Whether The Holy Roman Empire Lasted Thru WW-I

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solutions
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Whether The Holy Roman Empire Lasted Thru WW-I

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Subject: Whether The Holy Roman Empire Lasted Thru WW-I
From: Solutions
Date: Sat, February 24, 2018 3:09 pm MST
To: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
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Dear John,

I just finished re-reading the Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz and noticed that as you were discussing “Pax Britannica” in Q&A-3, you said that Archduke Ferdinand who was assassinated on 6/28/1914, was “the Heir Apparent to the Habsburg throne, aka the Austro-Hungarian Empire, aka at that time The Holy Roman Empire…..”

So a “nit” to “pick” with you --

Didn’t “The Holy Roman Empire” end in 1806?

Your friend,

Solutions


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Subject: Re: Whether The Holy Roman Empire Lasted Thru WW-I
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Sun, February 25, 2018 11:14 pm MST
To: Solutions
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Dear Solutions,

You have “picked” on one of my favorite “nits”!!!

And you wouldn’t believe how many times during my 33 years of marriage to the co-author of the nation’s best-selling high-school world history textbook (for which, in addition to my “day job,” I read 12-15 thick historical tomes/biographies EVERY YEAR to uncover overlooked nuggets for possible inclusion in the next edition) I used to kid her good naturedly about various aspects of The Holy Roman Empire!!!

At least she was honest enough to admit (as do most historians) that “history” is nothing but a “pack of lies” on which everyone agrees!!!

But let’s start with basics.

Do you remember that we have studied on numerous occasions that Adolf Hitler usually called his regime “the thousand-year Reich” rather than “the third Reich” and why???

And why allied leaders and their media always called his regime “the third Reich” instead and why???

Taking the questions in reverse order, allied leaders and their media called Hitler’s regime “the third Reich” because they didn’t want their publics to wonder whether it would last 1,000 years!!!

So what were the first two Reichs???

The first was the Roman Empire which lasted 1,000 years.

And the second was the Holy Roman Empire which lasted 1,000 years.

So Hitler and his “Propaganda Minister” Joseph Goebbels (NB: “Propaganda Minister” was his official title) called their regime “das tausandjähres Reich” to cement in the German consciousness that Hitler’s regime was similar to The Holy Roman Empire of which Germany had been an integral part for 1,000 years, and that Hitler’s regime would also last 1,000 years.

Kidding my “ex” on when Germany became a country???

Which never failed to “get a rise” out of her!!!

One proverbial “pack of lies” on which “historians” agree is that Germany did not become a “country” until Otto von Bismarck (“The Iron Chancellor” of Prussia) unified most of the small German states under Prussia’s aegis in 1871 by military force.

So what do “historians” think Germany was for the 1,000 years prior to 1871???

Most “historians” are honest enough to admit that it was the “heart and soul” of The Holy Roman Empire for 1,000 years.

So why don’t “historians” consider The Holy Roman Empire to have been a “country”???

For its entire existence, the Emperor of The Holy Roman Empire was NOT a hereditary position!!!

Instead, upon the death of an HRE Emperor, there was an election for the new Emperor.

Following which there might or might not be a small handful of fringe jurisdictions that might join the HRE and there might or might not be a small handful of fringe jurisdictions that might leave the HRE.

So my “joke”???

That never failed to “get a rise”!!!

“Historians” did not consider the HRE a country BECAUSE IT WAS A DEMOCRACY and it is intuitively obvious that A DEMOCRACY CANNOT BE A COUNTRY!!!

So why do “historians” think the HRE ended in 1806???

Although Charles I of France (aka Charlemagne) became the first Holy Roman Emperor in 800 A.D., the Habsburg family based in Vienna had become so powerful that its current head was always elected HRE Emperor from 1438 onwards and it ruled virtually all of Europe including modern-day Spain, Holland, Germany, northern Italy and Eastern Europe except Russia and the portion of the Balkans occupied by the Ottoman Turks.

Indeed, the German name to this day for German-speaking Austria and its capital Vienna is Ősterreich which means, literally, “Eastern Kingdom.”

So what happened in 1806???

What most wags call “France’s Hitler” happened -- aka Napoleon.

As he momentarily conquered all of Europe all the way to Moscow, one of his decrees was to remove the German states from the HRE.

But what was the effect of the French-Hitler’s momentary decree???

The Habsburgs, with the help of England, defeated the French-Hitler and restored the Bourbons to the French throne.

And the Habsburgs went on with ruling virtually all of Europe from the Atlantic to Russia.

So why do so-called “historians” take the French-Hitler view that the French-Hitler’s momentary decree ended the Holy Roman Empire???

After all, Prussia had always been one of the “fringe jurisdictions” that might or might not be part of the HRE upon the election of each new HRE Emperor.

And following the French-Hitler’s momentary decree, Prussia was out of the HRE once again but it was not until 65 years later that Prussia suddenly conquered from the Habsburgs all of the small German jurisdictions that the Prussians forged into what so-called “historians” were willing to call a “country” because it was NOT a democracy.

In other words, “Germany” had become a hereditary kingdom which was ruled 1871-1918 by Kaiser Wilhelm I and his son, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

BTW “Kaiser” is the German word for Caesar.

So the short answers to your Q are --

I have never understood why so-called “historians” take the French-Hitler view that the momentary decree of the French-Hitler in 1806 had any real significance from the viewpoint of substance.

Prussia, which had always been a fringe jurisdiction vis-à-vis the HRE, suddenly conquering the small German jurisdictions from the HRE in 1871 had nothing to do with the momentary decree of the French Hitler in 1806.

And the small German jurisdictions which were lost to Prussia, though a significant part of the HRE, were still a relatively-small part of the Habsburg Empire which continued to sail on until WW-I.

Even so-called “historians” continued to be in awe of the Habsburg Empire 1806-1918 and continued to also call it the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

My theory why they stopped calling it “The Holy Roman Empire”???

Pure propaganda!!!

They didn’t want the American public to think that President Woodrow Wilson had brought the U.S. into World War One ON THE WRONG SIDE!!! At least from the viewpoint of "right and wrong"!!! And particularly not against an empire that had “Holy” in its name!!!

After all, Woodrow Wilson is “The Gentleman from Georgia” who segregated the U.S. armed forces and purged the U.S. Civil Service of African-Americans!!!

AND he had, IN VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, been secretly loading munitions IN PASSENGER SHIPS bound for Britain.

BECAUSE he knew that UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW, doing so violated the “law of neutrality” and made the U.S. a “belligerent” whose “munitions ships” could be sunk no matter how many innocent civilians Woodrow Wilson used as “passengers” to disguise the fact that the passenger liners were de facto munitions ships.

INDEED, Woodrow Wilson’s BIG LIE even fooled Theodore Roosevelt who campaigned in 1916 against Woodrow Wilson for failing to enter WW-I as a result of the sinking of American “passenger” liners!!!

ENABLING Woodrow Wilson to FORMALLY enter WW-I immediately after the election.

[NB: Theodore Roosevelt, who became President when McKinley was assassinated in 1901 and won election in 1904, adhered in 1908 to his 1904 campaign pledge not to run for a third term despite being wildly popular; however, he became quickly disenchanted with his hand-picked successor, President William Howard Taft, and in 1912 formed The Progressive Party (aka “Bull Moose” Party) in order to run against Taft, out-polling Taft 27.4% to 23.2% in the popular vote but enabling Woodrow Wilson to sneak in with 41.8%; in 1916 Roosevelt campaigned for the Republican nomination on the issue of Woodrow Wilson not avenging the sinking of the American “passenger” ships but when he fell short of the Republican nomination, he refused the nomination of his Progressive Party.]

BTW, Woodrow Wilson was also the cause of WW-II.

Because unlike the aftermath of the defeat of the French-Hitler (Napoleon) when the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s Metternich and the English Empire’s Castlereagh believed that any attempt to impose financial penalties on France would simply lead to unrest and another war -- Woodrow Wilson acquiesced, following WW-I, in France’s demand that Germany pay for all of the damage done to France!!!

Which, of course, Germany was unable to do.

As a result of which, France occupied 1918-1930 Germany’s de-militarized Rhineland (Germany’s industrial heartland) AND THEN CONTINUED TO INVADE IT PERIODICALLY -- in order to pillage everything of value (for example factory machinery and railroad trains) and bring them back to France.

So is it any wonder that Hitler’s ordering the German army back into Germany’s Rhineland on 3/7/1936 made Hitler wildly popular???

Proving the wisdom of Metternich and Castlereagh!!!

And proving, once again, the utter stupidity (and moral bankruptcy) of Woodrow Wilson!!!

At least the U.S. was blessed with two U.S. Presidents with incredible foresight and vision – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman!!!

FDR and Truman had the wisdom to cause the formation of the United Nations whose charter, incidentally, was negotiated/finalized in 1945 in the San Francisco opera house after FDR’s death 4/12/1945.

And Harry Truman also had the wisdom to spearhead the so-called Marshall Plan to provide $140 billion in 2017 dollars to “kick start” the rebuilding of Western Europe’s war-torn economies.

[In addition to having the humility to call it “The Marshall Plan” after General George Marshall who had been the extremely-popular Chief of the entire U.S. Army during WW-II and who was Secretary of State 1947-1948, in order to “sell” the plan to Congress and the American public.]

And Harry Truman also had the wisdom to start NATO in 1949 in the wake of Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech of 3/5/1946 in order to institute the containment of the old Soviet Union with “Mutual Assured Destruction” which produced the USSR’s demise in 1989-1991 after Ronald Reagan’s arms race had spent the USSR into bankruptcy.

[BTW, Reagan’s announcement that he would destroy the USSR by spending it into bankruptcy with an arm’s race is reminiscent of Babe Ruth in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series “calling his shot” by pointing to the spot in the stands where he would hit a home run.]

It is absolutely terrifying to think about what would have happened to the world if Nincompoop Woodrow Wilson had been in charge!!! With his racist views, he might even have had the U.S. siding with the Nazis, the way Roosevelt’s Ambassador to the U.K. 1938-1940 Joseph Kennedy Sr was advocating!!!

[BTW does anyone remember that when Bobby Kennedy graduated from U/Virginia Law School, Papa Joe Kennedy had to find him several jobs, one of which was with Papa Joe’s good buddy, Sen. Joe McCarthy, as Assistant Legal Counsel 1952-1955 to McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (a euphemism for McCarthy’s anti-communist “witch hunt”) as a result of which very few articles were written about Bobby for the rest of his life without calling him “ruthless”!!! Though it is to the credit of both John Kennedy, whose Senate voting record was “to the right of Genghis Khan,” and Bobby Kennedy that both were able “to change their spots” despite Papa Joe.]

If you have any additional questions or comments, please let me know!!! [Though I think that is a complete venting of my spleen!!!]

Your friend,

John K.

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