Germany is the most economically powerful country in Europe, and it has great influence on Europe and the world. However, it is precisely such a country with great potential, from the Middle Ages until the outbreak of the modern industrial revolution, that lagged behind other European powers and long became a gladiatorial arena for the great powers to play geopolitical games.
As a country geographically located in the heart of Europe, Germany's geopolitical flaws are very obvious. The Germans' central position in Europe was certainly conducive to the collision, exchange and dissemination of cultures, and to the promotion of prosperity through land commercial traffic. But it has also become the place of four wars, and it has become a place of voyeurism surrounded by wolves. In this article, we will analyze the impact on the establishment of a centralized state, military defense and economic development in Germany from the perspective of geographical location.
※?The land of the four wars caused the financial burden of the center?※
As mentioned above, Germany is geographically located in the center of Europe, with Denmark and Sweden in the north, the Stav ethnic group in the east, France in the west, the Church of Rome in the south, and also across the sea from England. Since German space is basically located in the hinterland of continental Europe, it has a great defensive disadvantage compared to island and peninsula countries. Borders in almost all directions needed to be defended, which meant that Germany would need to spend more military spending to ensure national security and political stability. The high cost of rule meant greater variables, which led to the natural lack of german unity as well as that of the other countries around it.
Ever since the First German Empire (Holy Roman Empire) inherited the mantle of the Frankish Empire and its monarch was crowned Roman Emperor, there has always been a desire to conquer the city of Rome south to the Apennines. However, since the "Pepin Sacrifice", the Church of Rome has its own territory, the Papal States. The Church of Rome, with the Papal States as its foundation and religion as its grip, has long preached the supremacy of ecclesiastical power in Europe and has a fierce conflict with the German Emperor. In the course of the long struggle for hegemony, the German military power was severely weakened, resulting in the central power slipping into the hands of the local princes. At the same time, Germany also needed to deal with the Slavic and Hungarian ethnic groups in the east and the French in the west, but fortunately these countries were largely incomplete in the middle of the century.
※Polycentric terrain leads to long-term division?※
After the loss of the central power of the Holy Roman Empire, it could never be revived. The German region thus entered a historical period in which a small princely state continued to consolidate its power, and politics also developed in the direction of local division, which was inextricably linked to the topography of Germany. We know that in the ancient Chinese Central Plains Dynasty, the Qin, Han, Sui and Tang Dynasties took Guanlong Hanzhong as the core of the world, the Northern Song Dynasty took the Heluo region, and the Ming and Qing dynasties took the Hebei region as the Gyeonggi direct subordinate, which stemmed from the fact that the above areas were the economic centers of the Central Plains at different times. The German region has not had such an economic center since ancient times, and Berlin, Vienna, Bavaria, Cologne and other places can stand out from one side, but it is difficult to form a crushing advantage over the entire region. In contrast, france's Paris Basin played a good role as an economic center for stabilizing the entire French population, and then became the political center of France's long-term stability.
In this geographical environment, when the local princes under the Holy Roman Empire gradually developed, it was difficult to complete the centralization of power. Later, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Holy Roman Emperor was deposed, and the German region was also in disarray from the legal level, until Bismarck and Wilhelm I led Prussia to launch three dynastic wars by force, barely completing the unification of the "Little German Plan", but there are still a large number of traces of aristocratic co-rule during the North German League and even the Hanseatic League.
※Lost its status as an economic hub in the Atlantic era?※
In fact, since the end of the Thirty Years' War in Europe, The Westphane cube has been established in Europe. The system is named after several post-war treaties signed, collectively known as the Treaty of Westphalia, which represented the establishment of a balance of power in Europe. This protracted war, whose main battlefield had already broken out in the German region, caused the death of about one-third of the region's population, brought about 200 years of economic regression, and fissioned more than 360 states, completely reducing it to a game site and buffer zone for other European powers. More damningly, the long-held position of Europe's economic hub in the Middle Ages no longer exists. Since the Ottoman Empire occupied Constantinople, the Mediterranean trade route was blocked, and the number of goods reaching Germany from the Italian North Vietnamese Alps suddenly decreased, and Spain and Portugal set off a movement to open up new shipping routes.
When the Mong Kok route and the New World were discovered, the European economy gradually shifted from the Mediterranean coast to the Atlantic coast of Spain, Portugal, France, Britain and the Netherlands, and Germany's economic status ceased to exist. New cities such as London, Seville, Lisbon, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam have gradually replaced former commercial centers such as Venice, Nuremberg, and Cologne. As a result, the industrial and commercial classes in Germany were born far behind those in Western Europe, not to mention that the development of industry and commerce also required a unified and huge domestic market.
In summary, the reason why the German region declined rapidly in the European Middle Ages and lagged far behind the neighboring powers in the wave of european industrialization, its geographical location and topography had a great impact. Located in the center of Europe, Germany was able to absorb the culture and technology of the four sides, but it also became the land of four wars, and its military expenditure was much higher than that of the surrounding island countries and peninsula countries. After the central power gradually declined, the German region was immediately plunged into the quagmire of the division of princes, but it was difficult to reunite due to the lack of a center that occupied a sufficiently advantageous center, and eventually became a gladiatorial arena for the great power game. When the Age of Discovery came, the economic center of Europe shifted to the Atlantic coast, the economic location advantage of the German region no longer existed, and the development of industry and commerce lagged seriously.
Fortunately, in the eastern part of the traditional German region, Prussia rose rapidly and was soon integrated into the German state system. Prussia brought Germany a longer coastline, more fertile plains, and a more vigorous military spirit, and finally succeeded in unifying Germany, taking advantage of the Second Industrial Revolution to shrink or surpass other European powers.