... This is exactly what happened to the Holy Roman Empire. The force of Nationalism had been awakened in Europe and the constituent elements of the Empire were clamouring for independence and second, the Great Powers in Europe having no need for this empire were waiting for its dissolution. One may therefore, conclude that when an empire, like the Holy Roman Empire, a non-national empire, is broken to... force imposed on their constituent elements or else to a political convenience felt or acquiesced in by the constituents and favoured by the world outside. The Austrian empire or the Holy Roman Empire that was on its last legs before the First World War, was long the standing example of such an empire; it was a political convenience favoured by the world outside, acquiesced in by some of its ...
... neighbouring France, especially when France became the culturally dominant nation in Europe whose language replaced Latin as the European lingua franca . Napoleon conquered and abolished the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1806. The shock of his presence and drastic reforms was, as we have seen, the direct incentive to Germany’s revival. Hitler, if he meant anything at all, had to avenge ...
... at the head of his armies and implementing the ideals of the French Revolution, which were the ideals of the Enlightenment. “Napoleon burst upon the Germans like a hurricane. He dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, replacing hundreds of separate sovereignties with thirty-eight; outraging clergy, he abolished ecclesiastical states, church courts, tithes, monasteries, and convents and seized church property ...
... of parchment by paper, followed by the invention of printing with movable type. Charlemagne had conducted dozens of ruthless military campaigns to impose Christianity and establish his Holy Roman Empire. In 789, he issued an edict to churches and monasteries in his realm to establish primary schools. Many cathedral schools were indeed started, but they were devoted mainly to the training of priests ...
... herself in the loose but living unity of mediaeval Christendom. Page 316 The example of Rome has haunted the political imagination of Europe ever since. Not only has it been behind the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne and Napoleon's gigantic attempt and the German dream of a world-empire governed by Teutonic efficiency and Teutonic culture, but all the imperial nations, including France and England ...
... inflated proportions. Thanks to the statesmanship of Bismarck they had finally succeeded, in 1871, to build a German nation, which they considered to be the Second Reich. (The First Reich, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, had ended in 1806.) But the more the Germans became convinced of their exceptional qualities as a nation, and more particularly as a race, the more they felt inclined to ...
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