Background on the Prussian Side:
Prussia was a small German speaking nation that typically had been able to produce some great military might considering its small size. This was demonstrated in the Seven Years war, when Prussian had managed to entertain most of Europe's armies that were involved and thus freed up Britain, it's ally at the time, to conduct war overseas. Americans know of this war as the French and Indian War, and a young British-American by the name of George Washington gained some recognition during it. The British-Prussian Alliance won this actual first world war. Now, let's fast forward to the 1800s, after Napoleon was through with his rampage in Europe. Otto Von Bismarck was very much a Prussian, maybe a Christian to, but definitely a Prussian, he wanted the best for Prussia, and his idea of the best was for nearly all the small German speaking nations to unite under Prussian leadership. Thing was, Otto found himself in big positions of leadership, and he found himself with a brilliant mind for political strategy. He also found himself having a general named Helmut Von Moltke. General Von Moltke was a military genius. So, this means Otto has the resources and power to put his ideas to the test. First Prussia talked Austria into helping them war with Denmark, they beat Denmark and took 3 states from them. Then, there were sweet talks had with Italy, and an agreement was made that if Italy were to attack Austria at the same time Prussia did, they would get a couple of areas they wanted. Around this time, someone attempted to assassinate Bismarck, but he escaped serious injury. The alliance was successful, Prussia got 8 different land areas that it wanted, including Austria's winnings from Denmark. Now, Prussia is looking a lot like the modern Germany we know. In fact, they renamed themselves, the name was the North German Confederation. This new country was now large enough, to rival France as the greatest power in all of Europe. There was an ever increasing sense of tension between the 2 powers, and Bismarck was ready, because, their was land to be had. In between "New Germany" and France was land, filled with German speaking people who just needed a little nudge, to encourage them to align with one of the 2 big Giants in Europe, Bismarck needed France to give that nudge, just enough to push these little countries towards the "loving arms" of his new Prussian led Germany.
Background on the French Side:
France is a very old country, and had been respected as a major power in the affairs of Europe. During the American Revolution, it weighed in on the side of the patriots, without France, America probably would have lost. After this, France had it's own revolution, and overthrew it's own king. It's revolution was quite complicated and I won't discuss it here, but from the other side, Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power, and he had tremendous military genius. He went on a lot of rampages through Europe and it took several coalitions of various nations to finally bring down Napoleon. Various factors like this led to France being widely regarded as a great, if not the greatest power on the European continent. It was an empire, under the leadership of Napoleon's nephew Napoleon III from 1850 until 1870, Napoleon III looked up to his uncle, and he so desperately wanted to follow in his footsteps, he overthrew the French republic and restored the French empire with himself as emperor. The Crimean war started as a result of Russian aggression on a weak Ottoman Empire, France and Britain for reasons of general aggression decided to get involved on the side of the Ottoman Empire, and they beat Russia. This added to France's perceived grandeur and started the friendship of France and Britain that would come into play in the world wars in the distant future. A few years after the Crimean war, some people tried to assassinate Napoleon III but failed, the conspirators had thrown bombs at his carriage, for some reason the bombs did not hurt Napoleon III or his wife but killed some members of his escort, and some bystanders and wounded quite a few others. Napoleon III thought it would be good to help with Italian unification, The small Italian kingdom of Sardinia wanted certain states from Austria and so did France, so they defeated Austria and took it, about ten years before Prussia did something very similar to Austria with Italian allies. As time passed, Napoleon III took note of the new German nation forming in Europe, and he didn't like it, not one bit. His power was threatened as he saw it, and something needed to be done to prevent this from getting out of hand.
Romans 12:2
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Mind translates to a Greek word that probably more accurately means your entire operating system. In modern English, some people call it your soul. Basically, mind includes these 3 things. 1. Intellect, powers of reason 2. Emotion, including feelings, and 3. Will, resolve, determination etc. So, your not being asked to make yourself think like God, your asked to allow yourself to be transformed to think what God wants you to think, and not just think, but allow God's thinking, God's feelings, and God's will to take over. So I don't know how all this will tie together, but, I would like to see how this looks when God takes over a person. I would also like to see the roles that intellect, emotion, and will played in the upcoming war. So, the 2 backgrounds, were to set the stage, the little lecture above also was to set the stage. This is only Part 1.
-Loren
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