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The Republic and the Iron Chancellor: the Pattern of Franco-German Relations, 1871–1890

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

W. R. Fryer
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Extract

A few years ago I commented in an article on the European catastrophe of 1870, viewed in the long perspective of relations between the French and the Germans down to that date. My present lecture embodies a comment on the international consequences of 1870 during the twenty years which followed it. I hope in time to come to pursue the theme of Franco-German relations further down the slope of time, as far as the end of the Second World War.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 29 , December 1979 , pp. 169 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1979

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References

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33 My much respected colleague at Nottingham, K. C. Edwards, Professor of Geography, confirmed me in this view.

34 More than ‘sentiment’ (Howard, , Franco-Prussian War, p. 448Google Scholar), was involved.

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59 Taylor, (Struggle for Mastery, pp. 282–3)Google Scholar is right to emphasize that colonial expansion was unpopular in France for its own sake: but the militant patriots both shared in, and added something to, mere anti-colonialism.

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68 My colleague at Nottingham, Dr Derek Spring, urges that the inspector's arrest was only the second ‘high point’ of the crisis, the first being in January. He points specially to Count Peter Schuvalov's approach, in the New Year, to Berlin, offering Russia's friendly neutrality in a fresh Franco-German war if Germany would show similar good will to Russia in her Balkan difficulties; and to Bismarck's eager acceptance of the draft (which, however, the Russian Emperor rejected). But it does not follow that Bismarck would have used this agreement for anything but ‘psychological’ warfare against France. There were no German military plans for another offensive westwards.

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