Abstract:
In the nineteenth century there was a distinct moderate sensibility of statecraft. This moderate sensibility worked within the broader the framework of the European concert where the exercise of prudence and forbearance acted as the measure of state conduct in European politics. The overarching intention behind moderation was to maintain a balanced, peaceful Europe. Using the context of the Franco-Prussian War, this thesis attempts to highlight the place of moderation in diplomacy, as contemporaries understood it. In doing so, this thesis provides an impression of nineteenth-century sensibilities towards statecraft. At the same time, by looking at the particular context of the Franco-Prussian War, it also argues that the conflict was a turning point in which the broad assumptions of moderate contemporaries mediated uneasily alongside the nascent ideals of radical nationalism and political realism, which would go on to have greater significance in European politics after 1871. Chapter 1 establishes the presence of moderation amongst contemporaries during the limited stages of the war, from the Hohenzollern crisis in July 1870 to the Battle of Sedan in September 1870. Chapter 2 considers how the Franco-Prussian War changed from a limited conflict into a national war of attrition and how this transformation ran up against the sensibilities of moderate contemporaries. Finally, chapter 3 analyses the immediate post-war period, assessing how contemporaries, both moderate and otherwise, attempted to understand the new political context of Europe. Collectively, these chapters emphasise the vital presence of moderation in nineteenth-century Europe. At the same time, these chapters show how the Franco-Prussian War would come to define the 1871-1914 period by bringing this particular sensibility of statecraft into conflict with more vigorous forms of nationalism and power politics.
