How the Holy Roman Empire Split Prussia in two!

[@esserman1603]

They did it to confuse historians.

[@benjaminnguyen554]

yea i think about that all the time, like who were the historians interviewing, would they tell the truth to the historian because of the complex web of diplomatic relationships.

[@commy1231]

Back in the day ducal Prussia was a vassal of Poland so when it was inherited by a Hohenzollern, obviously the Polish king wouldn’t have wanted it to lose it to the HRE. Then in 1657 it got independent as a result of the Polish-Swedish war. But the Hohenzollern prince didn’t want it to become part of the HRE. He wanted the title of “king” which wasn’t allowed inside of the HRE but was allowed outside. So he got crowned “king in Prussia”, which would not be possible according to the HRE’s rule if Prussia had been integrated into the HRE. As for the German confederation, I’m not sure why they didn’t include those eastern territories, particularily the German-speaking East Prussia. But on the other hand, it wouldn’t make much sense to include the highly autonomous, Magyar-speaking territory of Hungary into something called the “German” confederation, right? Same logic goes for Croatia, Galicia and Poznan

[@marcocorsini4054]

About the HRE: maybe initially the prussian king only participated in the HRE as the representative of Brandenburg and, as things changed, it just stayed the same way as something left from the past, but with little to no power About the German Confederation: IIRC, that was a defensive pact (a sort of mini NATO) between the participant states, and i think it would've only come into action if one of the areas inside the confederation was under attack. So if someone attacked Hungary it'd be "fine", even though it was under Austrian rule, but attacking Austria or Bohemia would put into effect the defensive alliance. Since absolutism was pretty much centralized feudalism, that'd make some sense, as attacking the Duchy of Transylvania would be one thing while attacking the Duchy Salzburg would be another (I don't know if those were actually duchies, but I'm using them as an example of regions under the same country with one of them in the G.C. and one outside of it)

[@commander931]

I consider that, not knowing this profound and moving issue of the Holy Roman Empire in general, I believe that the Prussian Guard truly deserves the protagonism due to historical facts. Also recognizing that the Austro-Hungarian empire has nothing to do with it but is quite enigmatic.

[@whyareallofthegoodnamestaken]

The first problem also existed geopolitically in other parts of Europe. For example, the king/queen of England was also the duke/duchess of Normandy, and being the Ruler of England granted full control over England but at the same time they were the ruler of Normandy and that they were subservient to the French throne. Now I do not know much about Angevin England but I’m certain someone is knowledgeable about this part of history. Now the 2nd problem is much more obvious. The German Confederation was, based off its name, German, and didn’t include parts of nations that were not German. Only territories with a German Majority were included in here. Habsburg Austria (and later Austria Hungary) was well known to be an empire with many ethnic groups. The parts of Prussia not part of the Confederation still had a large amount of Polish people (remember the 3rd partition of Poland happened in 1795 and Vienna happened merely 20 years later) which is also why the borders of German Confederation that cut through Prussia looks a lot like Interwar Germany’s border with Poland.

[@mrcoolio556]

makes sense

[@Reichsritter]

The German confederation part isn't true, it included the exact lands that had been in the Empire, not those with German majorities, Bohemia wasn't majority German for example. The rest, yes somewhat true, though it became less and less relevant after the thirty years war.

[@whyareallofthegoodnamestaken]

@@Reichsritter Bohemia is a bit of an exception. Perhaps it was because of human error, but my guess is that Bohemia was itself an elector (assuming EU4 is accurate about that), and its territories were part of the previous HRE until its dissolution in 1806 so while it wasn’t Germanic, it had so much shared history that it might as well be.

[@keboonplumeria5266]

I love your straightforward explanation. Some of your theories somewhat added up... Espc when the territory are so vast and they must constantly making several options and dwindling between those dilemma. At end, they opt for smthg that would likely harm less. Even with the unification and merging up, I am freaking sure, that everyone have a fair share of the cake 🤝 rather than 'splitting' the whole unification. They are smart 🤓, anyway. They know it never going to last long so they opt for wise outcome

[@NovajaPravda]

I mean there are still something similar today tbh, Denmark is partially in and outside of the EU, because Greenland is not part of the EU and the mainland Denmark is part of it

[@lean572]

The same goes for the caribbean islands in the netherlands

[@NovajaPravda]

@@lean572 Nah that's actually part of the EU

[@lean572]

are you sure? from wikipedia: | "The islands do not form part of the European Union and instead constitute "overseas countries and territories" (OCT status) of the Union, to which special provisions apply."

[@AsthmaBreather]

The german Confederation is obviously German as the name suggests and the german Confederation was only made out german states where german people live this can be seen as prussia's polish holdings, austria's hungarian holdings are excluded as can be seen by Luxembourg who were part of the kingdom of netherlands but was still in the german Confederation The german Confederation is simpler to explain however I still don't know much about the hre situation my guess is that the vassals of the hre was almost 90% autonomous so they only paid lip service to the emperor so when they inherited or conquered land outside of the hre, they didn’t want to include it in the hre as the emperor would have some claims over it also because the duchy of prussia was historically part of polish lithuania so although the person holding them was the same they belonged to different kingdoms this can be seen also when charles V holy roman emperor was the king of spain and the king of naples but that didn’t mean the kingdoms automatically became part of the hre, one person just seemed to hold both domains at once

[@A.B.H_da-goat]

This is factual

[@luciusrex22]

I'm going to go with t others have already said better.It was an ethnic German empire.

[@Fixundfertig1]

That's factually incorrect, there were some other slavic ethinicites inside those borders such as checzs or sorbians