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Notes -
Wiki:
So ... like the European Union today post Brexit?
The motive may have been sinister, building a counter block to the British Empire, and fueled by Prussian nationalism (because annexations would have weakened German unity and Prussian dominance in the Reich), but I believe such an Mitteleuropa-Association of ostensibly independent states would have developed into the enlightened and neoliberal European Union states we have today.
A quick victory of Germany would have also prevented the overthrow of the Russian Monarchy and German helping Lenin return from exile in 1917. Maybe alls this communism-revolution-thingy could have been avoided?
You are more right than you know. There is a direct lineage from those ideas to the EEC and the EU, one that in fact goes through the 3rd Reich and people like Walther Hallstein who developed programs to unify juridic norms for a planned confederation under Germany and were conveniently scooped up by Americans for the cold war.
You can go as far back as Napoleon's Continental System and Victor Hugo's famous speech. This is an old idea, which modern European elites have always dreamed of.
Britain of course, has been sabotaging it forever, as is their interest.
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