History of Germany Part-3

Louie the pious would not rule as  strongly as his father had and would  often have to struggle to keep the  empire together against an array of  enemies assembling from outside his  empire and even against his own sons.

 

 Louie was not a harsh ruler but he was quite simply not the right man for the  times in fact he is said to have wanted  to have been a priest  rather than member. He died in 840 AD. After a series of external and internal  Wars, he had tried to leave the Empire to  his eldest son to prevent the collapse  of Christian Europe but his other sons  rebelled successfully against this  decision two years following the Battle  of Fontenoy in 841.

 

The kingdom was  divided into three with a treaty of  their Doon Charles. The bald would rule the western portion Letarte the lands in  the center and Ludwig the lands in the  east specifically the regions east of  the Rhine and north of Italy Bavaria Franconia Saxony and Swabia. This event is considered a very significant milestone in German history. East and west Frankia now with different languages and cultures would be basically permanently severed and were on a path to develop into separate  nations France and Germany. Ludwig would later receive the old roman title guerre  monica's which meant conqueror of the  Germans. Ludwig is promptly known as Louie the German or Ludwig their Deutsche and German or lieu defeat the mites in check. At this time, As the German identity was in a very important stage of coming together the peoples of  Europe disagreed on what exactly to call  this variety of people with similar  cultures and languages. This issue was  never really resolved and today there  remains a variety of names for Germany in different languages which are  seemingly unrelated this Treaty of their  doom  while it provided stability would not  end the conflict between the three  brothers permanently and fighting would  continue on and off in fact after  Charlemagne.

 

Germany's history for the  next few centuries will be marked by  constant conflict Germany or East Frankia would be surrounded by rivals at  various times fighting Norse Vikings the  Slavs which would later include groups  such as the Moravians and polish the  Magyars now on Ludwig's doorstep the  northern Italians the Saracens or  Muslims the Byzantines and the West  Franks or later the French to name the  main ones arguably. East Frankie is biggest enemy though was itself  divisions among family would constantly  fracture and divide the land threatening  Its very existence for centuries . It was not long before the kingdom of Middle Frankia will be broken apart. It  was the least stable of the three and  had even less cohesion than that of  early France and early Germany which  though facing division had at least  similar languages and ethnic groups many  different ones were forming in an  awkwardly formed territory, now  encompassing the Netherlands down to  Italy the territory of Lorraine however  between modern france and germany is a  corruption of Lotharingia and this  region still carries a name of lotar which is more obvious in a modern German  name not ringin Ludwig and Charles  eventually sees Lorraine and divided it  in a Treaty of Merson this would not  solidly dispute over the region though  in fact it would be a constant cause of  conflict for over a millennium Ludwig the German died in 876 and as you  probably expect at this point his  kingdom was divided among his sons  Ludwig the younger carlomon and Karl who  would sometime later be known as Karl  they're Ditka or in English Charles de  fête who actually briefly reunited  Charlemagne's empire and became Holy  Roman Emperor not so much because he was  a great Conqueror but because every  other heir in Germany in France had died.

 

 Carl would be the last to rule over a  united Frankish Empire in the 1860s. The Magyars had finally reached East Frankia raiding a territory mercilessly and  centering their power not far away  in the modern nation of Hungary which  the Magyars would later be responsible  for founding much of Karl's reign was  spent dealing with them as well as  Vikings whose raids by now reached the  city of Aachen in which Charlemagne had  centered much of his empire and where  his palace was built as well as Paris  and the Rhineland things were not going  well for Carla his rule was brief his  lifelong struggled with sickness and  epilepsy made ruling over an  uncooperative Empire difficult and he  was deposed by his nephew Arnold in 887.

 

Arnold would not be able to claim the entire kingdom however and the Frankish  Empire split apart this time permanently.  The divides between the two halves were  too great to see oh by now  Arnold merely retained the German Arry  of the country east Frankia importantly.  Arnold did not merely take the throne. He was elected by the nobility to be king  the concept of electing leaders in  Germany dated back to ancient times and  as we shall see did not disappear any  time soon.  Arnold's reign would be marked by  unsuccessful wars with the Slavs Vikings  Moravians and Magyars he died in 899 and  was succeeded by his six-year-old son. Ludwig the child who would only live to the age of 20 throughout - Ludwig's  reign every corner of journey was  ravaged by the Magyar horsemen  furthermore the dukes of the various  regions or duchies of east Frankia  asserted more independence threatening  to break the kingdom apart Ludwig the child died in the year in  911 as he last Carolingian king.

 

The Germans had to focus on their own  affairs and elected a king from outside  the Carolingian line rather than respect  Charles's simple king of france's claim  to the throne one such a fair was the Magyars who were a more major threat to  the Germans than the Vikings which  France was focused on Conrad Duke of  Thuringia was elected to be their king  the election of rulers was resurfacing  as a common trend and that is here where  we began to see the complex political  structure of what would be called the  Holy Roman Empire arise although Conrad  did not receive the title of Emperor  Rome that had gone to rulers in Italy at  this point  becoming essentially a reward the Pope  gave out to any ruler who would help him.  Conrad though King and name did not have  much authority over the Dukes who made him King and he would struggle to assert  his authority throughout his reign often  fighting both his subjects and  foreigners alike, he was more like a  Grand Duke than King this power struggle  between the monarch and Nobles of his  semi-autonomous States that put him  there would be another feature which  would mark the Holy Roman Empire's  existence in the long run Conrad would  actually be severely wounded fighting  the rebellious Bavarians and on his  deathbed he proposed to his brother that  Heinrich the Duke of Saxony should be  the next king Heinrich was an enemy of  Conrad but Conrad knew he was the man  that could hold the nation together  Conrad died in 1918 and the nobles  appeared to agree with him electing  Heinrich as her next king.