The Holy Roman Empire

European disunion done right


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"Many Europeans would feel [funereal] if the EU followed [the Holy Roman Empire] to oblivion."


The EU rarely commands a majority when put to open plebiscite, in spite of massive funding and media cheer-leading in its favor. It advances mainly through closed-door deals, obscure treaty clauses and bureaucratic hegemony. Besides those who are paid by the EU, who would miss that?

Some differences between the EU and the Holy Roman Empire:

• HRE: Repeatedly, successfully and heroically defended its members from outside invasions, notably Muslim invasions.
• EU: Never successfully defended its members against anything. Actively collaborates in getting its members invaded by outsiders, notably Muslims.

• HRE: Internally tolerant and diverse. Permits member states to go their own way on most things. Absent specific Imperial law, local customs prevail. Genuine subsidiarity.
• EU: Internally intolerant and conformist. Forces member states to obey endless petty impositions. Absent specific permission, EU "law" prevails. Fake subsidiarity.

• HRE: Permitted competing currencies and maintained monetary discipline without centralization.
• EU: Abolished competing currencies and promotes monetary debasement and fiscal profligacy with stultifying centralization.

• HRE: Presided over one of the greatest flowerings of culture in human history, whose works remain seminal to this day.
• EU: Presides over a culturally and spiritually vacuous stasis. No one cares about "culture" from the EU nor ever will.

Ironically, the entity that unabashedly claimed the title "Empire" was productive, tolerant and culturally fertile, while the modernist atrocity that calls itself "Union" is counter-productive, intolerant and culturally sterile.

They are not kin. They are mostly opposites. The only similarities I can think of are 1) vaguely similar geographic region, and 2) one did and the other will probably fall to French machinations.

P.S. All this blather about the EU preserving peace is just that: blather. To the extent Europe has been peaceful it has been because of US (and UK) military hegemony and the threat of the Soviets. The EU couldn't even stamp out a Balkan brushfire on its own doorstep. The Nobel peace prize committee is brain dead. The EU's only "peace" accomplishment is welfare-narcosis. It is debt-fueled and temporary. The Nobel award will eventually look as foolish as the Kellogg–Briand Pact. And its proponents will be equally immune to noticing their own folly.


Great article, kudos to the writer ;)

Taking the analogy in the article a bit further:

Which country today is playing/will play the role what the Kingdom of France played back then: keep them divided so we can be the hegemon?

Marquis de Sad

This is a silly comparison. It was not Prussia's size that made it impossible for the Holy Roman Empire to control it; Prussia's rapid growth in the 18th century was a consequence of that inefficacy, not its cause. When the Swiss Confederation was founded, Maximilian was unable to build a strong enough army to beat them, even though there eight cantons against what ought to have been, in theory, the combined might of the entire empire. They were much smaller, far poorer, and arguably less experienced than Hohenzollern territories were even in 1700.

The Holy Roman Empire held together for the simple reason that, as weak and lousy an institution as it was, there was no real alternative to bind the petty fiefdoms together: it held as long as nothing better came along. The real lesson for the EU is, don't be like that.

Michael Goetze

A well written and enjoyable article. Perhaps it is no co-incidence that the countries of the former HRE are the ones who seem most comfortable with federal structures. Hence German willingness to hand Brussels(Regensburg)more authority over fiscal matters and France's reluctance.

emmafinney in reply to johnawerneken

"the USA had in 1789 might be similar to Europe today: profound regional and local differences."

What differences?

The US in 1789

1) was overwhelming of British heritage - 70%. African slaves were 20% so needless to say they didn't have much impact on cultural or political institutions and the British heritage was supreme.

2) One language-English

3) One culture - Anglo

4) One legal system - derived from British common law.

So very different from the Europe of today. The regional differences in Europe between Greece and Sweden are more profound than between the USA and Mexico today.


I may be in the absolute minority on this, but I do not see any parallels between the medieval Empire and the EU project of today.
The first was a feudalistic, pre- industrial loose collection of lands, populations and religious affiliations. National (ethnic,linguistic,cultural) identities were in their sprouting state, borders were not clearly defined and the wars were fought for territorial domination and crude taxation for the royals, not for economical gains (.like the colonial wars later,including WW1).
The EU on the other hand is coming from the opposite direction. It is uniting (over the long run) the often conflicting and ethnically based interests of countries with clear identities and borders, by creating a vast and mostly developed,industrialised common economic space for everyone, allowing free movement of goods,labour and capital. With some patience it will become what it is meant to become: the United Countries of Europe.
With all its bloated bureaucracy and squabbles, it is still a masterpiece of futuristic,long-term thinking.
The much aligned common currency is one of its most important unification tools and it will have to stay.
As for member countries wanting to leave the Eurozone, I consider that just a negotiating tactic. The only one that really doesn't belong is the UK.


The EU will disband as well as the Holy Roman Empire was disbanding.
A European Union of so different countries and nations with so different ethnics makes it impossible.
We do not even have a common language and it seems rather ridiculous that continental Europeans have to lend out just English in order to communicate.
The Holy Roman Empire was using Latin as their common language.
At Brussels and Strasbourg they need legions of interpreters otherwise we would have a real Babylon.
And we should not forget the deepest and most serious fact of the whole European construction: In this EU nations are members which were fighting series of extremely crucial wars against each other and the lessons from history tell us since ever that former enemies never can be allies or partners and less friends.
Having super-powers in the EU like France and the UK this makes smaller nations or countries automatically to inferior members.
The EU under the actual conditions is suffering of an extreme lack of balance.
The super-powers make the rules- the rest has to obey and pay.
With a system of superiority and inferiority of nations a Union only can disband.
I do not see anything which would be a base of common values of all European nations.
Quite different the USA have a common language and a common culture which makes each of them first of all to Americans.
The Soviet Union with its various ethnics gives an excellent example how constructions of different ethnics under a single umbrella finally will end.

The narcissistic reasons of the nations in Europe will increase as well as nationalism and extreme chauvinism made very excellent progress.
It is a consequence of human nature and the results of European history.
The dream of a United Europa will completely fail in face of human reality.
The ethnic contrasts - especially between France and Germany will increase extremely and the President Hollande and his government are doing anything to increase the wide rift between France and Germany and so we are arriving a level of 1914 or 1945 .
Between Germany and Britain the wide rift and mutual mistrust has a very long tradition over centuries.
So Europe will disband a second time since 1945.
The Holy Roman Empire failed by the very same reasons.
The difference and wide rifts of controversial ethnics the EU was not solving but constantly enforcing by its politics.
The anti-German campaigns in all Western European countries are a perfect proof for my opinion and for the clearly strict anti-German politics of Brussels.
German interests never played any role at Brussels because Brussel politics has been based on anti-German politics since ever.
The EU will end as seen by Sarkozy in the ClubMed ( the PIGS) and German which will turn its back to the rest of Europe.
Being the most hated country in the West there is nothing Germany ever could lose if they turn their back to the rest of a hatemongering Europe.

ahmed limam in reply to Germanambassador

Well, there is a first for everything. The EU could show the world that a multi-ethnic, multilingual grouping of nations can work out. The Soviet Union failed because that union had been imposed by force, whereas the EU is a free association of countries, free to join and free to leave. On the latter point the EU is superior to the US which allowed former British colonies to join freely but then blocked their exit with blood (and hundreds of thousands of deaths by war criminal Lincoln.)
Otherwise, this is a great article and quite insightful, one of the best I've read in TE in a long time



^Easily the best lede in recent memory.

Did you forget that the whole system and bureaucracy of the EU at Brussels is nothing but a mere copy of the rather ineffective French administration.
And the Brussels administration is clearly dominated by an overwhelming majority of French civil servants.
So the EU is completely French.
Merkel can only try a little bit of reluctance when the French bureaucracy in Brussels is forcing her to shift more billions to Brussels.
So Europe has been now under French hegemony and the French are blaming the Germans for that.
Just amusing this French logic.

Germanambassador in reply to emmafinney

"The regional differences in Europe between Greece and Sweden are more profound than between the USA and Mexico today."

Indeed - never you have been thats as you are with this statement.
The Holy Roman Empire did not work (fortunately) and so the EU will ail by the very same basic reasons.
More than 20 completely different languages and more than 50 completely different ethnics will definitively stop all Pan-European ideas.

Anyway for European conditions there has been a very unusual success: There has been no other war since about 70 years.


"Like America, the empire was a great place to live."

I'm almost insulted by that compliment!

Just kidding. Great article. I especially liked "Feeling the Prussia." You barely even see the word "Prussia" in print anymore; TE's making a pun out of it is truly impressive.

May I suggest another title for that section? How about "Getting Junker-ed"?

Germanambassador in reply to ahmed limam

@ahmed limamin reply to Germanambassador



Indeed the EU could if they only would like to do it.
But I have my very serious doubts if the people in the different nations are willing to have a multi-etthnic and multilingual Europe.
So the European plan from Brussels reminds me much more of an imposed and forced system against the clear will of an overwhelming majority of Europeans.
The polls in the UK are more than clearly against the EU and neither in France, nor in Italy, Greece or Spain you have a different public opinion about Europe.
It seems to me that the European nations and their citizens are withdrawing from the European idea by building up better and higher barriers as they ever had before.
And with barriers I mean the barriers of culture and language.
Nationalism and chauvinism including all old bias and stereotypes are more than actual by increasing the old tensions and rifts between the nations.
And meanwhile Germanophobia seems to be a basic problem in the whole EU.
And I think most citizens in Europe are nothing but fed up with the EU and the European idea.

Clearly democratic it would be asking the citizens in every country by a referendum.
So the UK with its plan is on a democratic and good way. Other countries should follow this good and democratic example.
Otherwise the EU is turning more and more into an imposed system by force not far away to that of the Soviet Union.
Nobody in Brussels is interested in democracy and it looks for me as if their only purpose is consisting in abolishing democracy in Europe.
If Europe fails it the responsibility of a ruthless undemocratic class of beaurocrats sitting like a colonial administration at Brussels.

young cynic in reply to Tombstone7

Bring back the wars, destroy the common market, abolish the euro, dismantle the science and education funds, build a new wall, etc.

Yeah right, EU may have its problem but regarding life quality it's great and is quite civilized compared to some other big countries/regions (for example US, Russia or even England).

By the way, in what sense does the EU limit your freedom? (gun control, freer movement between countries, high standard consumer protection, welfare)


You omit the continuation in the Austrian Empire of a successful state comprised of many different peoples. It took Romanticism and its twisted child Nationalism to destroy that ideal.

youngboy in reply to Germanambassador

You are the first German to admit the reality. The rest of Europe does not think like Germans do, and that makes it almost impossible to reverse nations into the super efficient Nordic philosophy. The world is about sociology not numbers. But i do not think anyone at the top of Brussels does not know this reality.


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