Causes of the Franco-Prussian War
The causes of the Franco-Prussian War are deeply rooted in the events surrounding
France was strongly opposed to the annexation of the Southern German States (Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt) by the North German Confederation, which would have created too powerful a country next to its border. In Prussia, a war against France was deemed necessary to arouse German nationalism in those States in order to allow the unification of most German states (excluding the ethnically German lands of the Austrian Empire) into a great German empire. This aim was epitomized by Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's quote: "I knew that a Franco-Prussian War must take place before a united Germany was formed."[1] Bismarck also knew that France should be the aggressor in the conflict to bring the Southern German States to side with Prussia, hence giving Germans numerical superiority.[2]
The immediate cause of the war resided in the candidacy of a
French Emperor Napoleon III and Prime Minister Émile Ollivier's eagerness to relieve France from internal political convulsions also contributed to France's declaration of war on Prussia.[3]
European wars and the balance of power: 1865–1866
In October 1865,
After
Bismarck was approached soon after the end of the war by Napoleon III's ambassador to Prussia,
The true views of Napoleon III on the subject of the balance of power in Europe can be found in a state circular handed to every diplomatic representative for France. In this paper dated September 1, 1866, the emperor saw the future of Europe after the Peace of Prague in this manner:
- "Policy should rise superior to the narrow and mean prejudices of a former age. The Emperor does not believe that the greatness of a country depends upon the weakness of the nations which surround it, and he sees a true equilibrium only in the satisfied aspirations of the nations of Europe. In this, he is faithful to old convictions and to the traditions of his race. Napoleon I foresaw the changes which are now taking place on the continent of Europe. He had sown the seeds of new nationalities: in the Peninsula, when he created the Kingdom of Italy; and in Germany, when he abolished two hundred and fifty three separate states."[11]
Domestic agenda in France and Prussia
French prestige and politics
France's position in Europe was now in danger of being overshadowed by the emergence of a powerful Prussia, and France looked increasingly flat-footed following Bismarck's successes. In addition, French ruler Napoleon III was on increasingly shaky ground in domestic politics. Having successfully overthrown the
The French imperial government now looked to a diplomatic success to stifle demands for a return to either a republic or a Bourbon monarchy. A war with Prussia and resulting territorial gains in the Rhineland and later Luxembourg and Belgium seemed the best hope to unite the French nation behind the Bonapartist dynasty. With the resulting prestige from a successful war, Napoleon III could then safely suppress any lingering republican or revolutionary sentiment behind reactionary nationalism and return France to the center of European politics.[14]
Bismarck and German nationalism
Prussia in turn was also beset with problems. While revolutionary fervour was far more muted than in France, Prussia had in 1866 acquired millions of new citizens as a result of the
Bismarck had an entirely different view after the war in 1866: he was interested only in strengthening Prussia through the eyes of a staunch realist. Uniting Germany appeared immaterial to him unless it improved Prussia's position.[18] Bismarck had mentioned before the war the possibility of ceding territory along the Rhine to France, and Napoleon III, urged by his representatives in France, used these casual references by Bismarck to press for more of the territory that Prussia had received from Austria. These discussions, leaked by Bismarck to the German states in the south, turned former enemies into allies almost overnight, receiving not only written guarantees but armies that would be under the control of Prussia.[19]
Alliances and diplomacy
German states
Diplomatically and militarily, Napoleon III looked for support from Austria, Denmark, Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg, as all had recently lost wars against Prussia. However, Napoleon III failed to secure revanchist alliances from these states. Denmark had twice fought Prussia during the
Austria and Italy
The Austrian Chancellor
- The alliance, proposed two years before 1870, between France, Italy, and Austria, was never concluded because Napoleon III [...] would never consent to the occupation of Rome by Italy. [...] He wished Austria to avenge Sadowa, either by taking part in a military action, or by preventing South Germany from making common cause with Prussia. [...] If he could insure, through Austrian aid, the neutrality of the South German States in a war against Prussia, he considered himself sure of defeating the Prussian army, and thus would remain arbiter of the European situation. But when the war suddenly broke out, before anything was concluded, the first unexpected French defeats overthrew all previsions, and raised difficulties for Austria and Italy which prevented them from making common cause with France. Wörth and Sedan followed each other too closely. The Roman question was the stone tied to Napoleon's feet — that dragged him into the abyss. He never forgot, even in August 1870, a month before Sedan, that he was a sovereign of a Catholic country, that he had been made Emperor, and was supported by the votes of the conservatives and the influence of the clergy; and that it was his supreme duty not to abandon the Pontiff. [...] For twenty years Napoleon III had been the true sovereign of Rome, where he had many friends and relations [...] Without him the temporal power would never have been reconstituted, nor, being reconstituted, would have endured.[22]
Another reason why Beust's desired revanche against Prussia did not materialize was the fact that, in 1870, the Hungarian Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy was "vigorously opposed."[23]
Russia
In addition to the problems facing Napoleon III in obtaining potential allies, Bismarck worked feverishly to isolate France from the other European powers. Since 1863, Bismarck had made efforts to cultivate Russia, co-operating, amongst other things, in dealing with Polish insurgents. This important move gained for Bismarck the neutrality of Russia if Prussia went to war, and it also prevented Austria from taking sides with France as Austria fully supported the Poles.[24] When Alexander II came to France on an official visit in 1867, he was at the receiving end of an unsuccessful assassination attempt by Polish-born Anton Berezovski while riding with Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie. Tsar Alexander was very offended that not only the French courts had given Berezovski imprisonment instead of death but also the French press had sided with the Pole rather than Alexander. This experience forever shattered his views of France and saw in the reaction his visit had received why his father had despised the French.[25]
In 1868, he held discussions with the Prussians, intending to counter a possible Austrian alliance with Napoleon III by Franz Joseph. If German forces were, for any reason, bogged down in the west, then Prussia's eastern and southern flanks would have been highly vulnerable. With his usual skill, Bismarck moved carefully to sidestep the nightmare. The Russian government even went so far as to promise to send an army of 100,000 men against the Austrians if Austria joined France in a war against Prussia. Whilst at Ems in the crucial summer of 1870 Wilhelm I and Bismarck had meetings with Tsar Alexander, also present in the spa town Alexander, though not naturally pro-German, became very comfortable with Prussian suggestions.[26]
Bismarck also had talks at Ems with
United Kingdom
Bismarck then made Benedetti's earlier draft public to The Times in London that demanded Belgium and Luxembourg as the price for remaining neutral during the Austro-Prussian War. Sensitive to the threat of a major power controlling the strategically significant Low Countries and the English Channel coastline, the United Kingdom government in particular took a decidedly cool attitude to these French demands, and the British people were disturbed by this subversive attempt at going back on Napoleon III's word. Therefore, Britain as a nation did nothing to aid France. The Prime Minister, William Gladstone, expressed his thoughts on the matter to Queen Victoria by writing to her that "Your majesty will, in common with the world, have been shocked and startled."[28] Though it had enjoyed some time as the leading power of continental Europe, the French Empire found itself dangerously isolated.
Monarchial crises
Luxembourg Crisis
The king of the Netherlands, William III, was under a personal union with Luxembourg that guaranteed its sovereignty. Napoleon III had taken note that the king had amassed certain personal debts that would make a sale of Luxembourg to France possible. However, Luxembourg lies astride one of the principal invasion routes an army would use to invade either France or Germany from the other. The city of Luxembourg's fortifications were considered "the Gibraltar of the North" and neither side could tolerate the other controlling such a strategic location.
The pressure on Bismarck to object not only came from his monarch
Assuming that Bismarck would not object, the French government was shocked to learn that instead Bismarck, Prussia and the
Spanish throne
The Spanish throne had been vacant since the revolution of September 1868, and the Spanish offered the throne to the German prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a Catholic as well as a distant cousin of King Wilhelm of Prussia. Leopold and Wilhelm I were both uninterested, but the wily Bismarck was acutely interested, as it was an opportunity to once again best Napoleon III. Bismarck persuaded Leopold's father to accept the offer for his nation, and it was accepted instead by Leopold himself in June 1870.[33]
The Hohenzollern crisis and the Ems Dispatch
On 2 July 1870, "Marshall Prim [who held power in Spain] announced in Madrid that the Spanish government had offered the crown of Spain to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern."
[34]
Fearing that a Hohenzollern king in Prussia and another one in Spain would put France into a two-front situation, France this time was determined to stand up to the expansion of Prussian influence. Napoleon III at this time was suffering the most unbearable pain from his stones,
Following this direct confrontation, which had bypassed diplomatic protocols, King Wilhelm then sent a message to Berlin reporting this event with the French ambassador, and Bismarck shrewdly edited it to make it "like a red tag to the bull" for the French government.[37] The dispatch was edited as follows (with the words sent in bold):
Count Benedetti spoke to me on the promenade, in order to demand from me, finally in a very importunate manner, that I should authorize him to telegraph at once that I bound myself for all future time never again to give my consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. I refused at last somewhat sternly, as it is neither right nor possible to undertake engagements of this kind à tout jamais. Naturally I told him that I had as yet received no news, and as he was earlier informed about Paris and Madrid than myself, he could clearly see that my government once more had no hand in the matter. His Majesty has since received a letter from the Prince. His Majesty having told Count Benedetti that he was awaiting news from the Prince, has decided with reference to the above demand, upon the representation of Count Eulenburg and myself, not to receive Count Benedetti again, but only to let him be informed through an aide-de-camp that his Majesty had now received from the Prince confirmation of the news which Benedetti had already received from Paris, and had nothing further to say to the ambassador. His Majesty leaves it to your Excellency whether Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection should not be at once communicated both to our ambassadors and to the press.[38]
This dispatch made the encounter more heated than it really was. Known as the Ems Dispatch, it was released to the press. It was designed to give the French the impression that King Wilhelm I had insulted the French Count Benedetti, and to give the Prussian people the impression that the Count had insulted the King. It succeeded in both of its aims- Gramont called it "a blow in the face of France", and the members of the French legislative body spoke of taking "immediate steps to safeguard the interests, the security, and the honor of France."[39] On 19 July 1870 "Le Sourd, the French Chargé d'Affaires, delivered Napoleon's declaration of war at the Foreign Office" in Berlin.[40] According to the secret treaties signed with Prussia and in response to popular opinion, Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg mobilised their armies and joined the war against France.[41]
European public reaction
At the outbreak of the war, European public opinion heavily favored the Germans. For example, many Italians attempted to sign up as volunteers at the Prussian embassy in Florence, and a Prussian diplomat visited Giuseppe Garibaldi in Caprera. After the fall of Napoleon III following the Battle of Sedan, Bismarck's demand for the return of Alsace caused a dramatic shift in that sentiment, which was best exemplified by the reaction of Garibaldi soon after the revolution in Paris, who told the Movimento of Genoa on 7 September 1870, "Yesterday I said to you: war to the death to Bonaparte. Today I say to you: rescue the French Republic by every means."[42]
See also
Notes
- ^ Otto von Bismarck (A.J. Butler, trans.), Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman, vol. 2, page 58. Originally published in 1898; reprinted in 2007 by Cosimo Classics of New York, New York.
- ^ a b "Franco-German War | History, Causes, & Results".
- ISBN 978-0-521-58436-4.
- ISBN 0-241-11565-5.
- ^ Jerrold, Blanchard (1882). The Life of Napoleon III. Longmans, Green & Co. p. 327.
- ISBN 9780786706600.
- ^ Jerrold(1883). pp. 327–330
- ^ Bresler(1999). p. 340
- ISBN 0-521-58436-1.
- ^ Bresler(1999). pp. 338–339
- ^ Jerrold(1882) p. 332
- ^ Martin, Henri; Abby Langdon Alger (1882). A Popular History of France from the First Revolution to the Present Time. D. Estes and C.E. Lauriat. pp. 491–492.
- ^ Bresler(1999), p. 345
- ^ Wawro(2003), p. 30
- ^ Wawro(2003), p. 17
- ^ Taylor(1988), pp. 84-85.
- ^ Taylor(1988), pp. 70-71.
- ^ Taylor(1988), pp. 86-87.
- ^ Taylor(1988), pp. 88-89.
- ^ Robertson, Charles Grant (1919). Bismarck. H. Holt and Co. pp. 220–221.
- ^ Albertini, Luigi (1952). The Origins of the War of 1914, Volume I. Oxford University Press. p. 4.
- ^ De Cesare, Raffaele (1909). The Last Days of Papal Rome. Archibald Constable & Co. pp. 439–443.
- ^ Albertini, Luigi (1952). The Origins of the War of 1914, Volume I. Oxford University Press. p. 6.
- ^ Holt, Lucius Hudson; Alexander Wheeler (1917). The History of Europe from 1862 to 1914: From the Accession of Bismarck to the Outbreak of the Great War. Macmillan. pp. 69–70, 127.
- ^ Radzinsky, Edvard (2005). Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar. Simon and Schuster. p. 200.
- ^ Kleinschmidt, Arthur (1898). Drei Jahrhunderte russischer Geschichte. J. Räde. p. 425.
- ^ Jelavich, Barbara (2004). Russia and the Formation of the Romanian National State, 1821-1878. Cambridge University Press. p. 202.
- ^ Bresler(1999), pp. 338-339.
- ^ Taylor(1988) pp. 104-105
- ^ Taylor(1988) pp. 107-108
- ^ Wawro(2003) pp. 22-23.
- ^ Taylor(1988) p. 106
- ^ Wawro(2003), p. 34.
- ^ Ridley (1980) p. 558
- ^ Bresler(1999), pp. 357-358.
- ^ Wawro(2003), pp. 35-36.
- ^ Bresler(1999), p. 363
- ^ Bresler(1999), pp. 363-364.
- ^ Bresler(1999), pp. 364-365.
- ^ Moritz Busch, Bismarck: Some secret pages from his history, Macmillan, New York (1898) Vol. I, p. 37
- ^ Howard(1991), p. 60.
- ISBN 9780670335480.
References
- Baumont, Maurice (1956). Gloires et tragédies de la IIIe République (in French). Paris: Hachette.
- Fenton, Bresler (1999). Napoleon III: A Life. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-0660-0.
- Cesare, Raffaele De; Zimmern, Helen (1909). The Last Days of Papal Rome, 1850-1870. London: Houghton Mifflin. p. 449.
- Howard, Michael (2001). The Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of France 1870-1871. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-26671-8.
- Jelavich, Barbara (2004). Russia and the Formation of the Romanian National State, 1821-1878. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521522519.
- Jerrold, Blanchard (1877). The Life of Napoleon III: Derived from State Records, from Unpublished Family Correspondence, and from Personal Testimony; with Family Portraits in the Possession of the Imperial Family, and Facsimiles of Letters of Napoleon I., Napoleon III., Queen Hortense, & c. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
- Kleinschmidt, Arthur (1898). Drei Jahrhunderte russischer Geschichte: Ueberblick der russischen Geschichte seit der Thronbesteigung der Romanow bis heute (1598-1898) (in German). Berlin: J. Räde.
- Martin, Henri (1882). A Popular History of France from the First Revolution to the Present Time: 1832-1881. Boston, MA: Dana Estes and Charles E. Lauriat.
- Nolte, Frédéric (1884). L'Europe Militaire Et Diplomatique Au Dix-Neuvième Siècle: 1815-1884 (in French). Paris: Plon-Nourrit.
- Radzinsky, Edvard (2005). Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780743281973.
- Ridley, Jasper (1976). Garibaldi. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0670335487.
- Ridley, Jasper (1980). Napoleon III and Eugénie. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0670504289.
- Robertson, Charles Grant (1919). Bismarck. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
- Taithe, Bertrand (2001). Citizenship and Wars: France in Turmoil, 1870-1871. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415239273.
- Taylor, A.J.P. (1988). Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-11565-5.
- Wawro, Geoffrey (2003). The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-58436-1.