Why the hell did he divide his empire and give up the throne of Austia?

Why the hell did he divide his empire and give up the throne of Austia?

Because he was a very incompetent ruler, and he himself became aware of it after a while. So to prevent another case of 'dumbass rules half the world' he divided everything up.

So he was smart enough to know he was terrible?

>ywn be a dumbass who rules half the world
why even live

>Divide his empire
He didn't divide anything! The only thing he did was not nominating his son to be elected next german king and roman empire. Which was rather intelligent because Ferdinand was already king of bohemia and hungary and archduke and would have been an enemy to phillip in the empire if forgoten in the inheritence.

didn't he abdicate as archduke of austria?

>ywn realize how shitty you are at ruling a global empire that you willingly divide it up and give the throne to someone else
>ywn abdicate and live a peaceful life of leisure and luxury without having to deal with the stress of governing such a huge realm

>peaceful life of leisure and luxury
He retired in a monastery fixing clocks,spending time with his bastard son and praying.

I bet the ottomans did this.

real life isn't a map painting simulator

I always figured it was the dual pressure from the growing influence of the German princes in the HRE and the Comunero Revolt, where the local Iberian population weren't too thrilled with him taking the throne, being a foreigner and all.

John of Austria got a pretty raw deal in life. His brother was a total cocksucker.

>implying monasteries were not 5 stars hotels of the late Middle Age-early Renaissance
>implying fixing clocks and playing with your son is not great ways to pass time
>implying praying god in who you believe is not pleasurable

He had true patrician states.

>he was an incompetent ruler
nice meme, he might not have been completely succesful in the end but he won against the french and the ottomans with a beleaguered empire, he even achieved hegemony in Italy.
Accidentally sacking Rome was dumb though.

John recieved the standard treatment of a bastard.If he was legitimized he would had become the heir after Carlo's die so he always avoid a similar situation.He should have supported his claim to Albania or England desu

He give up Austria in favour of his brother Ferdinand, and family was all that mattered. At the end maybe the empire in theory was not united but in practice both countries , Austria and Spain were always allies

>nice meme
No it is fucking not.He was godawful and never kew how to use his victories that usually ended up in peace treaties in which he won nothing
> he might not have been completely succesful in the end but he won against the french
Castile alone overpowered France in Italy and invaded part of France in the second Italian war.He just used the legacy of his grandmother and wasted most of it
> and the ottomans
The Castilian fleet and army was conquering half of North Africa before Charles stopped those campaigns which in the end increased Ottoman and pirate activity.
> with a beleaguered empire, he even achieved hegemony in Italy.
Castile alone was more powerful than France.If you add Aragon (pretty useless but whatever),Naples and Flandes you can beat pretty much anyone at the time.Charles was just awful at everything he tried
>Accidentally sacking Rome was dumb though.
Yes.As all the stuff that he did

so basically everything he did right doesn't count? Because Castille? Moot point.

France's army was considered superior at the time, if we go by numbers and values they should have beaten the Spanish in Italy, they had more heavy mounted troops and those were supposedly superiorly disciplined than the Spanish counterparts to that nullifies the supposed inherent advantage Castille has on France.

Not really related to Charles himself because he happened to have really good generals who saved him there but I wanted to adress that.

What the fuck can you do at that point when you're suddenly dealing with conflicts across the globe when communication was so slow? When everyone tries to start shit with you on a regular basis?

It all came down to his empire simply not having the institutions to deal with all that shit so it came down to him and he didn't know how to handle all of it either.

He was doomed to fail, he faced issues almost as complex as the modern united states faces today. But the US actually has the institutions to deal with all of it.
He was doomed to fail in the end.

I feel it's unfair to call him incompetent because of this. Just unsuccesful.

>France's army was considered superior at the time, if we go by numbers and values they should have beaten the Spanish in Italy, they had more heavy mounted troops and those were supposedly superiorly disciplined than the Spanish counterparts to that nullifies the supposed inherent advantage Castille has on France.
Yeah but at the end was demonstrated that all was false. And yes all of that counts because first of all he was king of Spain but did nothing in his favour.

>so basically everything he did right doesn't count? Because Castille? Moot point.
Pretty much.Isabel made Castile a powerhouse and the region had a thriving middle class until Charles chose to put regulaions on Castillian production to benefit Flandes.
>France's army was considered superior at the time
No.After the first Italian war the Castillian army was considered the best in the world and crushed France alone in the second Italian war
>they had more heavy mounted troops and those were supposedly superiorly
Because the Castillian and Aragonese armies were always based around light infantry and light cavalry due fighting mostly skirmishes.The Castillian army compensated this with the massive use of archebuses and crossbows which proved to be the better tactic overall
>that nullifies the supposed inherent advantage Castille has on France
Castille was more centralized, with an standing army and more importantly better soldiers
>What the fuck can you do at that point when you're suddenly dealing with conflicts across the globe when communication was so slow? When everyone tries to start shit with you on a regular basis?
Charles was an awful administrator overall. His tax policy was retarded and he ended up ingressing fewer money than the catholic kings despite all the wealth that was coming from America.On top of that he never ever was able to capitalize a victory (Pavia or Mühlberg) which ended up costing him a lot of money.After Pavia he should have been able to just vassalize France but he just chose to take the county of Burgandy back...
> It all came down to his empire simply not having the institutions to deal with all that shit so it came down to him and he didn't know how to handle all of it either.
He demolished institutions that worked and never bothered to copy her grand mother's steps
>He was doomed to fail
Because he was a moron.His brother Ferdinand would have done a way better job by far as he did later on in the HRE

>Burgandy
Hurr

>.After Pavia he should have been able to just vassalize France but he just chose to take the county of Burgandy back
Vassalise a country as big as France with a single victory.

And user showed his true colours as a dumbass

>Vassalise a country as big as France with a single victory.
It wasn't a single victory.france was headless and he could have sent his army to rampage France while negotiating the deal with his prisioner the king of France.If he had continued the military actions inFrance he could have won a lot more in the peace treaty.Instead he chose a peace that was meant to be broken and Burgandy
>And user showed his true colours as a dumbass

>a single victory
>Pavia
Charles had Francis and his family as prisioners.The treaty of Madrid was too benevolent with Francis and pretty much everyone agrees that it was a dumb move

I really can't do a textwall war with you but my main gripe comes down to the lack of direction and the lack of institutions to cause such a direction in that turbulent period his empire had.
Rulers are usually succesful when they can shape a directed policy to govern and deal with foreign affairs. This is easier when there are few but dominating issues. With Charles the issues were all over the place.
It's this specific situation that makes a lack of institutions very showing. They are then needed to make sense of it all.

Charles was also a bit of a scatterbrain which made matters worse. The confusion must have made his life a pain, and contributed to him making poor judgements.

His ironic abolishment of institutions was probably an attempt to gain more control over his situation when everything was seemingly spinning out of control. He couldn't realize the central problem at hand and I can't blame him for that in all the confusion.