Particularly eerie is watching the history of the German - Northern Italian confederation, the so-called ' Holy Roman Empire ', which Voltaire quipped was ' neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire ' ; however, at least it kept the Germans & Austrians internally busy fighting amongst themselves. But then Napoleon botched everything in Europe by frightening the Austrian emperor into dissolving it ( Napoleon had conquered a majority of the electorates, & the electors were their ' electoral college '. If Napoleon had just left well enough alone, it is conceivable that scores of millions of lives could have been spared in the next century. Beware of great leaders riding in on white horses promising conquest & glory.
a more accurate title would have been - germanic/swiss/italian history.
ReplyDeletethose tribes sure changed houses often.
Particularly eerie is watching the history of the German - Northern Italian confederation, the so-called ' Holy Roman Empire ', which Voltaire quipped was ' neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire ' ; however, at least it kept the Germans & Austrians internally busy fighting amongst themselves. But then Napoleon botched everything in Europe by frightening the Austrian emperor into dissolving it ( Napoleon had conquered a majority of the electorates, & the electors were their ' electoral college '. If Napoleon had just left well enough alone, it is conceivable that scores of millions of lives could have been spared in the next century. Beware of great leaders riding in on white horses promising conquest & glory.
ReplyDelete