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In October 1812, Napoleon, conqueror of an empty and fire-blackened Moscow, pondered retreat. In Cassel, his youngest brother Jerome, King of Westphalia, had problems too

the King’s army would have done its work but for the disobedience of his corps commanders, especially General Reynier; secondly, that Jerome was dismissed before Napoleon knew the effect of his alleged failure; thirdly, that Jerome delayed leaving Warsaw because he was still playing the political role for which he had really been brought to Poland

even if Napoleon re-established the Kingdom, the Poles would insist on a Polish lung.2 This settled, Jerome turned to his military duties

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in central European history in the early modern period, with a greater appreciation of what the Holy Roman Empire meant before and after Westphalia, and a better understanding amongst English-language historians of the role of the Austrian Habsburgs.

the 'unmaking' of the empire not to much to inherent problems, which Charles Xl had largely overcome, but to the emergence of Russia and the consequent loss of the most essential part of the Swedish empire, the Baltic provinces

similarities with the Holy Roman Empire — which at its greatest extent encompassed almost all of Central Europe — exist at many levels.

Today’s European Council, at which the union’s member states gather, reminds one of the old Reichstag, where the representatives of the German cities and principalities met to deliberate matters of mutual concern.

like the European project, which originated in a determination to banish war after 1945, the “modern” Holy Roman Empire, which was reformed by the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, was intended to defuse the domestic German antagonisms that had culminated in the traumatic Thirty Years’ War.

When the Thirty Years War and Peace of Westphalia stifled Austrian ambitions in Germany, the Hapsburgs expanded eastward against the Ottoman Empire.  Ever since the death of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1565, the Ottoman Empire had been in serious decline, with a corrupt government, rebellious army, obsolete military technology, and decaying economy. Such a faltering empire was a tempting target for its neighbors.  However, the Hapsburgs were never able to concentrate solely on the Turks.  This was because France under Louis XIV posed a constant threat of invasion to the various German states, which forced the Hapsburgs to divide their attention between east and west.

This triggered the Turks' last major invasion of Europe, climaxing at the siege of Vienna in 1683.  A huge Turkish army of possibly 150,000 men, but with no large siege artillery, was faced by only the stout walls of Vienna and a garrison of ll,000 men.  The siege lasted two months as the Turks gradually used the old medieval technique of undermining the walls.  Just as the hour of their victory approached, a relief army from various European states arrived and crushed the Turkish army.  From 1683 to 1700, Hapsburg forces and their allies advanced steadily against the Turks, only being interrupted by having to meet French aggression in the West.  In 1697, the allied forces demolished another Turkish army at Zenta and watched as the once proud Janissaries murdered their own officers in the rout.  The resulting treaty of Karlowitz (1699) gave Austria all of Hungary, Transylvania, and Slavonia.  Karlowitz re-established Austria, now also known as Austria-Hungary, as a major European power.  From 1700 until the end of World War I in 19l8, the Hapsburg Empire would dominate southeastern Europe, while the Ottoman Empire staggered on as the "Sick Man of Europe."

Although the Hapsburg Empire had regained its status as a military and diplomatic power, it still had serious internal problems, namely a powerful nobility ruling over enserfed peasants, a hodge-podge of peoples with nothing in common except that they all called Leopold their emperor, and a variety of states that each had their own rights, privileges and governmental institutions

wo years ago, some European and US experts gathered to discuss China in an elegant English country house. The setting was seductive, but the mood was dark. Two years into Xi Jinping’s presidency, China’s politics were turning away from the liberalising trend of the previous three decades, towards a hard-edged nationalism that was discomfiting China’s immediate neighbours and their western allies.

a global conflict between the systems, values and norms of the pluralist, democratic United States and China’s Communist party seemed inevitable. It would be unpleasant, but nobody doubted that US values would prevail.

The group discussed whether China could succeed. What might go wrong?

“The lesson-category within grand strategic history is that when an established international system enters its phase of deterioration, many leaders nonetheless respond with insouciance, obliviousness, and self-congratulation. When the wolves of the world sense this, they, of course, will begin to make their moves to probe the ambiguities of the aging system and pick off choice pieces to devour at their leisure.

“This is what Putin is doing; this is what China has been moving toward doing in the maritime waters of Asia; this is what in the largest sense the upheavals of the Middle East are all about: i.e., who and what politico-ideological force will emerge as hegemon over the region in the new order to come. The old order, once known as ‘the American Century’ has been situated within ‘the modern era,’ an era which appears to be stalling out after some 300-plus years. The replacement era will not be modern and will not be a nice one.”

When Hill talks about the modern order he is referring to a state system that restrained the two great vices of foreign affairs: the desire for regional dominance and the desire to eliminate diversity

Attacks on women in Cologne and other German cities on New Year's Eve have prompted more than 600 criminal complaints, with police suspicion resting on asylum seekers, putting pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel and her open door migrant policy.

The attacks, mostly targeting women and ranging from theft to sexual molestation, have prompted a highly-charged debate in Germany about its welcoming stance for refugees and migrants, more than one million of whom arrived last year.

The sudden nature of the violent attacks and the fact that they stretched from Hamburg to Frankfurt prompted Germany's justice minister Heiko Maas to speculate in a newspaper that they had been planned or coordinated.

it had survived for more than a thousand years since the coronation of Charlemagne in the year 800

it was finally destroyed by Napoleon and the French

The process began when the German territories on the west bank of the Rhine were annexed to France in 1801

the dispute will be whether the King of England or of France shall be the Monarch of the West Indies, for the King of Spain cannot hold it long

The wars between the Kings of France and Britain were, on the contrary, waged for supremacy in the Caribbean itself and it was this aspect that gave West Indian history, from Cromwell’s Protectorate to the battle of Trafalgar, its special stamp

a handful of stubborn and self-reliant Commonwealth soldiers within five years got the better of the King of Spain

18th-century succession crisis unlocks a tale of dynastic obsession and myth-history in Austria's first family

Charles had devoted his whole adult life to maintaining the Habsburg claim to the Spanish throne. From 1705 when he first arrived in Barcelona he saw himself as the only rightful king of Spain. He never accepted the accession of the Bourbon claimant, Philip V, under the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, and thereafter anything that smacked of a French influence was guaranteed to rouse him to fury

his brother Joseph I

In 1567 Hesse was partitioned among four sons of Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous, Hesse-Kassel going to William IV the Wise.

In the Seven Weeks’ War between Prussia and Austria (1866), Frederick William sided with Austria, against the wishes of the majority of the Diet. The country was then annexed by Prussia and the elector exiled. In 1867 Hesse-Kassel, with Nassau, some former Hesse-Darmstadt districts, and Frankfurt, was made part of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau.

“the robbery of the century,” and what one academic declared “the biggest tax theft in the history of Europe.” From 2006 to 2011, these two and hundreds of bankers, lawyers and investors made off with a staggering $60 billion, all of it siphoned from the state coffers of European countries.

The scheme was built around “cum-ex trading” (from the Latin for “with-without”): a monetary maneuver to avoid double taxation of investment profits that plays out like high finance’s answer to a David Copperfield stage illusion. Through careful timing, and the coordination of a dozen different transactions, cum-ex trades produced two refunds for dividend tax paid on one basket of stocks.

One basket of stocks. Abracadabra. Two refunds

The country’s decentralised political system has allowed some of the 16 federal states to surge ahead with special exemptions for local businesses, such as North Rhine-Westphalia allowing the opening of larger furniture stores.

“No one likes to hear it, but we are not in the end phase of this pandemic, but at the beginning,” the German chancellor said. “We will continue to have to live with it for a long time.”

The chancellor’s handling of the crisis, while drawing praise across the world, has also been the subject of criticism in Germany, where liberal politicians accused the conservative politician of acting in a more executive role than anticipated in the country’s constitution.

Introduction From 1643 to 1815 France dominated much of Europe's political history and culture.  Foreigners came to France, preferring it to the charms of their own homeland.  Even today, many still consider it the place to visit in Europe and the world.  In the 1600's and 1700's there was a good reason for this dominance: population.  France had 23,000,000 people in a strongly unified state compared to 5,000,000 in Spain and England, and 2,000,000 in the Dutch Republic and the largest of the German states.  This reservoir of humanity first reached for and nearly attained the dominance of Europe under Louis XIV, the "Sun King".

Louis' early life and reign (1643-61) Louis was born in 1638 and succeeded his father, Louis XIII, as king in 1643 at the age of five.  Luckily, another able minister and Richelieu's successor, Cardinal Mazarin, continued to run the government.  In 1648, encroachment by the government on the nobles' power, poor harvests, high taxes, and unemployed mercenaries plundering the countryside after the Thirty Years War led to a serious revolt known as the Fronde, named after the slingshot used by French boys.  Louis and the court barely escaped from Paris with their lives.  Although Mazarin and his allies crushed the rebels after five hard years of fighting (1648-53), Louis never forgot the fear and humiliation of having to run from the Parisian mob and fight for his life and throne against the nobles.  This bitter experience would heavily influence Louis' policies when he ruled on his own.

Louis XIV may not have said, "I am the state", but he ruled as if he had said it.  Louis was the supreme example of the absolute monarch, and other rulers in Europe could do no better than follow his example.  Although Louis wished to be remembered as a great conqueror, his first decade of active rule was largely taken up with building France's internal strength.  There are two main areas of Louis' rule we will look at here: finances and the army. Louis' finance minister, Jean Baptiste Colbert, was an astute businessman of modest lineage, being the son of a draper.  Colbert's goal was to build France's industries and reduce foreign imports.  This seventeenth century policy where a country tried to export more goods and import more gold and silver was known as mercantilism.  While its purpose was to generate revenue for the king, it also showed the growing power of the emerging nation state.  Colbert declared his intention to reform the whole financial structure of the French state, and he did succeed in reducing the royal debt by cutting down on the number of tax farms he sold and freeing royal lands from mortgage.  Colbert especially concentrated on developing France's economy in three ways.

This is not the first time our nation has survived a profound internal rupture, but it may be the first time in which the political ringleaders of the revolt may very well escape much accountability while hundreds of their followers serve jail time.

In previous times of national crisis, the same spirit of mercy that Mr. Biden conjured generally applied to lower-level offenders, while those who had committed the worst crimes were the first to be arrested and tried for their treasonous acts.

As a legal mechanism, oblivion promised the return to a past that still had a future, in which the battles of old would not predetermine those still to come. It did not always achieve its lofty aspirations, nor was it appropriate for all conflicts. But the ideals it grasped for had an enduring appeal.