What was the place occupied by the German Roman Empire, during the first colonial conquests in modern times ? What role played his princes, his institutions, his diplomacy, his sailors and his merchants ?
Modern era is marked by the ultramarine expansion of European powers and the appearance of the first colonial empires. Inaugurated by the Portuguese and the Spaniards at the end of XVe A century, the movement was continued by the Dutch, the French and especially the British. In this historical dynamic, a major player in the European political game seems to be missing: the Holy Roman Empire.
Over the past centuries, historical studies on it tended to emphasize its alleged passivity in diplomatic game, on its absence of political unity and its inability to set up effective and centralized institutions. The Holy Empire, facing France and England, would have been supposedly guilty of being, in a way, a modern power “ incomplete ». In fact, the “ old empire »Lives a moment in its history where its very existence is disputed by new forms of imperialism, at the dawn of our contemporary society.
But is the Holy Empire really a state ? Admittedly, it does not have permanent armed forces or a real imperial navy. His diplomacy, scattered, often finds himself ensured by competing chancelleries. Consisting of many small autonomous states, its exploded administration does not have the relative coherence of that of its French neighbor. Since Vienna, the emperor, however, ensures the keystone of this building, being recognized by all as the supreme authority. Failing to be a “ State “In the modern sense of the term, the empire can however be seen as a” system ».
The work of Indravati Félicité is also distinguished by its rigorous use of a corpus of abundant sources. The vast majority of German -speaking publications of XVIIe And XVIIIe centuries, unpublished in French, whose author translates a large number of extracts herself. Others come from German State Archives (Hamburg, Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein…) and Austrian. The subject finally follows, over a little over three centuries, the thread of modern history of the Holy Empire.
How to define the identity of the Holy Empire in modern times ?
Heir to the Carolingian Restoration of the year 800, the Holy Empire has been anxious since its origin of the ancient Western Empire. The Emperor of the Romans, holder of the titles of King of Germania and King of Italy, was at the feudal time a separate sovereign, located above the other European monarchs. This theory is not easy to apply in fact, however: the Empire is an elective monarchy, difficult to govern, where many actors try to keep their privileges within a dizzying pyramid. The emperor is often perceived as politically weak, when he is not simply absent: the quarrels of succession between aristocratic clans lead from the Middle Ages to long interrelanges during which the Holy Empire is rarely embodied by a single individual.
Nevertheless, the sustainable installation of Habsburg princes on the thrones of the Empire then of the Iberian kingdoms between the end of XVe century and the beginning of XVIe century significantly revives international diplomatic game. In fact, when the Spaniards and the Portuguese begin to colonize America, actors from states and cities of the Holy Empire earn a lot of outlets, and participate in the “ open -time Planetary (p. 12). The fact, however, that the Empire does not have structural tools to envisage in its own name a colonial expansion led historiography to study the latter from a more localized angle. The novelty of the Book of Indravati Félicité is to envisage the place of the Holy Empire in the modern world from the only point of view “ imperial “, Considering all the actors mentioned in its sources as part of this same system.
This question of the identity of the Empire-seen by many observers as the medieval ancestor of the contemporary German State-has always taken on a particular dimension across the Rhine. Quality “ Germanic »De l’Empire is a late concept, dating from the XVe century. Although the imperial throne has systematically returned to a German prince since the year 962, the latter reigns according to the times over different culturally varied peoples spread over a territory extending from southern Denmark in the center of Italy. When they are not defined as “ Germans “, Merchants who try the maritime adventure to America, Africa or the distant Orient are in turn perceived by other Europeans as” Flemish “, of the “ Belgian “, Or even” Austrian (P. 305-306). On the other hand, they are never identified as “ Imperial “, As their ships all beat the same pavilion.
A fragmented Saint-Empire, with multiplied networks
Another recurring question posed by the work: that of the border, which conditions the direct relationship of the empire with the foreigner: such a state is part of the empire ? Are its inhabitants of the emperor subjects ? If so, what right of gaze does the emperor have on their internal affairs (p. 211-261) ? If not, this same state can impunity with the affairs of the Empire with impunity as soon as the aristocrat who directs him-for example the British sovereign who is also king of Hanover-is himself an imperial prince-elector (p. 285) ?
All these actors are in fact interdependent: the emperor can do nothing without the states of empire, when the latter have a limited political maneuver. Ally of Louis XIV During the Holland War (1672-1678), the Duchy of Mecklembourg renounces to put his armies in the service of the king when the Emperor Léopold Ier published a lawyer prohibiting the alliance of any state of empire with France (p. 238-241). The author shows that these questions condition the gaze that the imperials have with any expansion project beyond the “ boundaries That they do not know themselves correctly to define.
This political fragmentation has, for several centuries, have consequences on the diplomacy of the Empire. THE “ Persian embassies ” of XVIIe century, which are the subject of several chapters at the start of the work, provide a good example of this lack of unity. If the Emperor Rodolphe II is well visited by the Persians who go to Germany during the year 1600, the latter must first appear at the courtyard of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (p. 118-126). Conversely, thirty years later, it was the Duchy of Gottorp who took the initiative to send a diplomatic mission to the Shah court (p. 131-141). Indravati congratulated, however, the prism, however, by advancing the idea that this plurality of actors in imperial diplomacy has the consequence of significantly multiplying the presence of the Holy Empire on the international scene (p. 162).
The brutal rivalry between the Archdéché of Austria and the Brandenburg electorate – which became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701 – is also very telling. Paralyzed by these struggles of influence between its own states, the Holy Empire can hardly exist for itself. Regularly contesting the interpretation of international treaties signed by the Empire to XVIIIe century, foreign powers also prevent the creation of a “ Imperial India Company ». Attempts to establish sustainable commercial links between the Empire and China, both since the ports of Hamburg (p. 323-324) and Ostend (p. 318-321), thus systematically ended in failures. The chapters of the work relating to this question (p. 309-415) finally evoke with accuracy the process already at work before 1806: the slow “ decentralization »Policy of the Habsburg monarchs from Germany to Austria.
A German criticism of imperialism and colonialism ?
THE XVIIIe century is, for imperials, that of existential questions. The intellectual Johann Julius Surland, in his Explanation of Germans’ right to trade with India (1752), tries to justify the claims of his compatriots to make an equal play with the foreign powers (p. 336). If he is not blind in the face of the deep reasons of the political divisions of the Germanic world, his daring reflection puts on an equal footing the Germans excluded from international trade and the colonized foreign peoples (p. 342-343).
This commercial jealousy then turns into some intellectuals into a true anti-colonial critic. This is particularly the case in camera circles, which theorize in the middle of the XVIIIe century two distinct conceptions of imperiality: that, colonial, of the British, the French and the Dutch, assimilated by the economist Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi to a form of large -scale piracy, and that of the Germans, whose conception more “ noble Imperiality, universal and inherited from the Middle Ages, would give them alleged historical legitimacy (p. 349).
If this opportunistic denunciation of colonization can question, it surprises with its modernity: justi already points out, in the 1750s, slavery and the moral responsibility of Europeans in the excesses of colonization (p. 350-352). However, this argument is mainly used to justify the universal claims of the old imperial regime, perceived as a moral rampart in the face of colonial adventurism. Half a century later, when Bonaparte dissolved the Holy Empire in 1806, these arguments no longer have a reason to be.
Despite the absence of cards, which can prevent grasping the geographic scope of certain chapters, the work of Indravati congratulated effectively redefines the standards of the historiography of the Empire. The choice to position the “ system »Imperial in a globalized context will be able to divide specialists in German history: the Empire» Germanic Who is depicted here hardly never assumes himself as such. By encompassing in the same set of actors hitherto considered as foreign to each other, this work therefore allows, in negative, to better understand the difficulties of emergence of a German national identity before the XIXe century, and survival within the Empire of a Roman political conception with universal dimensions. The author thus demonstrates that the old regime, nourished by these old and various connections, is a major player in the transformations of modern Europe.
The strength of this book is also to give keys to better understand the ambiguity of the Germanic world in the face of colonization. He clearly highlights the double discourse of German intellectuals of the XVIIIe A century on modern colonial imperiality, which radically decided with the world expansionism of Hohenzollern emperors in the following century. In doing so, Indravati Félicité opens up precious avenues here to specialists in contemporary German colonial history.