Habsburg territories, however, like the blue whale (I’ll now drop this) have only a single element in which to operate – in their case: land. As an accidental and tacked-together cluster of hereditary possessions sprawled across Europe the potential vulnerabilities are almost infinite and the neighbours unavoidable. Britain’s only consistent interests have been to keep the European coast opposite Kent and Essex weak or friendly and allow nobody to invade Ireland – beyond this Britain could dip in and out of continental affairs as it wished. The Habsburgs never had such a pick-and-mix option.
