Author: James Stone Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH ISBN: 9783515096348 Category : Europe Languages : de Pages : 0
Book Description
In the spring of 1875 Europe appeared to be on the brink of armed conflict. France had just passed a new army law which seemed to be a prelude to a war of revenge. Berlin responded with saber-rattling and threats of preventive war. When Russia and England intervened to preserve the peace, Germany responded that relations with Paris had never been more peaceful. Ever since this historic anticlimax, the causes of the 'war-in-sight' affair have been the subject of much academic controversy. The focus of the debate has been the problem of Bismarck's intentions. Based upon extensive archival research, this study presents a new approach to unraveling this central riddle which places the war scare of 1875 into the larger framework of the Chancellor's entire paradigm for handling European power politics from 1873-77. This perspective shows clearly that the crisis did not represent - as is often argued - a 'turning point' in German foreign policy; in fact it resulted from well-known, long-term axioms of Bismarck's statemanship.
Author: Stephen Badsey Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1472810163 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 124
Book Description
The Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870 when Bismarck engineered a war with the French Second Empire under Napoleon III. This was part of his wider political strategy of uniting Prussia with the southern German states, excluding Austria. The war was an overwhelming Prussian victory, and King Wilhelm I was proclaimed Emperor of the new united Germany. The Second Empire collapsed and Napoleon III became an exile in Britain. In the peace settlement with the French Third Republic in 1871 Germany gained the eastern French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, areas that were to provide a bone of contention for years to come.
Author: Mr.Johannes Wiegand Publisher: International Monetary Fund ISBN: 1498301223 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 28
Book Description
In 1871-73, newly unified Germany adopted the gold standard, replacing the silver-based currencies that had been prevalent in most German states until then. The reform sparked a series of steps in other countries that ultimately ended global bimetallism, i.e., a near-universal fixed exchange rate system in which (mostly) France stabilized the exchange value between gold and silver currencies. As a result, silver currencies depreciated sharply, and severe deflation ensued in the gold block. Why did Germany switch to gold and set the train of destructive events in motion? Both a review of the contemporaneous debate and statistical evidence suggest that it acted preemptively: the Australian and Californian gold discoveries of around 1850 had greatly increased the global supply of gold. By the mid-1860s, gold threatened to crowd out silver money in France, which would have severed the link between gold and silver currencies. Without reform, Germany would thus have risked exclusion from the fixed exchange rate system that tied together the major industrial economies. Reform required French accommodation, however. Victory in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71 allowed Germany to force accommodation, but only until France settled the war indemnity and regained sovereignty in late 1873. In this situation, switching to gold was superior to adopting bimetallism, as it prevented France from derailing Germany’s reform ex-post.
Author: William L. Shirer Publisher: Rosetta Books ISBN: 0795342470 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 1948
Book Description
The National Book Award–winning historian’s “vivid and moving” eyewitness account of the fall of France to Hitler’s Third Reich at the outset of WWII (The New York Times). As an international war correspondent and radio commentator during World War II, William L. Shirer didn’t just research the fall of France. He was there. In just six weeks, he watched the Third Reich topple one of the world’s oldest military powers—and institute a rule of terror and paranoia. Based on in-person conversations with the leaders, diplomats, generals, and ordinary citizens who both shaped the events and lived through them, Shirer constructs a compelling account of historical events without losing sight of the human experience. From the heroic efforts of the Freedom Fighters to the tactical military misjudgments that caused the fall and the daily realities of life for French citizens under Nazi rule, this fascinating and exhaustively documented account brings this significant episode of history to life. “This is a companion effort to Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, also voluminous but very readable, reflecting once again both Shirer’s own experience and an enormous mass of historical material well digested and assimilated.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Author: Beatrice de Graaf Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108842062 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 519
Book Description
Europe was forged out of the ashes of the Napoleonic wars by means of a collective fight against revolutionary terror. The Allied Council created a culture of in- and exclusion, of people that were persecuted and those who were protected, using secret police, black lists, border controls and fortifications, and financed by European capital holders.
Author: Neil MacGregor Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 1101875674 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 628
Book Description
For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental europe. Twenty-five years ago a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people understand themselves? Neil MacGregor argues that, uniquely for any European country, no coherent, overarching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany both geography and history have always been unstable. Its frontiers have constantly shifted. Königsberg, home to the greatest German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, is now Kaliningrad, Russia; Strasbourg, in whose cathedral Wolfgang von Geothe, Germany's greatest writer, discovered the distinctiveness of his country's art and history, now lies within the borders of France. For most of the five hundred years covered by this book Germany has been composed of many separate political units, each with a distinct history. And any comfortable national story Germans might have told themselves before 1914 was destroyed by the events of the following thirty years. German history may be inherently fragmented, but it contains a large number of widely shared memories, awarenesses, and experiences; examining some of these is the purpose of this book. MacGregor chooses objects and ideas, people and places that still resonate in the new Germany—porcelain from Dresden and rubble from its ruins, Bauhaus design and the German sausage, the crown of Charlemagne and the gates of Buchenwald—to show us something of its collective imagination. There has never been a book about Germany quite like it.