French–German (Franco–German)enmity[1] (French:Rivalité franco-allemande,German:Deutsch-französische Erbfeindschaft) was the idea of unavoidably hostile relations and mutualrevanchism betweenGermans (includingAustrians) andFrench people that arose in the 16th century and became popular with theFranco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. It was an important factor in theunification of Germany (excludingAustria),World War I, and ended afterWorld War II, when under the influence of theCold War,West Germany and France both became part ofNATO and theEuropean Coal and Steel Community.
In 1477, theHabsburg archdukeMaximilian I of Austria, son of EmperorFrederick III, marriedMary the Rich, the only child of theBurgundian dukeCharles the Bold. Frederick and Charles had arranged the marriage, shortly before the duke was killed at theBattle of Nancy.
His ancestors of the FrenchHouse of Valois-Burgundy over the centuries had acquired a collection of territories on both sides of the border ofFrance with theHoly Roman Empire. It stretched fromBurgundy proper in the south to theLow Countries in the north, somewhat resembling of early medieval Middle Francia. He had plans to raise Burgundian lands to the status of a kingdom (recreating the Kingdom ofLotharingia), but died at theBattle of Nancy (1477).[2][3] Upon the duke's death, KingLouis XI of France attempted to seize his heritage as reverted fiefs but was defeated by Maximilian atBattle of Guinegate (1479), who by the 1493Treaty of Senlis annexed the Burgundian territories, includingFlanders as well as French-speakingArtois and asserted the possession of theCounty of Burgundy (Franche-Comté).[4]
Maximilian,Holy Roman Emperor from 1493, was also able to marry his sonPhilip the Handsome toJoanna of Castile, heiress to both theCrown of Castile and theCrown of Aragon. His grandson, EmperorCharles V, inherited the Low Countries and the Franche-Comté in 1506; when he by his mother also inheritedSpain in 1516, France was surrounded by Habsburg territories and felt under pressure. The resulting tension between the two powers caused a number of conflicts, such as theItalian Wars or theWar of the Spanish Succession, until theDiplomatic Revolution of 1756 made them allies against Prussia.
TheThirty Years War (1618–1648), was a complex conflict that took place in and around the Holy Roman empire, with religious, structural, and dynastic causes. France intervened in this conflict both indirectly, largely but not exclusively, on the side of various intervening Protestant powers, as well as directly from 1635 on. The 1648Peace of Westphalia gave France limited control overAlsace andLorraine. The 1679Treaties of Nijmegen consolidated this result by bringing the towns under French control. In 1681, France occupiedStrasbourg.
Meanwhile, the expanding MuslimOttoman Empire became a serious threat to Christian Austria. The Vatican initiated a so-calledHoly League against the "hereditary enemy" of Christian Europe ("Erbfeind christlichen Namens"). Far from joining or supporting the common effort of Austria, Brandenburg-Prussia, the other German states and Poland, France underLouis XIV of France invaded theSpanish Netherlands in September 1683, a few days before theBattle of Vienna. While Austria and the other German states were occupied with theGreat Turkish War (1683–1699), France initiated theWar of the Grand Alliance (1688–1697). The attempt to conquer large parts of southern Germany ultimately failed, when German troops were withdrawn from the Ottoman border and moved to the region. However, following ascorched earth policy that caused a large public outcry at the time, French troops, under notorious GeneralEzéchiel du Mas, Comte de Mélac, devastated large parts of the Palatinate, Baden and Württemberg burning down and levelling numerous cities and towns in southern Germany.
In the course of theSeven Years' War and in view of the risingKingdom of Prussia, which had concluded the neutralityTreaty of Westminster withGreat Britain, France underLouis XV realigned their foreign policy. TheDiplomatic Revolution instigated by the Austrian chancellorWenzel Anton Kaunitz in 1756 ended the French-Habsburg enmity.
TheDiplomatic Revolution as an alliance between France, theHabsburg Empire andRussia manifested in 1756 in theTreaty of Versailles and the followingSeven Years' War against Prussia and Great Britain. Although an overall Germannation-state was on the horizon, the loyalties of the German population outside of Prussia were primarily with smaller states. The French war against Prussia was justified through its role asguarantor of the 1648Peace of Westphalia, and France was fighting on the side of the majority of German states, including Habsburg Austria.
The civil population still regarded war as a conflict between their authorities and distinguished between troops less according to the side on which they fought than according to how they treated the local population. The personal contacts and mutual respect between French and Prussian officers did not stop entirely while they were fighting each other, and the war resulted in a great deal of cultural exchange between the French occupiers and the German population.
The perception of war began to change after theFrench Revolution. Thelevée en masse for theRevolutionary Wars and the beginning formation of nation states in Europe made war increasingly a conflict between peoples rather than a conflict between authorities carried out on the backs of their subjects.
At thebattle of Austerlitz (1805),Napoleon I put an end to the millennium-oldHoly Roman Empire the next year. A year later, at thebattle of Jena, French forces crushed the Prussian armies. Within two weeks of Jena, Napoleon had conquered almost all of Prussia except the area aroundKönigsberg. ThePrussian army, previously thought invincible, had been fought to almost the point of total liquidation. This humiliation led German philosophers (such asClausewitz,Fichte,Arndt...) to play an important role for the development of German nationalism. It led politicians (such asStein andHardenberg) toreform Prussia in order to adapt their country to the new world brought about by the French Revolution.
TheContinental System led Napoleon to directly incorporate German-speaking areas such asHamburg into hisFirst French Empire. Napoleon reshaped the map of Germany by the creation of theConfederation of the Rhine, which included vassal States ruled directly by members of theBonaparte family (such as theKingdom of Westphalia, and theGrand Duchy of Berg) and allied States who took advantage of the French protectorate to increase their territory and power (such as theKingdom of Bavaria and theKingdom of Saxony).
TheNapoleonic Wars, often fought in Germany and with Germans on both sides, as in theBattle of the Nations atLeipzig, also marked the beginning of what was explicitly calledFrench–German hereditary enmity. Modern German nationalism was born in opposition to French domination under Napoleon. In the recasting of the map of Europe after Napoleon's defeat, most of the German-speaking territories in the Rhineland adjoining France were put under the rule ofPrussia and the remainder were ruled byBavaria andGrand Duchy of Hesse.
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During the first half of the 19th century, many Germans looked forward to a unification of most or all of the German states, but most German leaders and the foreign powers were opposed to it. The German nationalist movement believed that a united Germany (even without Austria) would replace France as the dominant land power in Western Europe. This argument was aided by demographic changes: since the Middle Ages, France had had the largest population in Western Europe, but in the 19th century, its population stagnated (a trend that continued until the second half of the 20th century), and the population of the German states overtook it and continued to rapidly increase.
Theunification of Germany, excluding Austria, was triggered by theFranco-Prussian War in 1870 and the French defeat. The forces of Prussian and the other German states (excluding Austria) crushed the French armies at theBattle of Sedan. Finally, theTreaty of Frankfurt, reached after a lengthysiege of Paris forced France to cede theAlsace-Lorraine territory (consisting of most ofAlsace and a quarter ofLorraine), of which most of the inhabitants spoke German dialects. France had to pay an indemnity of five billionfrancs to the newly declaredGerman Empire. Thereafter, the German Empire had replaced France as the leading land power. UnderOtto von Bismarck Germany was content--it had all it wanted so that its main goal was peace and stability. However, when it appeared Germany would decisively win in late 1870, German public opinion demanded it to humiliate France; the German Army favoured annexation to create more defensible frontiers. Bismarck reluctantly gave in--the French would never forget or forgive, he mistakenly calculated, so he might as well take the provinces. Germany's foreign policy fell into a trap with no exit. The only policy that made sense was trying to isolate France so it had no strong allies. However France complicated Berlin's plans when it became friends with Russia. In 1905 a German plan for an alliance with Russia fell through because Russia was too close to France.[6]
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, resentment existed between many nearby populations ofFrench andGerman Americans, reflectingethnic tensions on theEuropean continent.[7]
The desire for revenge (esprit de revanche) against Germany, and demands for the recovery of the "lost provinces" of Alsace and Lorraine was often heard in the 1870s. The short-term French reaction after 1871 wasRevanchism: a sense of bitterness, hatred and demand for revenge against Germany, and demand for the return of the two lost provinces.[8][9] Paintings that emphasized the humiliation of the defeat came in high demand, such as those byAlphonse de Neuville.[10] However elite French opinion changed after about five years. The elites were now calm and considered it a minor issue.[11] The Alsace-Lorraine issue was a minor theme after 1880, and Republicans and Socialists systematically downplayed the issue. J.F.V. Keiger says, "By the 1880s Franco–German relations were relatively good."[12] Return didn't become a French war aim until afterWorld War I began.[13][14]
The Allied victory in 1918 saw France seize back Alsace-Lorraine and briefly resume its old position as the leading land power on the European continent. France was the leading proponent of harsh peace terms against Germany at theParis Peace Conference. As the war had been fought mostly on French soil, it had destroyed much of the infrastructure and industry in Northern France, and France had suffered the highest number of casualties proportionate to population. Much of French opinion wanted the Rhineland; the section of Germany west of the Rhine and adjoining France's northeastern boundary, and the old focus of French ambition, to be detached from Germany as an independent country. In the end, the Americans and the British forced them to settle for a promise that the Rhineland would be demilitarized, and that heavy German reparation payments would be levied.[15]
On the remote eastern end of the German Empire, theMemel territory was separated from the rest ofEast Prussia and occupied by France before being annexed byLithuania.Austria, which had been reduced to roughly its German-speaking areas, excluding the Sudetenland (the mostly German-inhabited areas of the Czech lands) andSouth Tyrol, was forbidden to re-join its former fellow states of the Holy Roman Empire by joining Germany. In response to the German failure to pay reparations under theTreaty of Versailles in 1923, France returned with theOccupation of the Ruhr area of Germany, the center of German coal and steel production, until 1925. Also, the French-dominatedInternational Olympic Committee banned Germany from theOlympic Games of 1920 and 1924, which illustrates the French desire to isolate Germany.
Under terms of Versailles, the French Army had the right to occupy the Rhineland until 1935, but in fact the French withdrew from the Rhineland in June 1930. As a number of the units the French stationed in the Rhineland between December 1918 - June 1930 were recruited from France's African colonies, this promoted a violent campaign against the so-called "Black Horror on the Rhine" as the German government and various grass-roots German groups claimed that the Senegalese units in the French Army were raping white German women on an industrial scale.[16] Numerous German authors likened that France, the "hereditary enemy on the Rhine" had deliberately unleashed the Senegalese-who were always portrayed as animals or malicious children -- to rape German women.[16] In the words of the American historian Daniel Becker, the campaign against the "Black Horror on the Rhine" centered "tales of sexual violence against German, bourgeois, white women that often bordered on the pornographic" and the campaign against the "Black Horror" by various German authors and associated international sympathizers "unleashed a rhetoric of violence, and radical nationalism that, as some scholars have argued, laid the groundwork for widespread support for the various racial projects of the Nazi regime."[16] Additionally, the campaign against the "Black Horror on the Rhine" served to strengthen the demand for Germany to become theVolksgemeinschaft (People's Community") because only by becoming united in theVolksgemeinschaft could Germany again become strong enough to crush France and end the "Black Horror".[16]
However, the UK and the US did not favor these policies, which were seen as too pro-French. Germany soon recovered economically and then from 1933, underAdolf Hitler, began to pursue an aggressive policy in Europe. Meanwhile, France in the 1930s was tired, politically divided, and above all dreaded another war, which the French feared would again be fought on their soil for the third time, and again destroy a large percentage of their young men. France's stagnant population meant that it would find it difficult to withhold the sheer force of numbers of a German invasion; it was estimated Germany could put two men of fighting age in the field for every French soldier. Thus in the 1930s the French, with their British allies, pursued a policy of appeasement of Germany, failing to respond to the remilitarization of theRhineland, although this put the German army on a larger stretch of the French border.
Finally, however, Hitler pushed France and Britain too far, and they jointly declared war when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. But France remained exhausted and in no mood for a rerun of 1914–18. There was little enthusiasm and much dread in France at the prospect of actual warfare. After thePhoney War when the Germans launched theirblitzkrieg invasion of France in 1940, the French Army crumbled within weeks, and with Britain retreating, an atmosphere of humiliation and defeat swept France.
A new government under MarshalPhilippe Pétain called for an armistice, and German forces occupied most of the country. A minority of the French forces escaped abroad and continued the fight under GeneralCharles de Gaulle (the "Free French" or the "Fighting French"). On the other hand, theFrench Resistance conducted sabotage operations inside German-occupied France. To support theinvasion of Normandy of 1944, various groups increased their sabotage and guerrilla attacks; organizations such asthe Maquis derailed trains, blew up ammunition depots, and ambushed Germans, for instance atTulle. The2nd SS Panzer DivisionDas Reich came under constant attack and sabotage on their way across the country to Normandy, suspected the village ofOradour-sur-Glane of harboring terrorists, arms and explosives, and wiped out the population in retaliation.
There was also a free French army fighting with the Allies, numbering almost 500,000 men by June 1944, 1,000,000 by December and 1,300,000 by the end of the war. By the war's end, the French army occupied south-western Germany and a part of Austria. French troops under the command of GeneralJean de Lattre de Tassigny destroyed and looted the town ofFreudenstadt in the southernBlackforest (Schwarzwald) region for 3 days and perpetrated at least 600 rapes of German women of all ages there. Also various killings of civilians are recorded there. Mass rapes committed by French troops were also reported in the cities ofPforzheim,Stuttgart,Magstadt andReutlingen.[17][18][19][20][21]
When Allied forces liberated Normandy and Provence in August 1944, a victorious rebellion emerged in occupied Paris and national rejoicing broke out, as did a maelstrom of hatred directed at French people who had collaborated with the Germans. Some Germans taken as prisoners were killed by the resistance.[citation needed]
There was debate among the other Allies as to whether France should share in the occupation of the defeated Germany because of fears that the long Franco–German rivalry might interfere with the rebuilding of Germany. Ultimately the French were allowed to participate and from 1945 to 1955, French troops were stationed in the Rhineland,Baden-Württemberg, and part ofBerlin, and these areas were put under a French military governor. TheSaar Protectorate was allowed to rejoin West Germany only in 1957.
Kehl was turned into a suburb ofStrasbourg. After the war, all citizens were expelled from Kehl. This state of affairs continued until 1953, when the city was returned to theFederal Republic of Germany and the refugees returned.
In the 1950s, the French and West Germans launched a new period ofFranco–German cooperation that led to the formation of theEuropean Union. Since then, France and Germany (West Germany between 1949 and 1990) have generally cooperated in the running of the European Union and often in foreign-policy matters in general. For example, they jointly opposed theUS invasion of Iraq in 2003, leadingUS Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld to lump them together as "Old Europe".
