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The Franco-Prussian war changed the map of Europe – so why are we so ignorant about it?

Rachel Chrastil describes how Bismarck, relying on Gallic pride to provoke the war he wanted, ensured that France would fight without a single ally

17 June 2023

9:00 AM

17 June 2023

9:00 AM

Bismarck’s War: The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe Rachel Chrastil

Allen Lane, pp.485, 30

Is there a single major European conflict of the past 200 years that gets so little attention in this country as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71? In 1961 Michael Howard brought out his history of the war, but Howard and the odd battlefield tourist apart, Rachel Chrastil’s bibliography – strong on contemporary memoirs, strong in fact on everything from the miraculous appearances of the Virgin Mary and the cult of St Radegund to the transmission of smallpox – is curiously thin when it comes to British interest.

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