Table of content
1444 AD - 1449 AD
1450 AD -1457 AD
1457 AD - 1459 AD
1460 AD - 1469 AD
1470 AD - 1479 AD
1480 AD - 1489 AD
Holy Roman Empire slideshow (10-years interval)
Austria, 1444 AD - 1449 AD
11 November 1444
We’ll be playing as Austria. Austria starts as the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. According to google Austria’s motto is: “Austriae est imperare orbi universo “. Roughly translated it means: “It is up to Austria to rule the world”. Well…….Let’s hope so. But I highly doubt it.
Not over a century ago (irl) there was a ruler who was a born Austrian and had…..similar ideas. It didn’t end too well for him. But we won’t let that stop us. We shall try a more diplomatic approach than he did. Our goal will mainly be to unite the Holy Roman Empire into one country and stay alive. We shall be playing ironman so fingers crossed.
Austria is fairly well loved by their imperial electors. Only Bohemia doesn’t because they are our rival. And that will probably only get worse in the foreseeable future.
At the start of the game Hungary, Burgundy and Bohemia are set as my rivals. I expect that Burgundy will be preoccupied with France. So Bohemia and Hungary will be the most prominent threats for now. We will rival Bohemia and Hungary from the start. To get a good amount of power projection we’ll also rival Burgundy.
An alliance with Poland might help us put some extra pressure on Bohemia and Hungary in case of a future war.
Venice might also be helpful against Hungary. They are rivals with Hungary so certainly something to gain for us there.
The final alliance will be Switzerland. The main reason is that they are in between the biggest part of Austria and a more remote.
That will leave us two relations we are not using. Suggestions are most welcome!!!
So let’s start this!!!
Anno 1444
12 November 1444 : Poland accepted to join an alliance with our great nation.
2 December 1444 : Venice sent a diplomat to improve relations with our people.
8 December 1444 : Our diplomat Adolf had to convince Switzerland a bit. Using his immense charismatic skills he managed to make Switzerland accept an alliance with us. I bet he uses another surname as his stagename.
13 December 1444 : Not much luck with Venice yet. Our people are not convinced we should form an alliance with them. Hopefully the Venetian representative can change their minds. Or will the people realize the enemy of our enemy Hungary should be our friend eventually??? We made it our primary goal to form an alliance with them today. If we make it happen we should be regarded more prestigious and have more diplomatic power.
Anno 1445
22 Januari, 1445 : After a request from Poland we accepted a royal marriage with our noble allies. What will this bring in the future?
10 March, 1445 : After the hard work from the Venetian diplomat our people finally realized there is nothing wrong with forming an alliance with the Venetians. May today go into history as the day on which Austria and Venice created the foundation of a long and mutually profitable cooperation.
11 March, 1445 : Our advisors suggested we should improve our relations with Saxony, one of the imperial electors.
10 April, 1445 : Our nation has closely taken a look on the actions of our rival Hungary. Hungary has been forging some dangerous alliances. Those alliances threaten us and our ally Poland. Something has to be done!!! To prevent an attack from Hungary we decided to try and ally ourselves with their ally, The Teutonic Order. This should decrease the chances of Hungary attacking us. And even if they do The Teutonic Order will probably side with us. On the other hand it would mean we cannot attack Hungary while keeping the alliance in place. The Teutonic Order shares borders with Bohemia, our other rival. They might be helpful after all…. Now let s hope we can get that alliance arranged sometime soon. At the moment our people do not think much of each other, so there is work to be done. We will do our part and raise their populations opinion of our country. Let’s hope they do the same…..
Anno 1446
1 March, 1446 : Tensions along our borders with Hungary have given us a claim on one of their provinces, Sopron. Should we attack??? Do we even have enough military power to attack them???
9 March, 1446 : The tension between Bohemia and The Teutonic Order has made the people of the Teutonic order see reason to form a military alliance with us!!! The pieces are set. The time for a war with Bohemia is near. Unfortunately Bohemia is allied with The Palatinate and Brandenburg. Both are electors in the Holy Roman Empire. Our position as ruler of the Holy Roman Empire might be endangered!!!
23 March, 1446 : The allies are in place. But we can’t just attack Bohemia without a good reason. Therefore I sent Adolf, my faithful diplomat, to make “arrangements”.
Anno 1447
17 March, 1447 : Adolf returned from his mission. He managed to get a claim on Moravia in Bohemia. It had something to do with a great-grandfather of my grandmother who used to rule it in the old days. At least that is what the documents said…
18 March 1447 : Our allies Switzerland and Poland betrayed us!!!! When we decided to declare the long anticipated war on Bohemia, they abandoned us. The Polish ambassadors informed us that they “liked” Bohemia too much to declare war on. And Switzerland did not join us because they felt we are a threat to their independence. If they act like this we certainly might become a threat. Anyway Venice proved to be a faithful ally. And The Teutonic Order joined us as well. We are at war with Bohemia, Bohemia’s vassal Silecia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia the minor partner in a personal union with Saxony and The Palatinate. While we are at war with Thuringia we might as well try to end their personal union and have them release some vassals in the process.
24 March 1447 : Our diplomat Clemens returned from his mission to Saxony. 2 years he has been in Saxony to improve their opinion of us. Without much success. The council still isn’t convinced the Saxons like use enough. We might send Adolf instead after the war.
25 April 1447 : The first victory is ours!!! We won the battle of Ostmarch. Both of our allies are also moving their troops in, this looks promising.
14 Augustus 1447 : Those damn Poles!!! We should never have trusted them. They declared war on the Teutonic order today. Both countries are our allies and we are forced to take a side. We decided to help The Teutonic Order since Poland refused to join our previous war. Hopefully we can avoid heavy casualties from this war. We will try to remain on the sideline as much as we can. The best case scenario for us would be a white peace.
Anno 1448
16 Januari, 1448 : We have an heir. His name is Leopard Wilhelm von Habsburg. He has a strong claim on the throne.
24 Februari, 1448 : Poland entered a military alliance with Bohemia. It seems our friendship was not meant to last very long.
26 May 1448 : The war with Bohemia is going fairly well. Unfortunately we cannot say the same about the other war we got involved in. But for now our focus is to win the war against Bohemia!!!
5 Juni 1448 : The Hansa, a country within the Holy Roman Empire, has annexed a province of another Holy Roman Empire member. As the emperor we should force them to once again release the nation. Unfortunately we are already involved in 2 wars. So maybe later????
17 November, 1448 : Bavaria annexed a province in The Holy Roman Empire. We should liberate that country too soon. So much to do and so little time…
Anno 1449
31 Januari, 1449 : Today we confirmed the truths written in the “Privilegium Maius”. This meant changing our government type. We are now an Archduchy!!! Nothing has really changed. The only different thing is that we can maintain one more diplomatic relation. So a big improvement for Austria!!!
2 Februari, 1449 : Today Denmark annexed a province from the Holy Roman Empire. We should get it back! This is even worse than minor nations in the Holy Roman Empire waging war on each other. An outsider is invading our lands and they must be stopped.
22 March, 1449 : Peace with Bohemia! They decided to agree to our wise demands. They will end their alliance with Poland, release Silicia and cede Moravia to us. Now we need to end the other war somehow. We are really low on manpower so we can not do an awful lot against them.
12 September, 1449 : We sent Adolf to improve relations with the Saxony. Hopefully he will have more success than Clemens.
30 December, 1449 : Clemens, a 48 year old bishop, who is loyal to us became cardinal today. We are represented in the college of cardinals now!
Questions that need answering in the future: What should we do after we make peace with Poland? There are many options. We got a bunch of Casus Belli's to release occupied nations. That would mean goint to war with: Bavaria, the Hansa or Denmark. We have 2 free diplomatic relation slots. Should we ally some people, or just royal marriage someone and hope for PU's? Should we diplomatically vassalize Switzerland because they abandoned us on the call to arms? What should we do with Poland? Forgive them or keep hating them for the things they did to us? Oh and we need some time to recover from the war. And we may need to suck up to some electors to ensure our continued emperorness.
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