However, it did help bring back France onto the international stage. Regardless of this, the emperor was still eager for a more prestigious and powerful France. Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian chancellor, refused to do so. France was strongly opposed to any further alliance of German states, which would have significantly strengthened the Prussian military. The prospect of a unified German state to oppose France was not taken well by the French people and government. The growing tensions had arisen from late between the two competitors.
In Prussia, some officials considered a war against France both inevitable and necessary to arouse German nationalism in those states that would allow the unification of a great German empire. Both sides knew war was inevitable - France needed to stop Prussia from expanding and Prussia sought to unite Germany, but neither side wanted to start the war due to the fear of intervention by powers such as Britain and Russia. Both sides remained quiet as tensions increased, until one event prompted the two nations to take actions against one another.
She formally abdicated in June of , thus leaving the Spanish throne vacant. King Wilhelm I was hesitant to endorse Leopold but Otto von Bismarck recognized the potential to gain an ally on the Iberian Peninsula.
Bismarck eventually convinced Leopold in secret to accept the Spanish crown, but Napoleon III would learn of this soon enough. Wilhelm did so in order to prevent a premature war.
Had Leopold succeeded to the Spanish throne, he could possibly have founded a second German dynasty in Spain, following the extinction of the House of Austria less than two centuries earlier.
Napoleon III really feared the fact that if such a coronation took place, France would be encircled by Prussia and its influence. Napoleon III pushed it even further. The diplomat presented the demands of France. Essentially, they wanted Wilhelm I to guarantee that the Hohenzollern family would never agree to send a prince for candidacy to the Spanish throne. Wilhelm of course refused to bind himself to any course of action into the indefinite future. What would then be dubbed as the Ems Dispatch, or the Ems telegram, was sent to Bismarck from Wilhelm outlining the meeting between the French diplomat and himself.
Bismarck found himself in the perfect position to justify a war with France without the possibility of international repercussions. Bismarck published the Ems Dispatch in the press but manipulated it with the approval of the king, to make both the diplomat and the king come off as insulting towards one another.
Likewise, the Germans interpreted the modified dispatch as the Count insulting the King. Public opinion in France was inflamed, so much so that on the 15th of July the French Parliament approved of mobilization in preparation for war against Prussia. The Ems Dispatch had also rallied German national feeling. It was no longer Prussia alone.
South German particularism was now cast aside. In reaction, the Prussian and Bavarian armies mobilized a day later. By the 19th of July, France officially declared war and hostilities commenced.
Under Marshal Adolphe Niel, urgent reforms were made. Universal conscription and a shorter period of service increased the number of reservists, who would swell the army to a planned strength of , men on mobilization. Those who were not conscripted were to be enrolled in the Garde Mobile, a militia with a nominal strength of , men.
He provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria, and France, aligning the smaller German states behind Prussia in its defeat of France. In he formed the German Empire with himself as Chancellor while retaining control of Prussia. He disliked colonialism but reluctantly built an overseas empire when it was demanded by both elite and mass opinion. A master of complex politics at home, Bismarck created the first welfare state in the modern world, with the goal of gaining working-class support that might otherwise have gone to his Socialist enemies.
He lost that battle as the Catholics responded by forming a powerful Centre party and using universal male suffrage to gain a bloc of seats.
Bismarck then reversed himself, ended the Kulturkampf , broke with the Liberals, imposed protective tariffs, and formed a political alliance with the Centre Party to fight the Socialists. Bismarck—a Junker himself—was strong-willed, outspoken, and sometimes judged overbearing, but he could also be polite, charming, and witty.
Occasionally he displayed a violent temper, and he kept his power by melodramatically threatening resignation time and again, which cowed Wilhelm I. He possessed not only a long-term national and international vision but also the short-term ability to juggle complex developments. Many historians praise him as a visionary who was instrumental in uniting Germany and, once that had been accomplished, kept the peace in Europe through adroit diplomacy.
The Emperor of France, Napoleon III, tried to gain territory for France in Belgium and on the left bank of the Rhine as compensation for not joining the war against Prussia and was disappointed by the surprisingly quick outcome of the war.
The conflict was caused by Prussian ambitions to extend German unification and French fears of the shift in the European balance of power that would result if the Prussians succeeded. A suitable pretext for war arose in when the German Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was offered the Spanish throne, vacant since a revolution in France pressured Leopold into withdrawing his candidacy. Not content with this, Paris demanded that Wilhelm, as head of the House of Hohenzollern, assure that no Hohenzollern would ever seek the Spanish crown again.
To provoke France into declaring war with Prussia, Bismarck published the Ems Dispatch, a carefully edited version of a conversation between King Wilhelm and the French ambassador to Prussia, Count Benedetti. This conversation had been edited so that each nation felt its ambassador had been slighted and ridiculed, thus inflaming popular sentiment on both sides in favor of war. France mobilized and declared war on July A Government of National Defense declared the Third Republic in Paris on September 4 and continued the war for another five months; the German forces fought and defeated new French armies in northern France.
Germany had replaced France as the leading nation in continental Europe and, under Bismarck, established good diplomatic relations with Russia and Great Britain, to secure its position. France and Germany remained enemies, even after the ending of hostilities. French public opinion was very nationalistic and anti-Prussian and was determined to avenge the defeat in The country gradually rebuilt its power by creating a vast Empire in Africa and Asia, which alarmed Berlin.
Germany and France began to gather allies in the belief that there would be another Franco-German war one day. By , Europe was divided into two hostile alliances, one led by Germany and the other that was led by France. Europe was divided into two hostile power blocs because of the bitter Franco-German rivalry.
The war resulted in two mutually hostile powers in Europe, which led to two rival alliances on the continent. This antagonistic rivalry was perhaps the most significant factor in the outbreak of the First World War. The Franco-Prussian War decisively changed the balance of power in Europe. The origins of the war lay in the process of the unification of Germany.
Bismarck provoked a war with France to complete the unification of Germany. However, the growing power of Germany eventually led to the formation of two opposing alliances. The Struggle for Mastery in Europe — , p. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. This page was last edited on 20 September , at Privacy policy About DailyHistory.
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