Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans, Episode 233, Maximilian I, Last Days and Legacy.

The last decade of Emperor Maximilian's reign was overshadowed by all three challenges to the emerging Habsburg Empire gaining strength.

The Ottoman Empire was piling on resources by taking over Syria, Lebanon and Egypt.

A vigorous new king of France, Francois I, was turning the tide in the incessant Italian wars into his favour.

And finally, the greatest of threats to the dynasty emerged, as the Prince Electors were contemplating,

to raise that self-same Francoir I to the imperial title.

In this episode, we'll look at how the prematurely aged and exhausted emperor tried to shield

his grandsons, Charles and Ferdinand from the ton of bricks that was coming down on them.

And we will look at his last days and legacy.

Clocking in at 18 episodes, Maximilian did achieve one of his objectives in life, outpacing

the great Emperor Fredrik Barbarossa.

Let's find out whether he did this only in terms of number of Hotgeepot episodes

or in other ways too. But before we start, I owe you an explanation why the show is a day late.

On Sunday, which is the day when I normally sit in my favourite armchair and read and prepare for the upcoming episode, I was

instead glued to my screen, fighting against AI slob.

Some absolute bell-end had created a podcast, imaginatively called History of the Germans'

as opposed to just History of the Germans, and he used a slightly altered version of my podcast

logo and font. The episodes he published were AI generated four minutes long, full of clickbait

and SEO triggers, garnished with another four minutes of advertising. Now, what is so irritating

with this is that the effort to get a new listener to click on the show

for the very first time is gigantic. I have had time spent almost as much time drumming up

listeners on social media and by guesting on other shows as I have producing new episodes.

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