OOC: Got one thing wrong in the previous post (which appeared long, long ago...). Its supposed to be Tsar Basil V, not II, as there actually was a "Basil IV" during the Time of Troubles.
IC:
1720-1747.
The second stage of the Age of Reaction was often called the "Thaw". The reaction was somewhat relaxed; many liberal reforms were enacted in most countries; science advanced rapidly. This wasn't, however, an entirely pleasant time - for it was also a time of war, war all over the world. Also, it was a time of preparation for the darkest days that were yet to come, days of revolutionary and reactionary terror, days when passions would run high and which were definitely a good time for future historians, but nearly unbearable for those who lived and died during it, days when the Reaction made one last grasp for power.
All that was yet to come, but it gave this time period a tragic feeling when one looks back at it now.
At the time, the new-found dominance of the UK was challenged by the resurgent might of Spain. It was not yet a direct challenge, but clearly, the two greatest maritime empires in the world were fated to clash. A few naval incidents that are usually called the "War of 1725" (although they occured in such a comparatively-wide timeframe as 1723-1730) only made it even more clear to those in charge of both empires that they will soon have to fight. And so, money was thrown into the development of New Amsterdam and Havanna, Batavia and Manila, and many other ports beside that; both sides were preparing for a globe-spanning war. Ironically, all their preparations were first proven to have been completely irrelevant and useless, and then, after a while, to be quite useful after all. For before the widely-anticipated Anglo-Spanish War, came a series of European wars, beginning with the War of French Succession in 1737.
France, in spite of its immense potential, was only getting worse at the time. After Phillip VII (the Orleanist candidate who came to power after the downfall of Conde and the end of the Commune) died in 1701, his successors proved to be even less competent. Under Louis XVI (r. 1717-1719), there was a very brief resurgence, but, alas, he died very young all of the sudden. As of 1736, France was ruled by a fatally ill, though young king - Louis XVII. He was considered an idiot by some, a promising ruler who was held back by incompetent ministers by others, and, most realistically, a very capable man who nonetheless felt himself to be unable to improve anything in France, as no reforms could drag it out of its predicament. Only a revolution could save France, he thought (according to this latter point of view, ofcourse; he never explicitly stated this). No-no, not a republican revolution. What was needed was a revolution from above, a whole new ruling elite, and also, an experienced one. Which was perhaps why he, against convention, arranged for his successor to be a rather distant relative - Charles III of Burgundy. Louis XVII, indeed, seems to have hoped for an union of Burgundy and France, a most powerful combination indeed, in which power would still eventually fall to the French, who would be an ethnic majority. Not to mention that the Burgundian Wittelsbachs themselves have often intermarrried with formerly-French gentry.
Ofcourse, the document by which France was to be inherited by Charles III was immediately challenged - and not just because Charles was, as said before, quite far away in the line of succession. Louis XVII died too early as well; had he lived longer, he might have had time to win more support for this document, perhaps revising some French laws in the process. Thankfully (for Charles III), the post-Condean French laws of succession were quite ambigous, so regardless, the Burgundian monarch managed to press his claim and, when the Parisian parlement defied him and declared Louis' cousin Phillip king (as Louis-Phillip I), sent forces to "overthrow the usurper Louis-Phillip".
The prospects of an united Burgundy-France weren't much liked in neither UK nor Spain. In fact, as the Burgundian armies routed the French one at Reims, both countries decided to put their rivalry aside for now and to back up Louis-Phillip. The joint Anglo-Franco-Spanish forces were to rally at Paris, but ofcourse not all went according to the plan. Before the Spanish forces could join up with them, the Anglo-French ones were already engaged in battle with Burgundians. Their delaying action on the Marne succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the UK commander, Charles Oglethorpe - the Burgundians weren't slowed down, they pulled back altogether.
And then they appeared just to the south of Paris, isolated Oglethorpe's forces and crushed them, proceeding to besiege the rest of the Anglo-French force in Paris.
This spectacular success, unfortunately, wasn't properly used. Awed by the awesome fortifications of Paris, Charles III settled down for a long siege, swayed by his advisors. Alas, this put his besieging army between the hammer of the Parisian garrison and the anvil of Don Castigliar's Spanish army. What has finally doomed this venture was an accident when a Burgundian scout, who saw the advancing Spaniards, was hit by a bullet of one the Spanish vanguard infantrymen.
Time went by, victories and defeats passed, allies became enemies and enemies friends, monarchs were born and died, ministers rose to power and fell from grace... but a Spanish soldier remained a Spanish soldier. And like in the good old days, a lot of battle-hardened, patriotic and furious Spanish soldiers charged at the Burgundian army, overwhelmed its lines and routed it, with Charles III only barely escaping east.
But the war went on - Charles III raised another army, groupped it up with his reserves and, in 1738, sent a diversionary force into France while himself attacking Netherlands. Having gained experience from his last campaign, he quickly defeated the Dutch forces and seized Arnhem, threatening the Hague and Amsterdam. The army sent to France, for its part, won a spectacular victory over a medium-sized Franco-Spanish force at Troyes. Not everything went well, though - the British, with some Spanish and French contingents, have invaded Burgundian Flanders and captured Ghent, threatening Brussels as well...
In the meantime, decisive events were taking place further east. Sweden's Charles XII has decided to make one more bid for supremacy, only this time not in Germany but rather in the Baltic. A casus belli was being manufactured in Erfurt in 1739, where the Swedes proposed another project for a German Empire, a one that excluded Schlewsig-Holstein, Bremen-Verden and Swedish Pommerania, thus drastically reducing potential Swedish influence within it. This one has gained much more support, including, surprisingly enough, Georg August of Brunswick, the son of Charles XII's archenemy. However, Bavaria bitterly opposed it, and so did the newly-independent Saxony. Poland also made its dissatisfaction clear... falling into Charles XII's trap. He protested Polish interference in German affairs, and tried to organize a joint German diplomatic demarche, which was sabotaged by Maximilian III of Bavaria as well; Charles XII responded by declaring him a Polish puppet. Maximilian's supposed "puppet master", Jakub Ludwig Sobieski, the king of Poland, was by then already preparing for war. He negotiated a renewed alliance with Russia and forced Brandenburg to ally with Poland as well, while pushing for UK to also involve itself in the coming war with Sweden. Theoretically, the UK didn't mind the idea, but the war with Burgundy distracted its attention. Clearly, some sort of a solution needed to be found...
But before said solution could be found, the Second German War already begun: a mob of German rebels killed a Swedish soldier in Pommerania and the Swedes blamed Bavaria, declaring war. Reingold Wrangel led a Swedish expeditionary corps to Brandenburg, with the help of some defecting forces, and defeated the Poles at Berlin. Brandenburg immediately defected again, rejoining the Swedish coalition, and soon Wrangel's greatly-enhanced army met up with that of Brunswick at Eichsfeld. Hesse-Kassel, until then undecided, pledged its support for the second Erfurt Plan as well. And meanwhile, in what Charles XII alone knew to be the real main theatre, the Polish fleet was destroyed by the far superior (Charles has been building it up since the First German War's end) Swedish one, followed by that of Russia when Tsar Basil III declared war on Sweden as well. Polish troops reinforced Saxony and once more threatened Berlin, but failed to intercept Wrangel. Russians invaded Estonia and Finland, but in both cases were stopped by the formidable Swedish fortifications in the region. After the Russians were routed at Kohtla-Jarve, the spectre of Swedish supremacy in Northern and Central Europe appeared before the British and Burgundian politicians alike. Not wasting a moment, they begun persuading their respective kings that maybe they can resume ravaging each other's homelands after ravaging Sweden a bit for a change.
So after some more inconclusive skirmishes and battles, a peace treaty was signed between Burgundy and the UK. To the dismay of the French, Burgundy annexed Picardy (including modern OTL Nord Pas-de-Calais, apart from the city of Calais itself which remained British) and Champagne regions. On the other hand, Charles III renounced claims to the rest of France and withdrew his forces from Netherlands. UK was now free to prepare for an expedition against the Swedes, while Burgundy was negotiating with Bavaria, hoping to get the most in return for its intervention in this German War.
The Swedes, however, learned of it and sped up their plans. They also brought in another ally of their own - the Ottoman army, reformed and rebuilt, set out to reconquer the Danubean Principalities, Yedisan and Crimea. Attacks came from the Balkans, from the sea and even from the Caucasus. The pro-Turkish faction in Moldavia rose up in arms, and Crimean Tatars cut the Russian namestnik (governor) into little pieces, encouraged by the Turkish invasion. And back north, the Swedes have launched a counter-offensive in Russia, besieging Narvensk, whereas other Swedish forces have captured Danzig and Konigsberg, their new bases of operations. In Germany, at least, not all went according to the Swedish plan - the Burgundians finally reached a secret concensus with the Bavarians and soon Charles III led, or rather sent (as he no longer was as enthusiastic about commanding in the battlefield as he used to be), his armies in the opposite direction to their last theatre of action. If France was not to be Wittelsbach... maybe Germany could do instead?
To understand the nature of the secret protocol between Bavaria and Burgundy, one has to understand that, well, noone lives forever, not even dynasties. The Bavarian Wittelsbachs were dying out. Letting their lands fall to the Swedish "relatives" was out of question. There was only Burgundy left - Burgundy or a royal marriage with one of the significant houses, such as the Sobieskis, who will then provide a heir from a new, cadet branch. But that mattered no longer - elector Maximiliam III has made his choice and decided that the realms of Burgundy and Bavaria were to be united under a single Wittelsbach ruler after all, even if not him.
Although the Swedes were still winning, the sudden British and Burgundian intervention gave Charles XII a pause. At first he tried to negotiate separately, perhaps even to win over Burgundy to his side, but all of that failed. The UK only agreed to sign peace if Sweden pulls out of Germany. For a while, Charles XII considered signing a cease-fire with all of his enemies, lest Sweden be crushed in a multi-front war, but changed his mind after a two great victories - the fall of Narvensk and the annihilation of a Polish army at Elbing. That opened a window of opportunity before Charles XII and his best general, Johan Rejlander, who was the one who won at Elbing. Now, with new reinforcements and with the support of some discontent Polish nobles who disliked the growth of royal power and were ready to ally even with the Swedes to defend their priveleges, Rejlander pushed south, towards the big prize. Warsaw.
The Polish capital was, ofcourse, well-fortified and well-garrisoned; furthermore, the king himself resolved to remain there and "help" organize the defenses. But most Polish forces were distracted in German and Turkish theatres of warfare. The victory at Narvensk, on the other hand, allowed the Swedes to divert most troops from the Russian theatre to Poland, even though Rejlander knew that he had no time to wait for them. They will thus garrison his earlier gains, and support him when the Poles strike back.
Rarely do things happen in war just as intended by any man, but the beginning of Rejlander's Polish campaign in 1740 was definitely an exception. All resistance was swept aside, city after city surrendered, the gates of Warsaw were opened by traitors, and indeed the only thing that went wrong was that Jakub Ludwig and a few of his retainers fought their way out of the city and fled for the ancient capital - Krakow. A puppet king from the rigidly anti-Sobiesky house of Czartoryski was set up, and the Swedes immediately forced-marched towards Krakow, aware that, most probably, the Poles will try to rally their troops there and merge them with their forces in Germany and the eastern Polish territories.
The Swedes almost beat General Asnyk's army (heretofore deployed in the German theatre) to it, but for Adam de Biran. The French emigre engineer's steam-powered mechanical supply wagons and artillery movers, by then refined and developed to be quite useful rather than a burden, allowed Wlodzimierz Asnyk to speed up his advance across the relatively undifficult, well-roaded landscapes of eastern Germany and western Poland. In a fierce battle, Rejlander was stopped at the gates of Krakow and forced to retreat. Along the way, he was harrased by partisans and Polish light cavalry. Considering that by then, autumn has set in and the roads were being ruined by the rains, any lesser commander might have lost his army altogether. Rejlander didn't; he preserved it as a fighting force and managed to retreat to Warsaw with it, fighting back an overeager Polish assault. But not even a thousand victories could now change the fact that the campaign was lost - Poland was not to be knocked out. Rejlander's lucky star has gone out, and the sun was beginning to set over Sweden.
In the year of 1741, the latter if not the former fact became even more obvious. Sweden, Turkey and their lesser allies suffered a series of defeats on practically all fronts. The British fleet crushed the Swedish one at Kattegat, thus opening the way into the Baltic Sea and soon paralyzing the Swedish maritime supply and communication routes; meanwhile, HMM ("His Majesty's Maritimes", or "His Majesty's Maritime Infantry Corps") have secured several key coastal cities in Norway and Denmark, linking up with the local rebels. In Germany, Reingold Wrangel's army was finally trapped by the Bavaro-Burgundian armies at Fulda after several months of succesful outmaneuvering, and Reingold has surrendered, causing Brunswick to defect, turning on the Swedes once again. Brunswickian armies quickly occupied Bremen-Verden and Hamburg. Brandenburg tried to snatch Stralsund, but without Polish help, they were fought back by the better-trained Swedes; yet that, along with the succesful defense of Narvensk from the Russians, was just about the only good news they had heard, for at the same time Rejlander had to escape from the burning Warsaw, as its citizens rose up in arms and killed the Swedish-imposed king. Though Rejlander once more managed to save his army from total annihilation, and got reinforcements from the [East] Prussian junkers by promising their land independence, this still was a grand propaganda victory for Jakub Ludwig, who also reiceved the satisfaction of catching the Czartoryskis and indeed most of his opposition in the Sejm red-handed. He had most of them imprisoned, and that has become the true turning point in the political struggle between the king and his nobles; from now on, the Sejm would rapidly give up all of its powers and be reduced to a nominal representative council only, whereas the Sobiesky Dynasty was now firmly established as the rulers of Poland.
And in the meantime, the Holy Alliance (with the notable exception of Spain, which by then has turned to the Atlantic Ocean once more and was also busy consolidating its new North African empire) has once more declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Venetians crushed the Turkish fleet in a decisive battle at Naxos and quickly exploited its naval supremacy, securing Cyprus, Rhodes and several Aegean islands, and taking Athens in a concentrated assault from the land and the sea. Cut off from the Sublime Porte, the governor of Tripolitania launched a rebellion and founded a sultanate of his own, stretching all over Libya. Hungarian and Wallacho-Moldavian forces, backed up by a limited Polish contingent, defeated the Turkish offensive at Ploesti and then counter-attacked, taking Silistra and Constance; Myklos I of Hungary, son of Pal the Liberator, personally commanded another Hungarian army in the siege of Belgrade, though he was eventually forced to raise it due to logistical problems and a disease that broke out in his camp. Russians have stopped the Turko-Tartar advance in Crimea at the great new fortress of the Perekop, and later shoved their enemies back into the sea, albeit the new Russian Black Sea Fleet was quickly destroyed in an overambitious raid on the important Turkish port of Sinope.