French view on German unification prior 1871.

Probably the same way the United States views the potential re-unification of the former Soviet Union today.
 
Interesting question, especially since the French rulers seemed to be in favour of a unification of Italy. OTOH the potential of the combined German Confederation, so including Prussia and Austria, might have been seen as potential threat.
 
So they thought it was a political impossibility?

I think @Falk meant that the United States views the reunification of the Soviet Republics as a global threat, being the only power that could compete with it.

As someone else said, France usually regarded every ruling power in "Germany" as a rival and a threat. It fought for centuries to undermine the Habsburg hegemony in the Netherlands. Louis XIV's project of fixing the French border at the Rhine River meant that France would automatically oppose any rival for the control of western Germany through the 18th Century. By the time Prussia came to dominate the German landscape, however, this threat became more concrete then ever, and it even tried to prevent the union between the Protestant northern German States and the Catholic nations of Baden/Wurttemberg and Bavaria, but by then it was too late.
 
The view would much depend on which Frenchman you are talking to and when in history. Same thing as for Italy, really. Except for Napoleon III, I cannot think of any french ruler which was really pushing for it (except under his rule, obviously), despite some frenchmen being for it.

As an aside, for most of French history, Germany WAS effectively unified. The threat to France from Germany did not start with the Habsburgs (e.g. Bouvines)
 
Prior to 1866 they don't seem to have given it much thought at all. It was only after Koniggratz that they took alarm.

I don't str the French having anything much to say about it in 1848/9, nor did they show any particular interest in the Schleswig-Holstein dispute. But Koniggratz was a wake-up call - albeit one that came too late.
 
I disagree a little; from the 1840s onwards French politics was increasingly concerned with the threat of German unification.

It does, as posters have pointed out, depend on who you asked historically, but from the Rhine Crisis of the 1840s France became more and more weary of the threat of a Prussian dominated Germany in the East.

Obviously not until the 1860s did the threat become a major preoccupation for France, but from the 1840s there were concerns.

I mean Napoleon III, a man in favour of the "nationalities" school of supporting the rise of ethnic nation states in Italy and (if he'd had the chance) in a dissolving Austrian Empire, never supported the concept of a unified Germany despite the fact that it would have adhered to his principles.

German Unification was not France's major concern until the 1860s, but it was a concern for different governments in Paris.
 
I mean Napoleon III, a man in favour of the "nationalities" school of supporting the rise of ethnic nation states in Italy and (if he'd had the chance) in a dissolving Austrian Empire, never supported the concept of a unified Germany despite the fact that it would have adhered to his principles.


Actually he wasn't all that keen on Italian unity either. He favoured its liberation from Austrian rule, but his original plans envisaged separate states in northern and central Italy, with Naples remaining a kingdom (though perhaps under a new dynasty) and the Pope keeping Rome. It was the Italians themselves who insisted on "doing their own thing".

He seems to have seen nationalism as something to which he could say "Thus far and no further" where the interests of France were involved. A bit like boring a hole in a dyke, then seeking an injunction to forbid the water rising higher than knee-deep. Even in 1866 he seems to have been reasonably content for Prussia to annex several North German states, provided the South was left alone. He apparently saw this as creating a tripartite division - North, South and Austria - which he felt France could live with. He was quite slow to realise that German nationalism, like Italian, had run beyond his power to say "ok that's far enough".
 
Mikestone8 said:
Even in 1866 he seems to have been reasonably content for Prussia to annex several North German states, provided the South was left alone. He apparently saw this as creating a tripartite division - North, South and Austria - which he felt France could live with. He was quite slow to realise that German nationalism, like Italian, had run beyond his power to say "ok that's far enough".
I read fairly recently, although I can't remember where that Napoleon III had views over Southern Germany and Bavaria. It wasn't precised the extent of the view (Protectorate of sort? Alliance? Annexation seems unlikely but definitely having it in the French sphere of influence) but he was negotiating with Bismarck about some kind of partition of Germany. Bismarck then blew the whistle to get the Southern states to ally with Prussia against France, depriving Napoleon III of any potential ally.
 
I read fairly recently, although I can't remember where that Napoleon III had views over Southern Germany and Bavaria. It wasn't precised the extent of the view (Protectorate of sort? Alliance? Annexation seems unlikely but definitely having it in the French sphere of influence) but he was negotiating with Bismarck about some kind of partition of Germany. Bismarck then blew the whistle to get the Southern states to ally with Prussia against France, depriving Napoleon III of any potential ally.

That's interesting. When I first studied about the Franco-Prussian War, a point was made clear that while the North German Confederation was formed as some sort of "natural" arrangement between the Protestant German nations, the south - Baden, Wurttemberg and Bavaria - would only participate on a union with Prussia if they had a common foreign enemy, for until that moment it seemed they had fairly friendly relations to France.

I wonder how plausible is this scenario you and @Mikestone8 pointed out (I'm sketching something just like this for a post-Napoleonic TL): North Germany, South Germany and A-H Empire. I believe this mess would cause an even earlier WWI :D
 
Rdffigueira said:
I wonder how plausible is this scenario you and @Mikestone8 pointed out (I'm sketching something just like this for a post-Napoleonic TL): North Germany, South Germany and A-H Empire. I believe this mess would cause an even earlier WWI

I'd say it's highly plausible. Say the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 goes awry for Prussia, you'd have a Prussia-dominated Northern Germany, A-H and southern states which would probably end up together, potentially under Bavarian hegemony. Those states being catholic, they would come close to France which fancied itself as protector of the catholics abroad under the Second Empire.
 
I'd say it's highly plausible. Say the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 goes awry for Prussia, you'd have a Prussia-dominated Northern Germany, A-H and southern states which would probably end up together, potentially under Bavarian hegemony. Those states being catholic, they would come close to France which fancied itself as protector of the catholics abroad under the Second Empire.

Of course if Prussia loses then the Old Confederation carries on - though whatever's left of Prussia may well no longer be a member. The two biggest northern states - Saxony and Hanover - were of course in the Austrian camp, and certainly won't federate with a defeated Prussia.
 
I'd say it's highly plausible. Say the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 goes awry for Prussia, you'd have a Prussia-dominated Northern Germany, A-H and southern states which would probably end up together, potentially under Bavarian hegemony. Those states being catholic, they would come close to France which fancied itself as protector of the catholics abroad under the Second Empire.

Baden and Würtemberg were Protestant Monarchies.
 
I'd say it's highly plausible. Say the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 goes awry for Prussia, you'd have a Prussia-dominated Northern Germany, A-H and southern states which would probably end up together, potentially under Bavarian hegemony. Those states being catholic, they would come close to France which fancied itself as protector of the catholics abroad under the Second Empire.

The thing is that "Northern Germany" isn't all Protestant (some parts of it had Catholic majorities), while Southern Germany wasn't all Catholic either (parts of Württemburg and basically the northern quarter of Bavaria were majority Protestant). The religious line doesn't follow the borders of the Northern German Confederation.
 
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I don't str the French having anything much to say about it in 1848/9, nor did they show any particular interest in the Schleswig-Holstein dispute. But Koniggratz was a wake-up call - albeit one that came too late.

AFAIK, in spring of 1848 they were loose contacts between the French national assembly in Paris and the Paulskirche parliament in Frankfurt. But rapidly, the nationalist idea won out over the common democratic ideals and factions in Paris demanded the Rhine border, which led to strong anti-French declarations in Frankfurt. An fascinating possibility wasted by nationalism, alas.
 
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AFAIK, in spring of 1848 they were loose contacts between the French national assembly in Paris and the Paulskirche parliament in Frankfurt. But rapidly, the nationalist idea won out over the common democratic ideals and factions in Paris demanded the Rhine border, which led to stron anti-French declarations in rankfurt. An fascinating possibility wasted by nationalism, alas.

It is morbidly fascinating to see how nationalism wrecked human progress in any form whatsoever all over the relevant timeframe in Europe. Makes you really root for Societism from the Look To The West TL.
 
I read fairly recently, although I can't remember where that Napoleon III had views over Southern Germany and Bavaria. It wasn't precised the extent of the view (Protectorate of sort? Alliance? Annexation seems unlikely but definitely having it in the French sphere of influence) but he was negotiating with Bismarck about some kind of partition of Germany. Bismarck then blew the whistle to get the Southern states to ally with Prussia against France, depriving Napoleon III of any potential ally.

The thing with Napoleon III was that he had some basic goals (gaining territory for France and with it glory for himself), but no clear course.
After 1867 and his acceptance of the establishment of the North German Federation under clear Prussian leadership, he expected to be compensated for this somewhere. French hegemony over Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden would have been acceptable/desirable, but it was very soon certain that Prussia would not accept that.
Alternative idea was demanding explicit Prussian/North German support for a French acquisition (IOW conquest) of Belgium. Which would have provoked the UK incredibly, and Bismarck metaphgorically just nodded and said "Nice idea you have there, Nappy. Let's talk later about that."
The last attempt was the well known project to buy the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg from its monarch (who was also king of the Netherlands). Since Lx had been part of the German Confederation and Prussia was still garrisoning it under the Federal Acts, Bismarck also denied his agreement to that sale.

So, by ~1870, Napoleon III felt betrayed by Prussia and specifically by Bismarck multiple times.
 
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