Britain, the ‘German revolution’, and the fall of France, 1870/1

Abstract

This article contends that the revolutionary event in 1870, as far as British foreign policy was concerned, was the collapse of French power, rather than the unification of Germany. By focusing on the unification of Germany and Anglo-German relations, historians have missed the centrality of France in nineteenth-century British foreign policy. Despite friction over Belgium, Britain and France co-operated on many issues in the eighteen-sixties, most notably checking Russian ambitions in the Near East. Once French power collapsed in 1870, Britain could no longer resist Russian revisionist claims in the Black Sea. At the same time, Britain was forced to compromise with the United States over outstanding differences dating from the civil war. Isolated on the international stage, the British government had to reorient its policy around the world and the events of 1870 shaped the options open to policymakers in subsequent years.