Napoleonrules
Banned
Please explain why you think little states cant exist but yet Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, and San Marino are among the oldest and longest lasting states in Europe. No reason to believe there couldnt be even more of their size out there.You've overlooked an important part of my post. A partial unification is inevitable. There are so many small states which couldn't have survived and the German Confederation (let alone the HRE) was completely insufficient to protect these small states. Pardon the crappy map, there sadly aren't any good ones online, but this map for instance is of the proposed "Erfurt Union" (or sometimes called German Union), an attempt to unify most German states (with the definite intention of excluding Austria) in 1850. All the pink states had signed onto it but Austrian pressure put a stop to it, but it wouldn't have taken a lot of effort for it to succeed (Württemberg and Bavaria were the two genuine holdouts, Saxony and Hannover were interested).
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And don't get me started on the fact that Swiss German identity is largely based on the rejection of pan-German thought.