Whaley’s portrayal of the Holy Roman Empire, with checks and balances and loose connections between a central state and its strong ... existence of even the smallest subsidiary unit against ...

By going back into history and investigating the effect of state fragmentation in the Holy Roman Empire in the 18th century, history will help to shed light on this question.

But just over 200 years ago, most of its current territory was a shambolic mess — part of the Holy Roman ... empire's territory was folded into a brief "Confederation of the Rhine" French puppet ...