Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Synopsis:
A comprehensive account of the political and diplomatic dimensions of the war, which redrew Europe’s map and announced the arrival of the German Empire as a world power, but his emphasis is on the conflict as an omen of the future of warfare.
Dominated by the firepower of modern rifles and artillery, the bloody fighting foreshadowed the mass slaughter of World War I, while Prussia’s lightning victory over France helped lay the groundwork for that conflict by stoking German militarism and enshrining a tragically mistaken confidence in the kind of onrushing offensives that would be undone by machine guns and trenches. The first chapter, “Causes of the Franco-Prussian War,” Wawro writes that the war arose from Napoleon II’s need to teach the Prussians a lesson and Bismarck’s overlapping need to foment a war with the French in order to complete the process of German unification.
Also deals with political-military relationship. Wawro argues that just as Bazaine and Moltke and the Chassepot rifle and the Krupp cannon were important militarily, Napoleon III and Bismarck were just as important politically, it was their actions and policy that impacted the decision making of the generals and the use of the weapons. He also discusses how the French Chassepot rifle shaped French tactics while the German Krupp artillery shaped German tactics. He also discusses how errors by the French squandered their advantages and how errors by German leadership led them to take heavier casualties than they should have. Essentially, leaders on both sides committed many errors, but the errors on the part of the French leadership were more grievous and contributed toward their defeat. Particularly in the closing stage of the war, he shows how the political leadership of both sides and political upheaval in France shaped strategy in attempt to bring about each sides’ desired outcome.
Wawro’s principal conclusions deal with the relationship of the war to the First World War.
- At the highest levels, the Franco-Prussian War imposed a conservative, militaristic character to German nationalism, which played an important role in the outbreak of World War I.
- In terms of military theory and practice, students of the war concluded that German success was due to the “Prussian general staff” model of organization, which was ultimately adopted by all the powers, even including France, which also adopted Prussian infantry tactics, which were actually a disaster, since the German victories had been largely due to the effectiveness of their artillery, not of their infantry, which took enormous casualties.