Aph Austria Week day 2 HC post
Contribution to @hetaliaaustriaweek
Part 1 and explanation how Tf we got to this point are here:
https://www.tumblr.com/dee-bullshit-bonanza/798094269530374144/day-1-days-of-childhood?source=share
Right now, characters of note are: Roderich and Maximilian, two brother personifications of Austria, recently established as duchy and their prince Rudolph I becoming the Holly Roman Emperor, Rudolph, the personification of the city of Vienna and adopted son of Austrians, Constanza , the biological daughter of Maximilian and Albrechta , who is personification of Bavaria and Hedvika or personification of Kingdom of Bohemia, who tried to establish her rule over Austria and also adopted Vienna during her 30 years there.
💜 Getting your prince to become King of Romans is great, but humans have this tiny flaw, which is that they die. Of course, after Rudolf came his son Albert I, who also became King of Romans, but got assassinated only a few years later, and his son failed to establish himself as a Holy Roman Emperor. That made the brothers take a break from the election matters, focusing instead on expanding their territory.
💜 They managed to get a foot in modern day Slovenia, taking its personification, boy named Janez, to Vienna to educate; in their mind it was better to not either just leave them with a random noble, or just alone to see what happens with him, because that could be creating a possible future adversary or could lead to death of a possibly useful ally. Instead, bringing him to the centre of Habsburg lands and raising a kid of around 6-8 alongside Rudolph could make both of them more loyal. Kids at this age are still able to be shaped, even as a nation.
💜 Maximilian also tried to get Constanza back from Bavaria, which led to war. In the end the Pope was forced to intervene, in 1328 making it an independent Bishopric Duchy of Salzburg, with Constanza as its personification. It meant that both of her parents fully lost custody over her and she was to be raised from now on by bishops, and only way to regain the contact with her lead through the Crown of Romans.
💜 Roderich in similar time when his brother was trying to get custody over his daughter proceeded to instead try to expand south, gaining Tyrol and Carinthia, opening them to the Adriatic sea.
💜Worth of mentions are also many, many attempts to gain Bohemia for themselves by marriage or by politics, but those plans ended eventually being foiled. But, both Roderich and Maximilian definitely didn't forget about the Czechs, moving the plans to join the territories to a later date.
💜 But, it wasn't all territories and marzipan: to the West lied the Helvetian Federation, and in it lied Schwyz. Schwyz's personification, Sebastian, known also as Basch, was the youngest at the time member of the Federation, and earlier became an extremely close friend with Maximilian, some people may even say a bit too close. But, the political landscape, ever changing, put them on the opposite sides of war, in which the Helvetian Federation ended up separating, taking an ancestral land of the Habsburg dynasty (castle of Habsburg) with them. Both brothers, and especially Maximilian, considered this a personal betrayal on Sebastian's part, but some friendships and sentiments are hard to extinguish...
💜 Meanwhile, Austrian human rulers were working hard on giving political backing to their personifications and capital. Rudolph IV established Vienna as the capital of the HRE, and also tried to lift Austria to the glory of Archduchy, by faking documents. It wasn't recognised at first, but it's definitely still worth a note.
💜 Soon, due to treaty of Neuberg, Habsburgs split into two, and later three, lines, each of them taking one of the personifications (Albertinan line, controlling historical territory of Austria took Roderich, Leopoldian line, controlling so-called Inner Austria, and later Janez further was split from that when one of Dukes took so-called further Austria and Tyrol.)
It weakened both the dynasty and personifications greatly, Roderich even falling close to deathly ill, and allowed rival dynasties, such as Luxembourgs, to gain more power (which was I think 3rd time early Habsburgs lost Czechia).
💜 In 1438, the split finally ended, by elevation the Habsburgs again to tittle of King of Romans by Albert V, and later Frederick III was brought to the glory of Holy Roman Emperor in 1452, year later elevating Austria to the rank of Archduchy. From this time on, Habsburgs and Austrian personifications retained iron grip on the title of Holy Roman Emperor up to the Empire's dissolution in 1806.
💜 The peace was unfortunately very short lived, as due to upheavals during the reign of Frederick III Vienna was getting unstable, due to rampaging Husitic Mercenaries which the Emperor seemingly ignored. It led to Rudolf, the personification of Vienna, starting to isolate from his adopted family.
💜 This internal struggle lead to a blind spot: both Maximilian and Roderich ignored the danger posed by Hungarians, king Matthias Corvinus and his Black Army. Matter of fact, Roderich, still having a bit of a crush for Erzsebet from their childhood days was unwilling to react.
But, it all came to the conclusion in 1485, when Vienna got conquered, and Rudolf, blinded by an explosive, captured into Hungarian captivity. Austrians regained the city and their boy back only five years later, and this event brought the family closer, Maximilian and Roderich swearing, that they'll never allow themselves to lose Rudolf again. But, Rudolf was left with permanently weakened eyesight from the explosion, despite nation regeneration still bringing him back from almost complete blindness.
💜 Next Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian, due to marriage with Burgundian princess secured the "lower Austria" for the duchy, and also started a rivalry and war with France, as France also wanted Burgundy for itself. But, in the end, Habsburgs won, and Maximilian I became Holy Roman Emperor, coining the well known motto:
Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube,
Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.
And since it's a prompt for the next day, we'll return to it tomorrow, right to see how Austria united with Spain and gained Bohemia, Hungary and Habsburg Netherlands.
Thank you for reading if you got this far into my history book with random ocs!
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