Bismarck Napoleon III and the Outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War

France had a general distrust of Germany. There was a great fear that if more serious measures to stop Germany were not made then the next generation would be seeking a war of revenge. The French public opinion earnestly desired a just peace, and would not take up arms again until compelled by a clear threat.3 This pacifism played an extremely important role in French policy. "Whether from ignorance or misunderstanding, many of the French people were apathetic, or just did not care enough to want action."4 The people were divided into two forces, the Left and Right, the Right favoring

Germany started out as a divided nation fighting for dominance in Europe. Otto Von Bismarck was able to take this struggling complexity and unify it. During this process Bismarck turned the small country of Prussia into a powerhouse, growing the population from 11 to 18 million. Bismarck sprung from a landlord class and moved his way up the political ladder as realpolitik, realistic Politician. He was a man of simple ideals; he stressed duty, service, order, and the fear of God. These ideals along with manipulative tactics are what lead Bismarck on his journey of the unification of Germany, proving that without Bismarck’s diplomatic efforts between 1871 and 1890 Europe would not be the stabilized continent it is today.

They also promised an invasion of France on his behalf. Even though the Girondin leader, Brissot, wanted Louis XVI to remain in power, he felt threatened by The Declaration of Pillnitz and declared war on Austria. This further imperilled Louis, especially when Prussia joined Austria’s allies shortly afterwards. France was unprepared for the war and fled. This left the country vulnerable to counterattack. However, Austria and Prussia were not always huge threats as there were distractions from time to time: one of them being the invasion of Poland.

At the Convention of Gastein, Austria took over a German state. This bad feeling for Austria made Prussia more popular. Bismarck then isolated Austria by persuading Russia, France and Italy to remain neutral towards her. Prussia then defeated Austria in a war. Afterwards, the Prussian king and generals wanted to finish Austria off, however, Bismarck showed strength and wouldn't let them. Instead he made peace with Austria to ensure her future support. Bismarck stated: "We shall need Austria's strength ourselves". A good example of opportunism is when Bismarck goaded France into declaring war by editing the EMS telegram. Bismarck edited the telegram to make it seem as if Prussia had insulted France. This angered Napoleon and he declared war. This made France seem like the aggressor, which ensured the neutrality of the other powers. Bismarck described it as: "a red rag to a Gallic bull". All of these points show that Bismarck undoubtedly played an important role in unifying Germany.

While many nations were involved in alliances against Germany, few were involved in alliances with Germany. As a result of Italy’s lack of dedication to the Triple Alliance, Germany became paranoid of losing their vital alliance with the Austria-Hungary, causing them to go to any length to preserve Austria-Hungary, according to Document Nine. This assurance of support was a fatal error by Germany, giving Austria-Hungary the infamous ‘Blank Cheque’ that guaranteed full support to Austria-Hungary for any actions they would take in response to the assassination. Upon receiving the blank cheque, Austria-Hungary acted as stupidly and aggressively as possible without regard for diplomatic repercussions, as indicated by their unreasonable (if not impossible) requests in their ultimatum to Serbia demonstrated in Document Three, resulting in an Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia which prompted the domino effect leading to the outbreak of the Great War. As Germany was responsible for pushing the first domino, they were held responsible for the start of the war by the

Allowing the union of Austria and Germany would only make Germany stronger, something France especially did not want. Self-determination was also used against Germany in other ways. By allowing Poland to become a country with access to the sea, Germany would be split in half, and former German territory would now be known as the Polish Corridor. Territory was also taken away from Germany to create the nation of Lithuania.

War soon broke out after that between the new French Republic and the European Monarchs, much to the

Initially, The Treaty of Versailles ended the Great War, but more importantly it was largely stacked against the Germans. The Germans had lost

“The representatives in the Congress of Vienna wanted to prevent France’s aggression by surrounding France with stronger nations, restore balance of power, so no country would be a threat to others and restore Europe’s royal families to the thrones they head held before Napoleon’s coquets” (Beck, 239). In order to make the weak nations around France stronger, the former Austrian Netherlands and Dutch Republic were united to form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “Group of 39 German states were loosely joined as the newly create German confederation, dominate by Austria. Leaders of Europe wanted to weaken France, but also didn’t want to leave it powerless. If they did, the French might rebel to take revenge but if France became weaker and was broken up, another country might become so strong that it would threaten them all. France remained a major but diminished European powers” (Beck, 239). Nevertheless, not all-important decisions were made by the great powers.

Evidently, this came as a shock to the French population because, in the last century, Napoleon I and Napoleon III had both came close to dominating the entirety of Europe. A loss against the Prussian nation was a devastating blow to French nationalism and imperialism. Furthermore, in the Treaty of Frankfurt, the nation of Prussia forced France to recognize the unified German Empire with Wilhelm I of Prussia as its leader. This not only gave rise to an increased imperialism and nationalism in the German Empire but also brought about an intense obsession in the form of revanchism for the reconquest of the provinces lost in the Franco-Prussian war. This revanchism would become one of France’s most influential reasons for French participation in the First World War against the German Empire. Nationalism in France before the First World War revolved around a hatred for the Germans due to their apparent aggressive expansion into French land. The French people had an intense want to recover the prestige that they had lost at the end of the Franco-Prussian war and further wanted the resurgence of France as a top world power. Frankly, French nationalism helped the French populace jump willingly into war with the Germans, which greatly influenced the beginning of the

France was very resentful when coming up with this peace treaty. The top three major component parts of the treaty were its attack on German military, territory, and the economy. The Germans were forced to downsize their military to one-hundred thousand men, to turn over all their submarines, and get rid of their air force completely. The second component forced Germany to lose West Prussia to Poland, causing Germany to now be divided in two. The treaty also took away Alsace and Lauren, two territories that were the very heart of German industrialization. Most of their coal came from this land. The third and the most obscene, was the so-called War Guilt Clause. This declared that Germany was to blame for starting the war and ordered Germany to pay reparations for the damage to the governments and their people because of the war. These reparations racked up to be thirty-five billion dollars. Thirty-five billion dollars was an enormous amount of money back then to anyone, let alone a country who has been just at war itself. Germany was already in its own debt because of this war and now on top of that, they now had to worry about paying for the other countries debt. This treaty put a lot of pressure on Germany. After Germany’s first payment of two and a half billion marks both Germany and France realized that Germany just could not pay the reparations on time. Germany was facing financial problems making it

"Napoleon's tragedy was that his ambitions surpassed his capacities; Bismarck's tragedy was that his capacities exceeded his society's ability to absorb them. The legacy Napoleon left for France was strategic paralysis; the legacy the Bismarck left for Germany was unassimilable greatness"(statement made by Henry Kissinger) is in my opinion a correct statement. This statement can actually be separated into two parts. The first parts relates with the capacities, ambitions and successes of Bismarck and Napoleon. The second part is about the final result of their reign and how their reigns could be taken over after such changing of Europe.

In the year 1914, the Europeans were on edge because one country had found itself at war with another and all powers would end up into a struggle. On one side, there were the Germans, standing in the center of Europe with their efficient armies of their neighboring countries, France and Russia. The Germans had treaty links to the nation of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Turks. The two main sides were the Allies, which included France, Great Britain, and Russia; and Germany and Austria-Hungary. Italy had been part of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but this disappeared by 1914. On the other side were the French, the Russians, and if the Germans attacked France, the British. The French were worried about another

had one of the best education rates to be seen in a long time. Along

Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm were two German officials around the time of world war one. They both had foreign policies and they were both pretty different. Bismarck’s foreign policy had many aims. One of the aims was to leave territorial expansion behind. He unified Germany and to do so had to incorporate many other states into Prussia. He was also very much in favor of peace instead of war. He also never tried to strengthen the naval forces of Germany especially not to ruin the relationship with England. Next, he decided to keep France isolated as well as friendless so that could not start a war as revenge. He also focused on Germany 's relationship with Austria and Russia. He also distrusted Italy.