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A Duel of Giants: Bismarck, Napoleon III, and the Origins of the Franco-Prussian War / Edition 1

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ISBN-10:: 0299174948
ISBN-13:: 9780299174941
Pub. Date:: 08/05/2003
Publisher:: University of Wisconsin Press

ISBN-10:: 0299174948
ISBN-13:: 9780299174941
Pub. Date:: 08/05/2003
Publisher:: University of Wisconsin Press

A Duel of Giants: Bismarck, Napoleon III, and the Origins of the Franco-Prussian War / Edition 1

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Overview

Combining impeccable scholarship and literary elegance, David Wetzel depicts the drama of machinations and passions that exploded in a war that forever changed the face of European history.

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ISBN-13:	9780299174941
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	08/05/2003
Edition description:	1
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

	Illustrations	ix
	Preface	xi
	Acknowledgments	xv
1.	A Bit about Personalities	3
2.	Napoleon III and the Spanish Revolution of 1868	37
3.	Bismarck and the Hohenzollern Candidacy	63
4.	The Negotiations at Ems	95
5.	The French Declaration of War	138
	Notes	183
	Bibliographical Essay	198
	Index	237

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Editorial Reviews

Despite the title, the Prussian minister-president and the nephew of the first Napoleon have minor roles in abetting the war that would topple the emperor and unify Germany. The aging Napoleon III, after 22 years in power, was slipping. As the succession crisis in Spain (the ostensible cause of the war) played out, Bismarck was vacationing at his isolated estate in Pomerania. Wetzel's (The Diplomacy of the Crimean War) hero is William I of Prussia, who ultimately was willing to dissuade an ambitious young relative, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, from accepting the Spanish throne. Hotheaded French ministers had feared that Hohenzollerns might be on both major borders. France had its own candidate, a son of the discredited former French king Louis Philippe, but he hadn't a chance. What the opportunistic foreign minister, the Duc de Gramont, wanted was to have William I back down, and to disavow any future intention to propose Leopold. The king bridled at that indignity. Napoleon, incited by a chauvinist press and clamoring ministers seeing war as a way to prevent Prussia from absorbing such south Germany states as Bavaria, acted against his interests. He needed time to salvage his economy and to survive into the young manhood of his only child. He would have neither. His army was inept and the Prussians were professionals. Wetzel closes his complete narrative with the French declaration of war, after which his "duel" would begin but not in these pages. Napoleon would be taken prisoner and die soon after in exile in England. Prussia would absorb the German states on the sidelines and William would become emperor of Germany. Bismarck would be acclaimed as the clever statesman whohoodwinked France into a losing war. The losing French politicians would write self-serving memoirs. The pages on the Spanish succession are boringly complex and the tangled negotiations leading up to the war will interest only specialists in the period. 13 illus. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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Overview

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