While reading chapters 3-5 of the Germany text, I realized a common trend
of Germany uniting against France.
Around the second time I read about Germany going against France I
realized this must be a prevailing pattern, and kept my eye out for any more references
of German unification against France.
And lo-and-behold, France as the common enemy came up a total of 3 times
in 2 chapters (chapters 4 and 5).
While uniting against France may
not have been the deciding factor (there was still the problem of population
increase and food shortages that attributed) to the unification of Germany in
1871, it is still a major factor.
Above is a map of Europe around
1850. It shows an outline of the
German Confederation with all its smaller states. I thought I should add this map to show how close France and
Germany are to each other. It is
also the only other large country besides Russia (also not including the
nations that somewhat fall within the German Confederation) that borders the
Germanic states.
It all started in the spring of
1813, when Napoleon (the below, left image) lost against Russia. Before this, France had occupied the
German nation, but when Napoleon lost it seems as if the German people lost
faith in France. The text states
that it was a shift in mood when “the same people who, fascinated by
Napoleon…now responded to the defeat of the Grande
Armée in Russia with joy” (105-106).
This led to a rise in propaganda against the French. In my perspective, it seemed as if the
German people, who had before accepted French occupation (possibly because
people hoped the French government would fix the famine crisis and more), now
saw how weak Napoleon and France were to the Russians. Therefore, the German people lost faith
in France because of their defeat and sought to be rid of the occupation. This led to a social unity of the
German people towards the goal of fighting the French in the Wars of
Liberation.
The second instance of Germany vs.
France was in 1859 when Napoleon III (the above, right image), Emperor of France, and
allied with Piedmont-Sardinia.
This sparked more anti-French hostilities and propaganda’s. The German people were “seized by a
wave of nationalism” and “demanded the creation of a sovereign German nation
state that would possess real military power and be able to intervene
effectively in foreign affairs” (136).
Under threat of France going against Austria, the German states wanted
to unite and gain military power to protect themselves. Of course, German unification did not
happen then either.
Then the time for German
unification actually came. The
text attributes the cause of unification by France’s attempt to intervene:
Now it
was the aggressive foreign policy tactics of the French that helped to bring
about the very German unity that the French government wished to prevent at all
costs. The task of unification
could be completed only under pressure from the outside, as Bismarck was well
aware, and the desired pressure was provided by Napoleon III. (142)
This pressure was who was going to get the Spanish
throne. The Spanish parliament
offered it to a branch of the Prussian rule, which France saw as a threat and
Napoleon III sought to stop Prussia from gaining more power. When Benedetti, the French ambassador,
demanded of William I, the Prussian king, that a prince of the Hohenzollern
house would not try to become Spanish king ever. As a result, William I (below image on
the left) refused and sparked more French hostility towards the German
states. The message sent to
Bismarck (below image on the right) about this meeting and sent an edited
version to the press, describing the French as snub and adding fuel to the
anti-French belief amongst the German people. In retaliation to the press release, Napoleon III declared
war, just as Bismarck had predicted (143). This gave the German nation a reason to unite as a single
country, although it is not the main contribution to German unification.
All in all, unified German pride
and nationalism came about a lot against the French. The German people had the chance to unify under a common
goal of writing propaganda’s and antagonizing France. With the number of times the German states united against
the French, it helped fuel the need for a unified country.
Word Count=767
Word Count=767
Bibliography:
Schulze, Hagen. Germany: A New History. Trans. Deborah
Lucas Schneider. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998. Print.
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