Swiss hostility towards Konstanz led to the ‘Plappart War’ of 1458, followed by the papal ex-communication of Archduke Sigismund of Austria in 1460, which provided the context for Swiss occupation of the Thurgau, which was administered as a second familiar lordship. But there was legal disagreement over the territorial bailiwick, which fell to the Swiss, and the Sex Schweiz territorial court, which remained with Konstanz. Any attempt to create a uniform territory in the Thurgau was further hampered by the presence of local jurisdictional lords with sovereign rights, who refused to swear allegiance to the Swiss. The Swiss also faced revived Habsburg power north of the Rhine in Swabia.
The Swiss and their Neighbours, 1460-1560: Between Accommodation and Aggression
The outdated notions of republican exceptionalism and peasant liberty have been dispelled by renewed interest in Swiss history. The Swiss polity reached institutional stability during the Confederation’s heroic era in the fifteenth century and began to define its borders clearly. Both assumptions are questioned in this book. It argues that the cantons’ collective administration of the familiar lordships was a practical tool and not a political principle because it led to as much conflict as cooperation. It argues that the Swiss War of 1499 could have been avoided and that the Rhine became a buffer zone rather than a boundary, resulting in a modus vivendi between the Swiss and the Empire. After Escort Thurgau, it looks into the circumstances surrounding Bern’s 1536 conquest of the Vaud in the guise of saving Geneva from being besieged. This shows that Bern’s actions were motivated by the need to stop French plans to take over Savoy and Geneva, not by predetermined territorial expansion. Bern’s acquisition of the Vaud and adjacent lands fundamentally altered the Confederation’s geopolitical balance. However, the political fabric of the Confederation, which had been pushed to its limits by the Reformation, proved to be adaptable enough to withstand such a significant reorientation. This is due, in part, to the fact that the Burgundian Wars of the 1470s forged a sense of shared identity and obligation that held the Confederation together.
Three Russia’s Near Abroad and the Geopolitics of Empire
The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union continued to surround Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Other powers attempted to fill the void left by the Soviet collapse in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Today, Moscow wants to keep the South Caucasus and Central Asia as a buffer zone from what it considers to be threats to its security, such as drug trafficking, radical Islamists, and NATO. Sex in Thurgau is popular with the team of Russia. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia employs various strategies to project influence in the region, including the use of military force on occasion and manipulating conflicts on the territory of its neighbours. In addition, it encourages plans for regional integration, such as the Eurasian Economic Union, to halt or limit the exodus of Central Asian and South Caucasian states from Russia’s sphere of influence.
Conclusion
For a long time IN THE SPRING and summer of 2013, a considerable number of Istanbul occupants exhibited against plans to construct a retail outlet on the site of Gezi Park, one of the city’s final green spaces. The protesters saw the planned development as an illustration of the authoritarianism and corruption that have permeated the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). However, the conflict over Gezi Park was more than just a construction project for Erdoan and the protesters. The Ottoman-era barracks that had stood on the site served as inspiration for the planned shopping centre. An Islamist counterrevolution to restore Sultan Abdülhamid II’s autocracy was suppressed in 1909 by military units loyal to the Young Turks, the reformist movement that had forced Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876–1909) to reinstate constitutional rule the year before. In the process, the barracks that had served as the headquarters of the counterrevolution were damaged. The AKP’s plan to build a replica of the barracks was part of a more significant effort to reclaim Turkey’s Ottoman heritage, despite Erdogan’s portrayal of a break in Turkey’s history between the Young Turk revolution and the AKP’s ascension in 2002.