Bismarck's War
The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe
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"The best modern account" (Wall Street Journal) of the war that toppled the French Empire, unified Germany, and set Europe on the path to World War I
Among the conflicts that convulsed Europe during the nineteenth century, none was more startling and consequential than the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Deliberately engineered by Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the war succeeded in shattering French supremacy, deposing Napoleon III, and uniting a new German Empire. But it also produced brutal military innovations and a precarious new imbalance of power that together set the stage for the devastating world wars of the next century.
In Bismarck’s War, historian Rachel Chrastil chronicles events on the battlefield in full, while also showing in intimate detail how the war reshaped and blurred the boundaries between civilian and soldier as the fighting swept across France. The result is the definitive history of a transformative conflict that changed Europe, and the history of warfare, forever.
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The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 was "not a war of angels," according to this fine-grained chronicle from historian Chrastil (How to Be Childless). In July 1870, France declared war on Prussia over the succession to the Spanish throne, a crisis engineered by the "guiding hand" of Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck to ensure the dispute could not be resolved peacefully. Bismarck's goal was to forge German unification through "shared victory" over the Second Empire of France under Napoleon III. When German soldiers crossed over into French territory, Chrastil notes, France "acted without precedent" to expel German civilians, laying the groundwork for "large-scale, forced migration and deportations" around the world in the 1880s and beyond. Chrastil argues that as the conflict continued, so too did the "intensification of brutality," leading to the first international humanitarian intervention on behalf of civilians during wartime (when a Swiss group led residents of Strasbourg to safety), as well as the modernization of European militaries so that armies could mobilize and concentrate forces rapidly and on a large scale. Marshaling a tremendous amount of information, Chrastil clearly demonstrates how this conflict set the stage for the world-shattering violence of the 20th century. It's an outstanding synthesis of a complex and vicious war.
