The purpose of history is not to explain the past. It matters little what the Romans did or did not do. The purpose is to explain the present.
The key date in European history is 1870. The key place is Ems. If you understand this you understand everything not so much about then or there, but about here and now.
Modern European history turns on the German question. It explains what is happening in Germany, France and the EU generally and it also explains what just happened in Britain.
Germans have been united and divided for centuries and it has never been quite clear where Germany was. They were united first into the Holy Roman Empire. But this loose collection of places that were neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire included people who were not Germans and didn’t unify those Germans that it did include. This was our problem.
Napoleon humiliated Prussia at Jena–Auerstedt (1806) and Austria at Austerlitz (1805). France with the help of many who were not French became the dominant European power, requiring the combined forces of almost everyone else to defeat it twice at Leipzig (1814) and Waterloo (1815). France since then has been trying to relive the glory days rather like Greece has been trying to relive the days of Alexander and Aristotle. Both have failed.
[Interesting Read]
See Also:
(1) The End of the Democratic German Revolution
(2) Brexit-bashing civil servants deliberately attempted to sabotage UK’s EU exit
(3) Brussels power grab: Guy Verhofstadt demands EU take control of taxes in budget
(4) Boris Johnson to SELL OFF Channel 4 ‘no business for public to own it’
(5) Sturgeon stunned after Marr ridicules SNP indyref2 bluff ‘Absolutely nothing you can do!’
