Chapter 5: 8th of June 1553 till 14th of November 1567
Immediately after the declaration of the Emperor reached all courts in Europe, alliances were made: Austria led the Catholic League with already 3 electors joining them (Palatine, Salzburg and Trier) while France, despite being Catholic decided to join the Protestant League to weaken Austria together with the minor nations of Alsace, Tuscany and Ravensburg. This was just the opening moves of these nations, as lots of other nations all over Europe would join. Prussia would, for now, stand by and watch how these Leagues developed before taking any action themselves.
Spies even intercepted letters between the King of France and the leader of Riga which basically say:
“Yo bro France, we’re Riga as you may know (or not), and we heard you joined the Protestant League you know, and we are in the same League. Could we, you know, be friends now?” while France answered: “Why not?”
Much of these letters were intercepted, due to Prussia’s central position between West and East-Europe. This is how the Regent-Electress and the prince heard about Castille joining Austria’s side as soon as France joined, as well as Bohemia. On the other side, the Polish also joined the French in the Protestant League. This also made Bohemia rethink their opinion about Austria and announced they weren’t treating them anymore as rivals. Prussia was still waiting a bit more for the right moment.
In the meantime, Prussia’s economy was slowly but steadily growing due to investments in manufactures in provinces with precious goods, such as Greifswald which produces salt as well as cloth in Berlin and Sternberg.
Finally, on the 1st of March 1556, Ferdinand I von Hohenzollern was old enough to be crowned king of Prussia, and immediately announced his sister to be his heir. Vera von Hohenzollern (3/3/5) was a very decent choice. And in case his sister would die, he announced that he was fertile enough to produce another heir if needed. Just so that every pretender knows...
Not much happened for 2 years to come, Prussia was minding their own business and looking how the Leagues were developing. Unfortunately for Hesse, they declared a war and although the details are not known, they lost one way or another, and were reduced to a OPM.
This was a wake-up call for the fresh King-Elector to start expanding the realm before whole Europe would explode in this League stuff. He decided to invade Saxony and regain the Prussian core on Leipzig. We got this core due to some event about Protestant immigrants or Protestant emphasisers with Prussia. Which is very useful now.
And well, not much to say: Saxony was annexed entirely into Prussia. This made our heir Vera feel very Righteous despite not doing much but well…
Time passed again until Prussia needed another war to expand: Braunschweig was the next target, a OPM which received its independence at the cost of Hesse.
After sieging Memmingen and Augsburg, Braunschweig’s allies, we annexed Braunschweig. We’re also dragged in a war against Tuscany by Austria, which we accepted but kept out of. Sneaky Austria broke the alliance between Ravensburg and Tuscany first, using their GP status to put pressure on Ravensburg. Tuscany didn’t stand a chance with Spain first and Austria secondly declaring on them.
The first university of Königsberg opened this year, and of course the King-Elector is sponsoring the scientific developments which will help Prussia advance in this age. These developments immediately led to us embracing another administrative idea, also enabling our second last national idea group granting us additional national manpower modifier +25% and reducing recruitment time by 10%.
With this new university in Prussia, the King-Elector demanded an overview of the nation to be made: it clearly shows the development of Prussia during the past decades: we have 40 provinces with 438 development in total, a big difference with our starting position in 1444. We are allied (and unofficially in control) with Poland, also Austria, Hesse and Holland. Besides the first two, not much big partners to be honest, but we’re managing fine.
Muscovy on the other hand was doing poorly, very poorly. Being stomped by Poland-Lithuania and Ottomans for quite a while now, the Kalmar Union joins the beating too, leading to Muscovy to announce their bankruptcy. I hope the AI spends its points in development or tech first before they do it, but I don’t have high hopes for that. Hopefully Muscovy will recover…
To strengthen our alliances a bit, we decided to ally Mainz. Mainly because AE buffer, but also because for the moment they’re blocking our patch southwards (owning Ansbach) and well, we can make use of it if we want.
After our alliance was made, Poland took a bite out of Muscovy themselves in the north near Neva (former Livonian Order), but Prussia was doing fine outside the League for now. As it happened to be, on the 24th of May 1567 the King-Elector was debating the situation, convinced joining the Protestant side would be the perfect timing. As he was signing the document though, a messenger run into the King-Elector’s room, shouting:
“THE OTTOMANS HAVE ANNOUNCED FRANCE AS THEIR RIVAL!”
Everyone was silent for a moment, until the King-Elector realised what this meant:
„NEIN NEIN NEIN, scheiße!“
"F*** this, tell the Protestants they can forget about our support in the coming war, we’re going to sit this out. Who invented this whole League matter by the way?! Now get out of my room!"
The day after reports confirmed the King-Elector’s decision: the Ottomans have the biggest army in the known world, amounting to 4 times as much as the second biggest army from England, around 183 000 soldiers. If war would erupt, Prussia would be swallowed by the Catholic League. If we were to survive, war must be avoided. Prussia would not join the Leagues. A bitter disappointment.
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Once again my apologies for the long delay, I will have to see when I'll have time to do the next part (November is going to be crucial this semester) so bear with me if it takes a while again. It's very appreciated.
Also, because of the soon to be released DLC and patch I decided to play the rest of the campaign from 1690 till 1820 this weekend, hence why it took a little bit longer too than expected to release this but now that I've got everything there is nothing between me and writing, so that's a good sign
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