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REVANCHE: THE SECOND FRANCO-GERMAN WAR, PART III:

“Now is the winter of our discontent”
~ Richard III, William Shakespeare

Humiliation of the highest regard met Alfred Von Waldersee at Metz. Just four months earlier he had hoped for a quick and glorious victory - vanquishing the piteous Frenchmen, earning the favour of the new Kaiser, and at last seizing the Chancellorship for himself from that old fool Bismarck. To put it succinctly, absolute triumph and glory - he could countenance little else.

And yet now Waldersee faced in front of him a complete and total reversal of German fortunes, shattering his fate alike. Encircled on the 30th June at Metz, trapped and without relief - he found himself in a position Napoleon III humiliatingly had in 1870. Three desperate attempts to breakout soon disastrously failed, and within two months the cornered German force’s supplies were almost extinguished - consigning them to their terrible fate. Waldersee hoped the French might offer the “honours of war”, an honorable surrender, much as Prussia had to the besieged French in 1870. Marshal Boulanger was in no mind to make such an offer however, and Waldersee reconciled himself to fighting to the last. If captured he thought, at least he might retain some ounce of respect at home for his valiance in face of death [1].

With the Fall of Metz by the end of August, the French had at last cleared out the final enemy pockets of resistance between them and the German defensive line along the Saar. With German forces on the run facing seeming catastrophic defeat after defeat, their Chief of General Staff captured, and their allies abandoning them one after another - it is perhaps no surprise the French were overbuoyed by their own success in this exultant moment. Boulanger, whilst of course assured in his own estimation of a French triumph at the start of the conflict, could little have expected quite how successfully such a victory had unfolded.

As such, at the start of September, the French would launch headstrong into a “final push” - their aim, to breach the German Saar defensive line and thrust forwards into the Rhineland, the Reich’s industrial and economic core. The French General Staff hoped this would be the decisive stroke that would force Germany into submission, achieving their dream of “Revanche” and securing redemption for the long shadow cast by the loss of 1870. Within inches of a final victory, in this, they were somewhat correct. Redemption would be had - albeit events would ultimately play out quite differently to how they perhaps had expected.

Russia - the slumbering bear - had at last awoken. In the preceding months the Tsarist empire had seen a dramatic realignment in diplomacy and attitudes since its wave of “February Dismissals”. The Tsardom (alongside Austria and Italy), could now be counted as definitive neutral in the conflict, entirely unbound by Bismarck’s nefarious diplomatic machinations. However, the rabid Germanophobe, Aleksey Suvorin, atop his vast press empire, was still not content. Throughout the early stages of the conflict his papers agitated hysterically for a Russian entry - day after day launching tirades at the long list of purported German snubs and provocations. To the world this seemed a step too far, Suvorin had got his wish and forced the Tsar’s hand on the imperial cabinet. To push again and so soon after was borderline subversive, even outright slander against the unquestionable decision making of the Tsar. Nonetheless, much as before, Alexander would remain placid. Of course such aggressive pontificating from an outsider to the Tsarist court, and a commoner no less, could hardly be tolerated - but the Tsar’s warm sympathies to the Germanophobic cause of Suvorin, allowed him an easy reason to relent from any serious reprisals.

The policy of disregard towards Suvorin’s early cries would change dramatically in the days after the Fall of Metz however, much to the unexpected delight of the French. Though it would be the Tsar’s cautious but expedient new Foreign Minister, Alexey Lobanov-Rostovsky, to first raise the possibility to the court, Alexander himself had already noted in his diary the tantalising route which had just opened before them. Russia now faced the perfect opportunity to strike at its weak and distracted neighbour [2] - furthering the Tsar’s Pan-Slavist [3] dream, and hindering its longtime Eastern rival. Perhaps no more perfect a situation could have ever been conceived. The time for war was most certainly now.

On the 1st September the French launched their onslaught over the Saar. Just four days later, Germany would receive this second hammer blow. Russian troops unleashed their hostilities and marched forwards across the frontiers into East Prussia and Posen - breaking the Reinsurance Treaty. Bismarck’s horror of a two front war had been realised, one which he knew Germany would be unable to win. Whilst it was perhaps within Germany’s capacity to hold off solely the French - as they soon did, repelling the French offensive and holding them on the Saar (albeit at cost of high casualties) - to face the vastly numerically superior Russian’s on another front again was madness.

Although the Battle of Sarrebruck on September 8th ensured the French would advance no further, it similarly proved that Germany could not hope to retake an inch of lost ground. Forced to divert forces from the West to hold off the some 800,000 Russian troops advancing in the East [4], counter offensives were a distant impossibility. At that moment, the only achievable strategy which lay open to the Germans was to simply hold the line - a tactic of inaction intolerable to most Prussian militarists. By late September, facing growing chaos in the Reichstag, and profound discontent from the Kaiser and the military alike, Chancellor Bismarck knew his days were numbered. Tactfully, as such his focus rapidly shifted from trying to win the war, towards instead securing Germany’s negotiating hand in the inevitable coming armistice - salvaging what little he could of his legacy. The war was lost, and that which remained had to win the peace.

From early November, German forces succeeded in finally grinding Russian troops to a temporary standstill, and in the West the front remained static and dug in. A miserable war of attrition, in which Germany might only regain that which it had already lost, was in no one's best interests - even if many Germans did not quite realise it. Germany could gain (or lose for that matter) no more, and nor could her enemies either for now. Thus the time at last seemed right, for all parties to cut their losses and come to some reasonable agreement.

Bismarck would do his absolute best to portray these negotiations as a fair settlement between honourable equals [5]. In his mind, this was but another of the numerous European congress’s before it, a meeting of fellow great powers, drawing a new balance of power as so often before in the eyes of mutual understanding and cordial amity. Marshal Boulanger, however, saw things in a rather different perspective. From the outset the vengeful French sought to humiliate their perennial rival at every opportunity. Germany was a defeated power, to them it should be treated as such.

Perhaps most explicit of these insults was the French choice in venue. Following a ceasefire on all fronts on the 12th November, the French insisted on the location of the Palace of Versailles as the venue for the peace talks. Versailles of course was where Germany had once exerted its triumph over France in 1870 and completed its process of unification. Now France could laud over Germany, and complete its reunification with the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

Negotiations were tense throughout the conference, especially amidst overbearing French priggishness. However the reality of the situation forced the German delegation to accept the settlement nonetheless, for little could they do to change it. Aborted attempts were made to trade colonies in lieu of a status quo in Europe [6] - a suggestion the French and Russian’s vehemently rejected. German colonies across the globe had been quickly gobbled up in the early stages of the war, and with the small Kaiserliche Marine roundly beaten by the French, Germany was in no position to reclaim them. Germany would be forced to accept its new realities.

In Europe, in the end the Treaty of Versailles (1890) would largely amount to a recognition of the static frontlines as the new legal frontiers. French control over Alsace-Lorraine and the Saarland was begrudgingly accepted by Germany - unable to do anything to dislodge them from it. Similarly in the East, Russian expansion up to the Pregel River, and in Posen were also reluctantly conceded.

Beyond this all parties agreed nominally to a resumption in normal diplomatic relations, and a status quo ante bellum in previous diplomatic arrangements [7]. In Franco-Russian eyes, the new borders rightfully cut Germany down to size, ensuring a more equitable balance of power for Europe as Bismarck had so often preached about. France had restored more of her “natural borders”, and Russia had gained new Slavs to her empire, whilst even Germany had at least gained a perhaps more defensible frontier along the Saar.

Further afield, colonial transfers also occurred - to the great dismay of neutral observer Britain, who saw little else than a strengthening of French power against its African colonial interests. German Kamerun, and Togoland were to be wholly ceded to French West Africa, having already been captured early on in the war. Germany’s African holdings were thus to be reduced to only Southwest and Eastern Africa - depriving Germany of its then largest colony, and of its only truly profitable holdings in the Togo. Moreover Germany was to be prohibited from future colonial ventures in any French spheres of interest - in essence banning them from further exploration of the Niger River. The battle for African supremacy was now almost exclusively between France and Britain.

Aside from these main dealings, France, Russia and Germany were not the only members present at the December 1890 Treaty of Versailles. Also in attendance was a single representative from the United States of America. Often regarded as the forgotten participant [8] of the Second Franco-German War, America had engaged in undeclared hostilities following the Samoan Crisis - sweeping up all the nascent German Pacific colonies in retribution for the earlier standoff [9]. Although having not actively engaged in the diplomatic effort against Germany, their newfound control over Kaiser-Wilhelmsland (New Guinea), German Samoa, and all other German Pacific protectorates and territories was nonetheless recognised in the treaty as a reward by France, in accordance with the age-old Franco-American friendship [10]. In response, many soon proclaimed that American Manifest Destiny had not only reached the Pacific, but now jumped across it too.

By January, a new decade had opened - the war and its resulting treaty still fresh in the minds of Europe. France had emerged triumphant. Russia had awoken from its long slumber. America had continued its relentless march Westward across the seas. And Germany had paid a calamitous price. Within days of the ink having dried on the long discourses of the treatise, Bismarck would be dismissed - his career and legacy in tatters. In this despondent aftermath, the Kaiser now demanded a fresh face. One who might restore German might. One who might summon all strength they had to muster. One who might pull Germany out of the hollow of the Weltzerfallen….