Europe's Longest War: The Battle for the Ghost Kingdom that Decided the Fate of a Continent

Lotharingia is possibly the most important kingdom to ever exist that you’ve possibly never heard of! When the Carolingian empire broke up in the early 800s, it was divided into three parts: East Francia, Middle Francia, and West Francia. Two of those, West and East Francia, eventually became the modern states of Germany and France. Middle Francia eventually became the short lived kingdom of Lotharingia—the Kingdom of Lothar. For two centuries the loyalties of Lotharingia flipped back and forth between East and West Francia, and in a sense, the fighting never stopped.

Much of the history of Europe can be looked as attempts to put the Roman Empire back together again, and the Carolingian empire of the Franks was a serious attempt. But it failed. From one view, the fighting it unleashed continued for a thousand years between France and Germany as they fought wars against one another for control of Lotharingia, which helps explain why France felt it had natural borders during the French Revolution and why Napoleon annexed the region, and why Bismarck annexed Lorraine and why the French were so eager to get it back.