r/europe • u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) • May 08 '17

Series What do you know about... France?

This is the sixteenth part of our ongoing series about the countries of Europe. You can find an overview here.

Todays country:

France

France is the second most populous country in the EU. They were the most important voice in creating the EU (and its predecessors), to elevate their own power and to prevent further war with Germany. Hence, French is a very important language for the EU and especially for some institutions like the ECJ whose working language is French. They have just elected a new president last sunday and they will have parliamentary elections in june.

So, what do you know about France?

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u/Gremlinator_TITSMACK May 09 '17

And France was against the unification of Germany. So they didn't really unify Germany, they just lost the war against em.

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u/-Golvan- France May 09 '17

But without them destroying the HRE, chances are there wouldn't even be a Germany

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u/Gremlinator_TITSMACK May 09 '17

  • Implying German nationalism wouldn't have emerged anyway

  • Just because Napoleon destroyed HRE it doesn't mean that the French unified Germany. France opposed unified Germany and couldn't fulfill their wishes.

It is such a petty claim by the French, almost as bad as "We were kings" by European and American blacks.

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u/-Golvan- France May 09 '17

If the HRE had not been destroyed, it is impossible to be sure that Germany would have unified. The Austrians would most likely have had the upper hand

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u/Gremlinator_TITSMACK May 09 '17 edited May 09 '17

But Austria was weaker than Prussia.

I am honestly appalled by the amount of people who think that Germany couldn't have existed if Napoleon didn't abolish the HRE. Heck, even Moldova has a state. Yugoslavia shattered because of a few million people disagreeing with other factions' few million. And now you are saying that the great German nation would have remained fractured if it weren't for Napoleon?

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u/-Golvan- France May 09 '17

You can't compare central Europe to the Balkans though...

I'm saying that the French played a big part in the creation of a unified Germany

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u/Gremlinator_TITSMACK May 09 '17

False

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u/-Golvan- France May 09 '17

How so?

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u/Gremlinator_TITSMACK May 09 '17

France played as much of a part in unifying Germany as France played a part in Italy winning the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

If you lose and then take credit that you did something for your opponent, maybe Macron should go and thank Le Pen for playing a big part in his win against her?

Really makes you think

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u/-Golvan- France May 09 '17

I mean Macron did win against Le Pen because she was Le Pen, had it been another candidate it would not have played out the same way...

The French didn't lose when they destroyed the HRE and created the Confederacy of the Rhine, nor when they weakened the Austrians in the Second Italian War of Independence so that the Prussians could inflict them the coup de grâce, nor when they inspired nationalism across Europe during the revolution

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u/[deleted] May 09 '17 edited May 09 '17

But Austria was weaker than Prussia.

Austria infliucted enormous losses on prussia during the seven years war and definitely put up much more effective resistance against Napoleon during the napoleonic wars (eg Battle of Wagram vs Battle of Jena). It was absolutely not clear who would win before Königsrätz. The austrian artillery was superior to the Prussian one and Austrian high command effectively negated Prussian advantage when it came to rifles. Advantages of te prussians were mostly using more of their resources on the military and using the railway effectively, but that such would happen was not the predetermined flow of history.