Today's Germany and Austria, of the same origin and the same species, why not merge is actually a question with deep historical roots.
Today's Germany, living in Europe, faces the sea on both sides, Denmark in the north, France and Luxembourg in the west, and neighboring countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Switzerland.
Counting a heavily fragmented Europe, a rare big country, while Austria is small, its fiefdom is similar to Germany's, and the only difference is that Austria is a purely landlocked country.
(Map of Europe Today)
The small number of large countries and the large number of small countries also have historical roots, and in the Middle Ages and even modern Europe, they were closely related to the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs.
The kingdom of Shenluo has a special definition, based on feudalism, and then unified into a loose country, the core area of Shenluo's rule, that is, the pan-German region, where the German nation is infested. Because the stubborn disease of feudalism was difficult to eradicate, the Holy Roman Emperor, for a long time in the form of an elector, took turns in the family of the elector.
(Once holy Roman Empire)
Such an empire, the centralization of power, is a false proposition for them.
After hundreds of years of electoral rotation, the rising Habsburgs were finally able to hold the position of Holy Roman Emperor relatively continuously, thus forming the famous Habsburg dynasty in European history. At the height of this dynasty, it can be regarded as the first power in Europe, Spain, France, the German Quarter, and Italy once had their territories, which was the strongest country in Europe at that time.
But most of this is not obtained by war, but through a constant diplomatic in-law.
There's a joke in Europe that the Habsburgs hate war, don't need war, and we can unify Europe with men and women.
(Habsburgs)
Hmmm, it was, they almost did it, almost almost.
It was only after the rise of the French totalitarian dynasty that Napoleon came to power after the bourgeois revolution.
At that time, the French people belonged to a nation that dared to reform and sacrificed for the faith, and was not at all the same as the Second World War.
The land of France produced the Three Masters of the Enlightenment, and also produced a generation of Emperor Napoleon.
Napoleon blew all over Europe like a whirlwind, and under Napoleon's continuous blows, Europe, whether it was empires, principalities or dynasties, became the target of attack. The once-strong monarchy and feudalism began to loosen under this series of blows.
(Napoleon penetrated all of Europe)
The feudal system of the Holy Roman Empire, which was originally solid, was in jeopardy.
With feudalism in jeopardy, a powerful state rose in the Napoleonic Wars, the once-unknown existence of the German states, the Duchy of Prussia.
The rise of Prussia was accompanied by the progress of the Napoleonic Wars, a country known for mercenaries, with the help of the war against Napoleon, after countless battles, gained the status of European powers, although the smallest power, but the great powers are still great powers.
Subsequently, in the Viennese system, Prussia was also internationally recognized, becoming one of the three major forces in the Pan-German Zone on a par with Austria.
At that time, the three major german powers had their own manifestations, one was the newly emerging Prussia, the other was the Austrian Empire of the Holy Roman Empire, and the other was the loose alliance of the Rhine League.
Austria belonged to the first brother of Germany, Prussia counted as the second brother, and the Rhine League was the younger brother.
(Former German Trio)
As Europeans often say, Germany is not a people but a region.
But this situation continued to change after the continuous Enlightenment and the development of science and technology, and the awakening of the nation. With the rise of national movements and the scientific and technological explosion of European countries, the economy continued to develop, and the call for a German began to penetrate the hearts of the people.
At this time, who is the best person to unify Germany? Austria and Prussia have this heart.
But the Austrian Empire was not talented enough, and the Kingdom of Prussia had the genius-like iron-blooded Chancellor Bismarck.
(Bismarck I belong to Juncker)
If it is said that the person who has the greatest influence on the world pattern, Bismarck can definitely rank in the top five.
Under Bismarck's leadership, the Kingdom of Prussia turned the loose northern part of the German Zone into a great empire through three consecutive large-scale wars, the Prussian-Danish War, the Austro-Prussian War, and the Franco-Prussian War.
A series of butterfly-like diplomatic maneuvers, coupled with a continuous thunderous blow. Prussia went from duchy to empire, seized the crown of France, and became the most powerful country in Europe.
All these wars consisted of both the Prussian-Danish War, which fought jointly with Austria, and the Austro-Prussian War against Austria.
(Coronation of the Kaiser)
Bismarck, after winning the war against Austria, took the initiative to choose to retreat and thus save Austria.
Countless people are wondering why Prussia did this?
For Bismarck, he knew that Prussia was not strong enough to annex Austria, and if Austria was forcibly occupied, it would make the rising Prussia a public enemy in Europe.
Bismarck, who knew the dilemma, had a clear goal of expelling Austria from the German Confederation and isolating him.
The immediate reason is that while the glory of Germany is important, so is Juncker's practical interests.
A unified Germany, if it follows the customary customs, will again become a feudal, even confederate, state.
Prussia's position would decline, and the gain would outweigh the losses, and it would be better to annex it and gain the upper hand, and Austria, which would remain by the way, would become the best ally of the new Germany. In the future, as Bismarck expected, Austria and the subsequent birth of austria-Hungary were Germany's staunchest allies.
(Brothers and Sisters)
One world war fought together, and finally one was destroyed together.
Germany lost its first chance to be fully united, and austria and Germany failed to merge.
At the root of the defeat, Bismarck did not want the nascent Germany to become a public enemy of Europe, to follow Napoleon's old path, and Austria's strength could not be easily annexed, and even if it was unified, it would hurt Juncker's interests.
As for Germany's second chance to unite Austria, it belonged to Hitler.
Originally An Austrian, Hitler was honorably wounded in the German army during World War I.
This standard Austrian, the standard German, has another label, pure racist.
For him, the German pure-race Aryans were the noblest race in the world, so after the rise of German politics, Hitler had always been obsessed with the German compatriots who were scattered in all regions of the country.
(Rise of Hitler)
With the continuous rise of political status and the improvement of German armaments, Hitler's ambitions were gradually realized.
First, it took the Czech Sudetenland, because everywhere it was German.
This was followed by the annexation of the whole of the Czech Republic, where most of them were Germans.
In the end, he forcibly occupied all of Austria, not only because it was his hometown, but also because everywhere was German.
The native race of Germany, the Germans, finally in the hands of the war maniac Hitler, for the first time in history, almost merged into a kingdom.
If Hitler had triumphed, we would have reason to believe that Germany, which had originally belonged to the concept of a region, would have become the largest and most powerful country in Europe.
Unfortunately, even though countless Germans fought bravely, Hitler's ambitions were not realized.
Nazi Germany, which had a smooth ride in the early stages of World War II, fell into the arms of a Russian bear and could not get up.
(A dream that almost came true)
In the cold winds of Moscow, Hitler tasted the same pain as Napoleon, and also let the once-mighty Germany lose the war again.
The dream of the unification of the German nation is shattered!
Post-war Germany became the focus of reckoning throughout Europe and even the world.
The terrible Germany, which triggered the first and second world wars, was so terrible that how to completely eliminate the German threat became a matter of world consideration.
So under the leadership of the three giants of the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain, Germany was completely castrated.
The Soviet Union annexed Königsberg, the ancestral land of Prussia, and expelled all Germans, and today Königsberg became the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast, which became Russia's bridgehead in Europe. The United States continued to lump together the original German territory, Austria became independent, the Czech Republic recovered, Poland hmmm, he also had a share. Then Germany's territory was torn apart.
Britain, on the other hand, focused on limiting Germany's subsequent development and even war potential, and they continued to cooperate with the United States to block or move Germany's passage into and out of the ocean, either blocking or moving away, and it can be said that the worst in mind is Britain.
(Liquidated Germany)
After the liquidation led by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, Germany was torn apart, and the former German region became a place of small countries. Even during the Cold War, because of the division of camps, it became East and West Germany!
In the end, it was the weakening of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, and under the leadership and constant concessions of German Prime Minister Kohl, East and West Germany gained independence.
The hardships of this, followed by a special article, Germany through huge economic concessions, and even with the guarantee of never touching the ownership of the territory of the former German Empire, germany, the Soviet Union, and especially Britain, was able to gain the understanding and unity of France, Germany, the Soviet Union, and especially Britain.
(Unification Prime Minister Cole)
Among them, the most fiercely opposed country is neither the occupied France in World War II nor the defeated Soviet Union, but the European churning stick Britain.
The British urine nature was revealed at that moment, and how similar it was to the unsociable style in the European Union today, and how similar it was to the performance of withdrawing from the group from time to time.
The british empire that was once a british empire, constantly playing with the balance of great powers, is still continuing in Europe today.
The former German Empire, which already belonged to the smoke clouds of history, could not be rebuilt in the foreseeable future.