Things That You Need To Remember To Understand The Vast Majority Of European History:

Things that you need to remember to understand the vast majority of European history:

Britain and France’s foreign policies towards one another was essentially a mutual fuck you

Russia is big and cold

(On a related point: invading Russia doesn’t work because Winter™️)

The Pope loves a good crusade

There were a lot of treaties of ‘Perpetual Peace’ that totally worked (lol)

Trying to maintain the ✨balance of power ✨ pretty much always led to war 

German wasn’t Germany until quite recently but when Germany became Germany it made everyone a bit nervous

Italy also wasn’t Italy until pretty recently

The French love a revolution

They also love a republic but aren’t great at keeping one around 

Napoleon (the first one) was a Bitch and messed everything up

Standard British answer to any reasonable request: ✨no ✨

War is the answer to everything cause who doesn’t love a good war?

The Holy Roman Empire wasn’t the Roman Empire but they liked to tell themselves that it was

The Habsburgs liked to be in charge

😍 m o n e y 😍

Britain liked ships

Spain also liked ships

So did the Portuguese

The Spanish were very Catholic  (but the Spanish Inquisition were actually expected)

Basically all the royals were related (*haemophilia has entered the chat*)

England and Scotland were Not Friends but France and Scotland were (which equaled Major Problems)

The Dutch were 💰rich 💰and everyone wanted a bit of it

Religion was a *bit* of an issue

✨ feudalism ✨

Everyone want to be the Romans 2.0 

You could making a drinking game out of all the French Wars of Religion

Everyone found the Ottomons a little bit scary (cause they were *gasps and screams of horror* not Christian)

There has been more than one defenestrations in Prague 

Poland Lithuania was not very Lithuanian

British policy to land/important cultural item/anything that they come across: ✨finders keepers ✨