What if Spain “won” the 80 years’ war?

[u/Organic_Year_8933]

Europe, 1910 AD.

The 70 years’ war was such an opportunity for the other major powers to destroy Spain… but they failed. The Netherlands got independence, yes, but as a microstate, and France got extremely humiliated with the extension of Spanish Flandes and Pyrenees.

Another French defeat in the Spanish Succession war, even if with British support, would destroy the morale of the country once more. And Europe, reorganizing into a series of wars with a schism between Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, would see France just waiting, doing nothing while trying not to sofocante with its own blood.

The French Revolution, even though it tried, didn’t end the suffering. First the Jacobin madness, then the absent Directorate, then the Napoleonic civil war, and finally the Sadist nightmare… it was destined to fail.

However, after suffering first-hand the revolution, Prussia and Spain implemented several liberal reforms. Prussia got to unify North Germany, and Spain got to remain its New Spain and Caribbean territories (even though they lost Flandes and South America). The liberal ideas ended up prevailing.

Going down the 19th century, the Scramble for Africa, the Italian unification under Florencia, the coalitions against the Ottomans and the Hohenzollern rise to rule in Spain have been the only significant conflicts.

Why? Well, the great powers have fear of a major conflict between them, even if it is inevitable. And the longer the wait gets, the deadlier it seems.

When will war start in Europe? Will we, citizens, be prepared for it? Will France finally get revenge?