Great work as always. I really liked the details you put into this one. A few things I want to point out...
1291 would also be an important year for the Swiss due to three of the cantons along Lake Lucerne (Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalder) uniting into the Swiss Confederation. This alliance was due to the fact that there was a growth in dairy products due to pasturing horses and cattle along with better trade networks along the mountain passes to the Lowlands (Low Countries) and Italy. All this painted a target on the cantons. This is evident in the fact that in the thirteenth century the Habsburgs started an attempt to control the trade routes between the two parts of the Reich. This would lead to a series of wars with the Austrians for influence over the region.
You could play up the Habsburgs trying to control the trade routes more, since they controlled Poland, Austria, and Bavaria. That would make this feel less like OTL Swiss history and more like how the Swiss handled being in the same empire as the Habsburgs now.
During these conflicts many Swiss forces began to replace the halberd with the pike. The pike would require extensive drilling for soldiers to be able to use properly. The adoption of more pikemen into the army meant that soldiers had to be drilled to a high degree. This essentially redeveloped the Macedonian phalanx for the medieval age. In 1444 at St Jacob-en-Birs this new philosophy would be put to the test when a large French force of Armagnacs allied with Habsburg Archduke Freidrich II and sent 40,000 against 1,200 Swiss. About 25% of the Swiss force were pikemen but they were able to turn the battle into a stalemate. Five hours into the battle though the Swiss began to fallback to St. Jacob hospital. Despite losing almost their entire fighting force the Swiss took with them about 4,000 enemy soldiers. In the fourteenth Century the cantons of Lucerne, Zuruch, Zug and Bern would also join the confederation.
Again, play up the Habsburg internal domination angle. Like the whole French alliance would be great since that would effectively give the Habsburgs and Sigmaringens control over a large part of the Reich and the trade routes.
Another incident came in 1476 when Charles the Bold Duke of Burgundy advanced on Berne. This proved to be one of the pivotal moments in that it proved that the square pike formation was successful. This caused many in the Reich to take notice of the Swiss forces with many nobles starting to use them as bodyguards. By the mid-sixteenth century many Swiss units were recruited by the nobility for their reliable, loyal and ferocious fighting style often fighting with their lords on the frontlines. Due to their limited number as guards many mercenaries used the Halberd and a gold-hilted longsword.
I don't think I had a separate Burgundian vassal at the end of CK2. You could just have it be another French or Habsburg attack.
In later years the Swiss Guard would be best known for their role in being the Guards of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s. Two reasons why the Swiss were used was because of their ability to move in unison and because of their political neutrality. A notable person in regards to this effort was Peter von Hertensein. A lesser cleric who performed different tasks for different Patriarch’s. Hertensein would recommend Kaspar von Silenen, a distant relative, to head this force. The force would consist of 200 men and be funded by the Fugger Banking Family. Despite this some problems arose like the cantons trying to limit the number of men in service to nobles and the occupation itself becoming unpopular. This was because of an incident in 1500 in which the French and Milan Swiss Guard fought each other. Due to these factors and steep competition with other nobles the Patriarch’s could only get 150 troops.
I'm pretty sure the Varangians also guard the Ecumenical Patriarch, but I guess they could've hired the Swiss Guard as well. The political neutrality angle probably wouldn't work here since the Swiss are just another part of the Reich, but they could have been picked due to them being extremely devout and religious.
that would ultimately bring the First Reich down with many Germanic tribes migrating into the Reich.
I've been moving away from the whole "First/Second Empire" terminology lately, but that would be the proper term. I like to think it's an older historiographical term that's not preferred by modern historians but was common in older records.
Friedrich von Hohenzollern, a minor Duke from Brandenburg, would be elected as the new Kaiser.
He was officially the Margrave of the Northern March (Nordmark), and at the time he was elected the Holy Roman Emperor he had been elevated to King of Jerusalem and Germany. The title of Duchy of Brandenburg would be created later (like in OTL).
Friedrich would go on a conquering spree. Taking Pomerania, Poland, Hungary, Dacia, France, the British Isles, Egypt and the Levant. He would even put his son Wilhelm on the throne in Constantinople only for him and his wife to die in 1102.
I might retcon this in the 11th century rework, but you don't have to change anything here at the moment. This is technically correct.
In France for instance a German was placed on the French throne named Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen followed by a massive influx of German settlers
For the record, this happened during Friedrich the Great's reign, not Wilhelmina's. And I've retconned the name to just Sigmaringen at this point.
Some positive events that happened during these years was the “discovery” of both a sea route to India and an entirely new continent known as the Eimericas.
Just to clarify, the Reich and Europeans were largely aware of the New World by the 13th century (because of the Mexica's existence), and Eimerich's "discovery" was more the Reich getting the technology and money it needed to finally cross the ocean and take the fight back to the Mexica homeland. That's how I described it in EU4.
The capital of this new territory was to be the city of Aachen known as the preferred medieval residence of Frankish Emperor Charlemagne and the home of 31 Holy Roman Emperors.
Would a bunch of syndicalists really want to set up their headquarters in a former imperial capital, the home of Charlemagne, and the burial place of 31 emperors?
Vaterländische Front or Fatherland Front. This group led by its founder Engelbert Dollfuss and its Teutonic militias
Engelbert was an apolitical Inquisitor in HOI3, and I doubt that would change here.
szlachta (the traditional Polish nobility)-dominated conservative coalition
After about 800 years of Germanization, I don't think the Polish nobility would refer themselves as szalachta or identify themselves any different from the German nobility in the west.
I think the proper term would be Romanophile.
areas with a Ukrainian minority
I never found a good place to bring this up before, but I like to imagine our Russia having a northern-southern cultural divide. It wouldn't be too big that there are two separate cultures, but something like Northerner and Southerner cultures in the US. The northern Russians, focused on Tsarberg, would have a culture closer to OTL Russian and have more pagan influences as it took much longer for the north to be Christianized, while the southern Russians, focused on Kyiv, have a culture similar to OTL Ukrainian and have more Christian influences since Kyiv and the heart of Kievan Rus had already converted to Christianity for a few decades before the Pagan Resurgence.
In terms of social policy the coalition was in favor of ending Polonisation despite protest by the nobility and fair-right.
*far-right
