At multiple points in History I've seen it conveyed that an underlying key element is the rivalry between France and Germany. Their goals conflict in desiring hegemony over Europe. First with the Church, then with the Hapsburgs, later with democracy and it's opposition.

They are situated next to eachother, and can not directly win against one another, so they can only look the other way for adjacent land-resources. For Germany this expanse is to the east, and indeed you see Germans at multiple points slowly expand their rule eastward, either directly by expanding pre-existing German borders, or through infiltration by way of the German monarchies who often invited Germans to settle areas where farming was absent.

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