I said the Germans had a point. I didn't say it is a particularly good one.
The point I was actually trying to make is that the Germans and Romans are blaming each other for waging war (plus, the Romans think Latins are bloodthirsty warmongering barbarians, while the Germans think Romans are bloodthirsty genocidal hypocrites, oooooh, I wonder what later eugenics will make of that), at a time when war is still very much a kind of diplomacy, which is dangerous, because it's exactly this kind of deep-seated irrational hatred that spawns the kind of madness that was the Second World War, and the seventeenth century, while still a lil early, is TTL still a good time for such hatreds to gestate, to be released sometime in the nineteenth century, if my opinions on diplomacy and technologial development in the future turn out to be correct.
An eye for an eye makes the world blind, so either kill the other guy entirely, or take a lesson in forgiveness (i.e. magnanimity, which is a trait sorely lacking in some people TTL). The Romans already have centuries of horrible atrocities that they hold the West responsible, and now the West has atrocities that it holds Rhomania responsible for. I think it is inevitable that this cycle of hatred fuels a World War unlike any ever seen, even in OTL.
I'm not saying that blaming the Germans for starting the war is wrong (they, or rather Theodor, did, and that's that), but saying that they deserve Ulm because they perpetrated the destructions of Macedonia and Thessaloniki and sundry other invasions in the past is like saying that 14 million Germans deserved to be driven from their homes because the Nazis started WW2, murdered 17 million people and the Kaiser started WW1 because he felt like it. Both sides' actions were unfair, it's a slap in the face to the people of Germany, especially in TTL since this time it wae basically just Theodor, and while in the aftermath of WW2 Germany was neutered throughly, TTL Germany still lives to fight, and will never forget this.
So, please, stop with the 'they really deserved it' preaching, that's just the Roman argument and we know it all too well already. It may soothe the ego of Romans, but do nothing else. In earlier times, Latin writers may have viewed Roman backlash against Latin atrocities in Rhomania as legitimate; but not after Ulm, no, not after Ulm. Venice was thought to be a one-off thing before; I can easily see the West think of the Romans as regular mass-murderers, especially after the unpleasantness of Mesopotamia.
Remember, long ago, that the French king lost the war against England and Burgundy because his troops massacred Autun (in a fashion quite similar to Ulm) and no one at all liked him for it, so the West is not quite being special with the Romans.
Now, faulting the Romans for this is almost as stupid as faulting the Germans, for pretty much the same reasons, so let us just agree that this was a very bad time for both and be on our way.
