Attraction and repulsion: Franco-German relations in the “long nineteenth century”

Abstract

Franco-German relations are a central theme in both nations’ historical writing. The period from 1789 to 1919 is of special significance.1 Mutual attraction and repulsion alternated in especially quick succession during that era. Both peoples admired one another. Yet, they both feared and even hated one another. To that extent, the "long nineteenth century"2 between the French Revolution and the First World War was also the century of Franco-German antagonism. That view may seem exaggerated and excessively focused on developments in the years after 1867. However, it was not the prehistory of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 that first signaled new developments in the bilateral relationship but rather the much earlier Wars of Liberation of 1813-15. For the first time, traditional power-political rivalry and the age-old territorial conflicts of earlier centuries were combined with national passion. The Grande Révolution of 1789 had instilled in the French a "sense of mission"3 that seemed to justify and even mandate a duty to bring their neighbors the blessing of liberté égalité, et fraternité; that many Germans initially welcomed. The victorious march of the French through Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century thus made enduring changes in the political geography of Germany. The emperor was compelled to abdicate and the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" splintered into different groups of collaborating, neutral, and dispossessed princes.