Abstract
There is something odd about the way historians deal with the events of 1870–71. We remember 1866 in part for the expulsion of Austria from Germany and the annexation of Hanover, Nassau, and Frankfurt. We are aware that Italian unification ended Austrian rule in Lombardy-Venetia and independent governments at Florence, Naples, and Rome.1 We know that 1806 saw not only the creation of a Confederation of the Rhine, but also the end of the Holy Roman Empire.2 We agree, at least in the West, that the right term for what happened between 1772 and 1795 is not the gathering in of the Russian lands, but the partition of Poland.
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Notes
This is especially evident in the spate of works produced in or around the centenary of the Reichsgründung, e.g., Josef Becker, “Zum Problem der Bismarckschen Politik in der spanischen Thonfrage 1870,” Historische Zeitschrift, 222 (1971), 529–607
A partial exception is Wolf D. Gruner’s article, “Der deutsche Bund-Modell für eine Zwischenlösung?” Politik und Kultur, 9, Heft 5 (1982), 22–42.
Theodor Schieder, “Die mittleren Staaten im System der grossen Mächte,” Historische Zeitschrift, 232 (1981), 583–604
Karl Bosl, “Das ‘Dritte Deutschland’ und die Lösung der deutschen Frage im 19. Jahrhundert,” Bohemia, 11 (1970), 20–33
Metternich gave clear expression to this idea in describing the Low Countries in 1815: “Placed between France and the Northern Powers, they belong to the peaceful and conservative line of central and intermediary powers, which lean on one side on Austria, to the other on England, and whose constant tendency must be to prevent France and Russia from weighing on the European center and destroying that equilibrium whose balance they hold in their hands.” Quoted in Wolf D. Grüner, “Die belgisch-luxemburgsche Frage im Spannungsfeld europäischer Politik 1830–1839,” Francia, 5 (1977), 316.
Lawrence J. Baack, Christian Bernstorff and Prussia, 1818–1832 (New Brunswick, NJ., 1980); Robert D. Billinger Jr., “The War Scare of 1831 and Prussian-South German Plans for the End of Austrian Dominance in Germany,” Central European History, 9 (1976), 203–19
Roy A. Austensen, “Austria and the’ struggle for Supremacy in Germany,’ 1848–1864,” Journal of Modern History, 52 (1980), 195–225.
Heinrich Lutz, “Zur Wende der österreichisch-ungarischen Aussenpolitik 1871,” Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs, 25 (1972), 169–84
Lutz, Österreich-Ungarn, 416-83; Rumpier, “Österreich-Ungarn,” 154-60; Ivan Pfaff, “Tschechische Politik und die Reichsgründung,” Jahrbücher fur die Geschichte Osteuropas, 20 (1972), 492–515
For evidence that France’s main concern during the Old Regime had not been to reach the so-called natural frontiers, but to expand and consolidate her northern and northeastern frontiers, see various essays in Louis XIV and Europe, ed. Ragnhild Hatton (Columbus, OH., 1976); Jean-François Noël, “Les problèmes de frontières entre la France et l’Empire dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle,” Revue historique, 208 (1966), 333–46
Gaston Zeller, “La monarchie d’ancien régime et les frontières naturelles,” Revue d’histoire moderne, 8 (1933), 305–33.
Beyrau, “Der deutsche Komplex,” 80-90, 100-7; Charles and Barbara Jelavich, “Jomini and the Revival of the Dreikaiserbund,” Slavonic and East European Review, 35 (1957), 523–50.
Martin Winckler, “Der Ausbruch der ‘Krieg-in-Sicht’ Krise vom Frühjahr 1875,” Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 14 (1965), 671–713
Juergen Doerr, “Germany, Russia and the Kulturkampf, 1870–75,” Canadian fournal of History, 10 (1975), 51–72.
Wolfgang Zorn, “Die wirtschaftliche Integration Kleindeutschlands in den 1860er Jahren und die Reichsgründung,” Historische Zeitschrift, 216 (1973), 304–34
The main work is Richard Millman, British Foreign Policy and the Coming of the Franco-Prussian War (Oxford, 1965), but see also Klaus Hildebrand, “Grossbritannien und die deutsche Reichsgründung,” in Europa, ed. Kolb, 9-62, and “Die deutsche Reichsgründung im Urteil der britischen Politik,” Francia, 5 (1977), 399-424. Helmut Reinalter, “Norddeutscher Kaiser oder Kaiser von Deutschland?” Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte, 33 (1976), 859–67
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© 2004 Paul W. Schroeder
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Schroeder, P.W. (2004). The Lost Intermediaries: The Impact of 1870 on the European System. In: Wetzel, D., Jervis, R., Levy, J.S. (eds) Systems, Stability, and Statecraft: Essays on the International History of Modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-06138-6_5
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