.
[Mildred ETA: Good news! After I finished drafting this write-up, I acquired another book that had a footnote that told me that the Mecklenburg dissertation was turned into a book. I had suspected this, but couldn't tell which book. Now that I know the title, the book is on its way to me. So we should be learning more about Mecklenburg soon.]
Re: 1730 Trending Topics: Mecklenburg
Date: 2022-01-03 05:57 am (UTC)France: Our position on anything that can possibly be interpreted as Habsburg abuses of power is predictable.
I laughed! (Thank you for making that abundantly clear :) )
Re: 1730 Trending Topics: Mecklenburg
Date: 2022-01-03 11:37 pm (UTC)No doubt! But why did he lose power? Was he actually worse than, say, Peter the Great, or did he just get unlucky? Or play his political cards badly? We shall find out (I hope)!
France: Our position on anything that can possibly be interpreted as Habsburg abuses of power is predictable.
I laughed! (Thank you for making that abundantly clear :) )
Fritz: It's not my fault! I could never have foreseen that hundreds of years of enmity would come to an end because people feel insulted when you insult them! (Which I could never have guessed either.)
Incidentally, on the subject of Austria and France getting along, that turned out to be the answer to something else I researched in the last few days. Namely, what is Peter Keith's son doing as envoy in Turin (Kingdom of Sardinia, formerly known as Duchy of Savoy) in 1774-1778? I figured there must have been something specific to be negotiated, and since I now know a thing or two about 18th century Savoy, albeit earlier, I should look into this.
And indeed, there was something to negotiate. Namely:
1770: Marie Antoinette marries the Dauphin of France.
1773: VA's son Charles Emanuel III dies, bringing his son Victor Amadeus III to power.
1774: Louis XV dies, bringing Louis XVI to power.
Victor Amadeus III is deeply concerned about France and Austria being all buddy-buddy, with the King of France being married to an Austrian Archduchess. And thanks to our geopolitical lessons of Victor Amadeus II, we know why this kind of thing would make a Savoyard so nervous. So Victor Amadeus III looks around and goes, "Who has an army and is hated by both France and Austria? Fritz!" So next thing you know, Prussia and Sardinia-formerly-known-as-Savoy are agreeing to have each other's backs in case France and Austria try something.
This, by the way, is a sign of not only how Prussia has become a first-rate power on the European stage, but Sardinia has moved up to become a second-rate power. Back when Victor Amadeus II inherited, in 1675, the only places where Savoy had permanent diplomatic representation at were France under Louis XIV (because satellite state), Bavaria (because the Wittelsbachs are cousins), and the pope (because Catholic). This is not a lot of diplomatic representation! Savoy wasn't actually allowed to contact the HRE regularly, because Louis said no. Ditto Spain. Other Italian states? What are those?
By 1714, Savoy has diplomatic representation at all the major capitals of Europe, frequent ad hoc missions to the less major capitals, and a seat at the table of the Utrecht conference. They may get pushed around by the bigger powers at Utrecht, but it's the first time Savoy has ever had a seat at the table of a congress like this.
So while the side-switching didn't get VA, say, Milan, the decades of relentlessly focused military, financial, and bureaucratic reforms did get Savoy some of what Prussia got under FW.