Germany was so close to becoming Luxembourg. What a cruel twist of fate that Karl's plans didn't come into effect. Speaking of his plans, I'd love to ask the man about how likely he judged each option to play out in his favour, especially the Habsburg one...
Those hyper nationalist historians from the XIX century are clueless. The golden bull was a blessing - it gave Germany it's federal character, and thus all the many Kings Dukes and Counts ruled over small terriroties, each not powerfull enough to dominate the others (at least up until the XVIII C) thus everyone of them had to give diligent care to the administration and development of his small dominion if he wanted to make it prosperous and somewhat influential. And so all of germany benefited in total. A Louis XIV or a Phillip II didn't have to give this sort of care, they had everything statuswise, moneywise and political powerwise without diligent care. To the loss of the general population, and overall prosperity of their countries as a whole. Let's hope, the demonization of the HRE will stop, even if it wasn't neither holy, nor roman nor an empire.
I mean, if your are a XIX century historian and you are looking back to the 30 years war, the Napoleonic wars or how the French and British were building enormous overseas empires it is sort of understandable to think that the lack of centralisation kept Germany back from playing in the big boy club.
Germany was so close to becoming Luxembourg. What a cruel twist of fate that Karl's plans didn't come into effect.
Speaking of his plans, I'd love to ask the man about how likely he judged each option to play out in his favour, especially the Habsburg one...
Those hyper nationalist historians from the XIX century are clueless. The golden bull was a blessing - it gave Germany it's federal character, and thus all the many Kings Dukes and Counts ruled over small terriroties, each not powerfull enough to dominate the others (at least up until the XVIII C) thus everyone of them had to give diligent care to the administration and development of his small dominion if he wanted to make it prosperous and somewhat influential. And so all of germany benefited in total. A Louis XIV or a Phillip II didn't have to give this sort of care, they had everything statuswise, moneywise and political powerwise without diligent care. To the loss of the general population, and overall prosperity of their countries as a whole. Let's hope, the demonization of the HRE will stop, even if it wasn't neither holy, nor roman nor an empire.
I mean, if your are a XIX century historian and you are looking back to the 30 years war, the Napoleonic wars or how the French and British were building enormous overseas empires it is sort of understandable to think that the lack of centralisation kept Germany back from playing in the big boy club.