Alpha Book

Had he
been able to devote all his talent and energy to the domestic affairs
of the Holy Roman Empire, he might have contributed potently to the
establishment of a compact German state. It should be borne in mind
that when Charles V was elected emperor in 1519 the Holy Roman Empire
was virtually restricted to German-speaking peoples, and that the
national unifications of England, France, and Spain, already far
advanced, pointed the path to a similar political evolution for
Germany. Why should not a modern German national state have been
created coextensive with the medieval empire, a state which would have
included not only the twentieth-century German Empire but Austria,
Holland, and Belgium, and which, stretching from the Baltic to the
Adriatic and from the English Channel to the Vistula, would have
dominated the continent of Europe throughout the whole modern era?
There were certainly grave difficulties in the way, but grave
difficulties had also been encountered in consolidating France or
Spain, and the difference was rather of degree than of kind.


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