It can be greatly simplified

the big thing was losing the thirty years war

Not really

and not forming unified states

for a long time

because europe was at war all the damn time, there was a constant armsrace in every category

I say geography played a big role in who won

The problem after the black plague was the labour shortage

The reaction to this one issue caused a difference in the future development of Europe

I vaguely recall the labor shortage

how did this affect things

In the east the more organised governments and more powerful lords meant that they simply forced peasants to work harder and longer and gave them less freedoms, creating serfdom
In the west the less organised governments and less powerful lords meant that they couldn't do that, so they had to relax a bit and adapt more to how the peasants were exploiting their new found power

And serfdom is a massive reason why the east just never had a chance against western europe

They held themselves back

I mean... feudalism was still in effect in France and Britain after the plague, wasn't it?

Oh yeah

Look east europe is flat, easy to invade. West eroupe has more mountans, to hide in, and there is the british isles, u need boats to invade.

You don't change an entire system overnight

@zoopokemon kind of, except that big flat bit has a bitch of a winter

well... Britain and France took different paths

Always ends in a russian winter, as they say

Of course they did Apoth

Britain separated early from the Catholic church, avoided the thirty years war, and had several civil wars where they fought off abolutism in their monarchies and Catholic rule

France also tried to discover the republic. Five times.

Waiting on their sixth go at it.

but France went the path of a separated Catholic church (the pope of Avignon), then crushing their Hugenot Protestants, then asserting abolutist monarchy under Louis 14th after the thirty years war

Ye

and that's why we look down on the French

cause they backward ass monkeys

as different as they were

this doesn't compare to the difference between themselves and East Asians and Sub-Saharan Africans

You're right there

Didn't Eastern Europe struggle because they were unable to centralize any power? They were just little bit more unwilling to concede to a large centralized authority I guess?

but I'm still on the 1700s, things likely changed in the 1800s

Germans are known for their orderliness

LOL look a germany talk about not wanting to centralize power

No, Eastern Europe had plenty of centralised power, I mean under that logic the UK would have struggled but we became the greatest nation in existance and that ever will be

I mean... there were like 300 German states only loosely under the authority of the Holy Roman Empire until the Thirty Year's War

and then they were pretty much independent after that

Germany isn't eastern Europe chap

oh my bad lol