Is Austria Really Something Special?

So we all know Austria, right? Small Holy Roman kingdom that swelled and grew until it took over much of central Europe. Was the kingdom really special? Was it the conviction or finesse of its government, or was it all a winning drawing of a german control lottery? If Austria hadn’t risen, would another state have done so? Which other state? Would it have been under similar circumstances?

The way I see it, it looks like Austria was none different than any other Holy Roman kingdom of the time, and that it gained all its power, prestige, and, most importantly, land through an extremely lucky streak.

Depends on your definition of luck.

I’m confused.
Are you talking about the Holy Roman Empire or Austria-Hungary?

most likely a combination of factors. it got militarised to resist Napoleon, it’s military didn’t get completely squashed or absorbed by Napoleon (like Poland did), it was landlocked in Europe keeping it safe from Britain, it’s a central location in mainland Europe, just close enough to prosperous Europe to be prosperous, but just remote enough from it to not be trapped by the other major powers, while still far enough removed from Russia or the Ottomans (Turkey) or any other power of the time…

So you say that the location meant everything? Is that not a form of luck?

well, like WiiHugger said, that depends how you define luck. if one person is succesful because they’re smart, and another’s not because they’re stupid, then that means the amount of nerve connections they were born with meant everything.

but yes, geographic situation is everything. the Austrian kingdom was historically not major. all the major powers in global history were coastal (save a few very short-lived blitzkrieg expenionist empires based on sudden unities of nomadic barbarian chiefdoms). and almost all the richest places in the world both in history and present are peninsulas, or sometimes an island just off of several coastlines.

with the exception of the region in the middle of the Middle East, which is historically the cradle of society, and is located on a stretch of land in the middle of five seas.

yes, if you study history (and i mean actually study history, not getting programmed by the education system on the school-subject known as “History”, which is not history, but modern, Western politicology and culturology), you will find that geography is everything.

why is the Netherlands (my country) such a merchant nation? because it’s at the end of the river Rhine, where the aorta of Europe connects to the oceans.

Originally posted by OmegaDoom:

well, like WiiHugger said, that depends how you define luck. if one person is succesful because they’re smart, and another’s not because they’re stupid, then that means the amount of nerve connections they were born with meant everything.

Minor whine: Intelligence is not determined by the number of dendrites you have. It is determined by the complexity of networks in certain brain areas. Why some form more complex networks than others with approximately the same number of connections, we don’t yet know.

However, it is incorrect to assume that just because you may have more dendrites, you will be more intelligent.