Is France the only major European country that is undeniably European? All of the others have been outsiders in some shape or form but ever since the conquest of Gaul the area we now call France has been part of the key players up to this day. No, they haven't always been the main-main characters but they've always been major actors in the various dramas while that's not the case for the others.
T - an Irish/German chud, this isn't a we wuz post
Yes but because Americans are the most psyop'd race in existence and constitute half of the traffic they'll ignore your post and shit on France mostly because DeGaulle left NATO and because France didn't join Cheney's homosexual war in Iraq.
TL;DR: anglo israeli seethe.
homosexual burger OP's shitpost applies to Italy to longer than for France.
Not really, Italy wasn't unified until recently and they haven't been very relevant in modern times.
Same thing with Germany,, except in became very relevant when it did unify.
Spain, Portugal, Austria and the Netherlands used to matter but they all became irrelevant at some early point.
Britain only started mattering late.
So yeah, OP is right.
>Roman occupied Gaul has a more souvereign character than a decentralized Germany/Italy
>Austria is not a part of Germany
occupied Gaul has a more souvereign character than a decentralized Germany/Italy
France has been more relevant since the Fall of Rome as OP's pic shows.
is not a part of Germany
It still became weak early on and it wasn't part of Germany when it did unify.
Germany unified with the wide spread translation of German bibles (started by Luther/Gutenberg). France was unified by force after Parisian became mandatory after the French revolution. Just having an absolutist rulers does not make you a nation.
Political unity is more important than linguistic unity. And it's not as if the dialects (breton excluded) were mutually unintelligible. Also, you're deluded if you think that the French didn't think of themself as a nation since at least the end of the Hundred Years War (and for a large chunk of France even since the time of Philip Augustus). And of course Germany was divided along with not just political but also religious lines, etc.
No. A nation needs a joint language to function, the exact constitution of the polticial processes is secondary. Also you are severely downplaying the, what you call "dialects" of France. If we are ignoring that the langues (not dialects) d'oil and the langues (plural) d'occ are not even fully mutally understandable amongst themselves, an exchange between these language groups can clearly not be described as a "difference in dialect".
In the end: it were the tyrannical kings of france who have abused the language confusion in their Realm in order to behave in a way, which would be impossible in any unified nation.
Imagine lying in front of a bunch of noblemen, all of who are talking different languages. How will they ever call you out? You can always say that you did not mean it that way.
Well French didn't suddenly become unified during the French Revolution. The process was gradual and started earlier than the Reformation with a common "ligua franca"/"koine", the kernel of modern French, being developed which would have been known by many. And in Germany there were still division after Luther between the Catholic and Protestant Parts and between Low German and High German, etc.
Also the failure of Germany of producing a great unificatior early like Philip Augustus, Joan of Arc/Charles VII/Louis XI or Richelieu and so its continued political fragmentation is relevant and cannot be just dismissed with handwaiving.
>Joan of Arc
Mentioning this name just discards everything anyone could ever say about France. The whole concept to think that she had any political relevance is stupid and the strange cult surrounding her in France is silly mommy worship for the nationally sentimental types. Literally unironic mention of the ghost of Kiev tier.
Pedantic retard.
I'm not saying she was a political genius. I'm just mentioning her as an icon of French reunification at the end of the Hundred Years' War.
Yeah you are bringing up propaganda icons right along actual historical figures. Why is anything you say relevant? You are probably one of these nationally sentimental types if you post shows what you care about.
Ok remove Joan of Arc from the post. Happy? Does the post become nonsense?
No it doesn't so you are just nitpicking.
Joan of Arc is a historical character.
She was a smarter girl than you and her genius is already proven, we are talking about her right now.
She is great isn't she?
Yes. But there is a slight misconception, it’s not France that is European, it’s European countries which are varying degrees of French. European civilization is the blend of germanic and helleno-latin cultures united by christianity (which still permeates in the culture). This original blend took its roots in Gaul obviously, and the cultural weight of France as the crossroads of Europe ensured its influence would lead to emulation.
That’s also why the French seem to be the most at odds with American influence in Europe, as technically post war «Western» culture is at odds with French (and therefore European) culture, and Franco-European culture will soon be subsumed by Western-American culture.
French culture as an idea grew out of the Frankish Kingdom/Empire though. Gual is a dubious stretch.
I meant Gaul as in the geographical region, you are of course correct about the Franks
France hates America the most because both are trying to play the same clown role in Europe. Statements like state=nation are common ground for their world views.
Not anymore
German here. How the fuck are the French more undeniably European than us? We are literally the OGs.
France doesn’t know who they want to be. You have nationalist groups, who hate each otherl because one think they are Germanic, others think French are actually Celts and Romans and Franks are oppressors and then there are civic nationalist, who value the roman legacy most of all.
The French unironcally descend from Franks, and a bunch of other germanic tribes, like the Burgundians. The south has basque, and brown, Spanish-related French (probably part Celt, part basque, with a little Roman, so basically the Spanish).
So, both groups are technically correct to a degree. The split is mainly along the Loire river.
>German here. How the fuck are the French more undeniably European than us? We are literally the OGs.
The anglosphere would very much like to pretend you guys never existed so they can claim your accomplishments
Descendance from Rome is a defining part of European identity (or at least a major, major part of it) and the Germanics were specifically not part of that group. When it comes to the Venn diagram of European identity France makes it into the most circles.
Germans conquered Rome who gives a fuck about descent
The Gauls also conquered Rome.
rome had nothing to do with europe, rome was originally a anatolian (turkish west asian troy) state that expanded and extended primarily thorugh north africa, the levant, arabian peninsula, anatolia, the balkans, iberia and italy, with a minor hold on some alpine countries + england
rome is primarily a MENA entity.
being part of rome if anything neglects europeaness, scottish people is much more european than maltese arabs or egyptian copts who happen to have been part of rome
Sigh. Please, leave.
>no refutation
rome was literally ruled by trannies from north africa and syria such as elagabus lmao, is this shit your measure of europeaness?
You are a rude nagger.
I don't need to refute you.
>being ruled by this validates europeaness
get stabbed
ironic that you care about trannies so much since you're obviously also mentally ill
>t.roon
dynasty of African/Syrian origin
WOGS START AT CALAIS
Wogs start at london
Pakis start at London.
>Third French Republic has the same borders from French-Prussian war to ww2.
>Modern France doesnt include Algeria in 1940+
Germans put France on the map, literally. Gauls will always be stableboys for Frankish BVLLS
Too bad the HRE was a fragmented shitshow that didn't matter because Germs were too retarded to produce a semi-decent unificator before the end of the 19th century.
The HRE wasn't fragmented until the Peace of Westphalia you historylet.
This is bullshit. It was a patchwork of statelets with little central authority control for pretty much its entire history.
No it wasn't.
12th century
France 12th century.
If you knew anything about French history you would know that it didn't have strong crown authority untill Louis XIV. Half the time it was losing counties or entire duchies to foreign inheritance.
(Forgot picrel)
Just as fractured, just smaller and no free cities.
That's before Philip Augustus.
Philip Augustus is miles ahead of anything Germans ever produced in term of a great unificator in the middle age/early modern era.
Then there's the reunification after the Hundred Years War.
Then Henry IV/Richelieu/LouisXIV.
Why do you think unification is good? It's not.
Tell that to a German peasant during the Thirty Years' War.
You mean those Prot heathens trying to fracture the empire with a strong oppressive central authority?
France being unified didn't stop Louis XIV from genociding 2 million Huguenots.
Weak central authority precisely gives people freedom of religion, lower taxes etc.
Ok if there's one bad king things might not go well. But in a fragmented country, if there's only a single retard/scoundrel ruler (out of many) he can cause trouble. Civil wars can more easily happen. People get paranoid, etc.
Also had Germany not been a mess when Luther happened the unity of Christendom would not have been broken and so Europe would not have been turned into Warring States for the next centuries.
At any rate, a divided country is weak as you learned during the Napoleonic Wars. Apart from a handful of scholars, and the middling powers Austria/Prussia, Germany was basically irrelevant until it was unified.
>retard thinks posting maps says anything about the unity of the mapped thing
You're a map painting Paradrone, if all the principalities of the HRE had the same color you'd consider them to be unified.
Stop being disingenuous. The HRE having weak central authority is pretty well known.
But the map doesn't say anything about it. And the absence of a strong central power does not mean that a nation is unified.
*not unified
Yes it does.
If the nation isn't politically unified under a strong leadership it will gets steamrolled when a more strongly unified nation that is well led attacks it as happened during the Napoleonic Wars. Calling the nation "unified" then is just pedantry.
Tell me: how did unified France fare in 1870 against ununited Germany?
That's relevant, how?
Tell me how would unified Germany fare against Russia now?
It has no bearing on the argument. Plus France was clearly not at its peak then.
More importantly, France has more accomplishments than Germany as picrel show.
>If the nation isn't politically unified under a strong leadership it will gets steamrolled when a more strongly unified nation that is well led attacks it as happened during the Napoleonic Wars. Calling the nation "unified" then is just pedantry.
If a unified nation gets steamrolled by a ununified nation, is calling the first nation "unified" then worse than pedantry?
That's not the point, idiot.
If both nations have a strong central power, then obviously one of them will be stronger (due to higher population, better morale, better generalship, or whatever) and so will probably win.
It doesn't imply the losing nation did not have a strong central power.
Ah sorry re read your statement and with your clarification I finally understood that your statement is a non sequitur because your "argument" pre supposes that you are right.
Guess I wasn't clear enough, sigh.
The point is that Germany was essentially unified by that time. It recruited troops from most of its modern territory, had a trade union, had a strong coercive central authority, etc.
So it's a case of two unified states fighting, not one unified state against a unified one.
Either way it doesn't prove that France wasn't politically unified or didn't have a strong central authority.
So no you don't have a point, sorry.
>So it's a case of two unified states fighting, not one unified state against a ununified one
fixed
I would argue Germany was as disunited as it gets between the dissolution of the German Confederation and the declaration of the second empire. In the case of the recruitment: this was organited by Prussia and its allies. Its strongest allies both in the North German confederation and outside of it organized the war effort decentrally (like in WW1 btw)
We are kind of juggling with semantics here. Prussia alone had probably greater territory than all of modern-day Germany. And it clearly was a compact rising power with strong central authority. OK there were the southern states and a few northern ones. So basically a strong unified Prussia + its other German allies beat a unified France past its peak. It still doesn't disprove my point that France was unified or mean that its unity was "pedantry". Had France faced a medieval or early modern time HRE level of fragmentation it would not have lost.
I mean for all intents and purposes Germany was unified by that time. It clearly had a strong central authority.
+Dude both graphs are basically at the same hight. How can you even make a statement that France has achieved more without know the method of calculation and an estimation of error?
14th century
16th century
17th century
18th century
Germans didn't exist before Franks idiot.
France is definitely the essence of Europe.
>KIngdom of the Franks 481-751
How come it doesn't include Belgium?
Clovis was literally the petty king of Tournai and Belgium was where the Salian Franks came from.
because it's bullshit
>it's another gaul larpers pretend east and middle frankia didn't exist thread
I hate reruns.
>Is France the only major European country that is undeniably European? All of the others have been outsiders in some shape or form but ever since the conquest of Gaul the area we now call France has been part of the key players up to this day
lmao
because Germany and England are much better right?
Maybe you should focus on putting your home in order before shitposting.
>because Germany and England are much better right?
Yes. Germany has mostly Euro mirgrants and England not a lot in total.
It will though, if we don't stop it.
Italy, France, Germany, in that order. Spain as a fourth on that list.
>Capetian France
What meme borders are these? Angevin lands were still part of the Kingdom.
Italy is the main character in European history. That should be obvious. It does not matter if it was unified or not
Classical Period: Greece emerges, creates a lot of the culture that would become Roman and later European. Roman empire emerges, takes best parts of Greek culture and unites Europe
Middle Ages: Europe fractures. Italy also fractures. But Europe is united by a new religion, Christianity, a religion based out of Rome, Italy
Renaissance: Artistic and cultural movement centered in Italian nations and city states
Age of Exploration: kicks off when Italian sailor Christopher Columbus discovers America
French Revolution/Enlightenment: France leans into its Latin roots, resurrecting ideas like Republicanism and emulating the classical world. Then a Corsican of Italian descent, Napoleon, becomes a great military leader and builds a large empire in Europe, spreading these ideas throughout Europe and all European history revolves around him for about a decade. Italy is of course an important theatre in this
Industrial Era: Italy unites into a modern nation state. The new state participates in World War One. During the interwar period, the new ideology of communism spreads throughout Europe. A socialist in Italy, unhappy with the consequences of World War One in Italy, invents fascism. The philosophy spreads throughout Europe, in particular Germany. The next century is defined by a global conflict between this new ideology, communism and democracy. A second world war is fought, with Italy being one of the three major powers on one side of it
No.
>Classical Period
Ok Rome was great but it shares the stage with Greece which has more achievements overall.
>Middle Ages
lolno, France was clearly more important politically. Yes Christianity mattered but it was a semitic intrusion. Middle Age Italy was a mess.
>Renaissance
Ok but that's a short period.
>Age of Exploration
>kicks off when Italian sailor Christopher Columbus discovers America
No it kicked off with Henry the Navigator a Plantagenet (of ultimate French Angevin with probably some Norman, Anglo, etc.) Contributing one guy doesn't make Italy relevant. Clearly the Iberians were the key players there.
>Early Modern
Not relevant.
France and to an extend England much more important here. Key contributions to philosophy, math, science, etc.
>French Revolution/Enlightenment
France clearly important. Contributed key thinkers, was political center stage. Yeah, Napoleon is relevant but it was just one guy. Clearly the French Revolution wasn't just about him and he was leading Frenchmen not Italians. Also key scientific contributions by France (ex Lavoisier).
>Industrial Era
Germany much more important. Even declining France and UK still matter more (more Nobels, better econ, etc.).
Ages
>lolno, France was clearly more important politically. Yes Christianity mattered but it was a semitic intrusion. Middle Age Italy was a mess.
Stopped reading right there. Trash post
Ah, a christcuck I see.
Very well developed and cognent rebuttal btw.
even if you aren't a Christcuck, Christianity was the basis of Western tradition, especially in the middle ages
I'm not denying that. But it still was a semitic intrusion. And even though the Papacy was clearly key, Catholicism as a whole wasn't limited to Italy. You had bishops, theologians in the northern universities, etc. And militarily Italy was basically impotent. Early on it was a mess of a battle ground between germanic chieftains, and the Byzantines. Then it meshed with the Franks. Then the HRE, etc. Only late and little by little did it start gaining some actual temporal importance through trade.
It was divided and decentralized, much as Europe as a whole was after the fall of Rome. You might say it mirrored the situation of Europe as a whole, or was a microcosm of Europe. Later, it would rise from the ashes, as European civilization as a whole also did
As expected from the main character of Europe
A cute story doesn't amount to an argument, sorry.
>As expected from the main character of Europe
Nope.
The question is essentially something like "which European country is the most representative of Europe?" or "who is the main character of Europe?"
That question is best answered with some sort of narrative. Not "who had le biggest army in the 11th century? who had le biggest GDP?"
How can a nation that has been basically a minor player in all but two period of European history one of them very short be considered the main character of Europe?
France in contrast has been a major player, sometime THE most important player, basically for every period since the fall of Rome until very recently.
Sure you can weave random, fanciful stories about Italy or other nations but that does make them any more central.
Guess I should split industrial period in two:
>Industrial Revolution: UK most important but France still matter (ex. in science, econ)
>Later Industrial
Germany much more important. Even declining France and UK still matter more than Italy (more Nobels, better econ, etc.).
I like Italy but besides Venice and Genoa you guys were basically asleep once Germanic rule started until the Renaissance happened
>for a brief period between the time when you were the main character and the rest of the time you were the main character you were irrelevant except for the parts of you that weren't
btw I'm not Italian. It's just so obviously the correct answer
britain is like naruto
france is like sakura
germany is like sasuke
Very insightful input. /sarcasm
is more important to be relevant when europe was irrelevant compared to the rest of the world, or be leading when europe is the most relevant continent? i think being the king of mud is not a great merit....
europe started excelling compared to any other region arround 1600 AD.
the prize goes for britain
Britain is periphery. Also, brits are self-centered israeliteservants.
It’s an African country, that attempted to destroy Europe multiple times, in the old world and new. Napoleon destroyed the Germanic restoration, and they attempted it again with postmodernism.
israelites are the ones destroying Europe you dumb golem. And brits are the israelite's favored cattle and collaborators.
>brits
rather anglos I should say