Francophobia and Patriotism: Anti-French Images and Sentiments in Prussia and Northern Germany during the Anti-Napoleonic Wars

Abstract

If we wish to understand the uneven mobilization for the Anti-Nepoleonic wars of 1813–15 in different German territories, it is not enough to analyse the political, social and cultural disparities and the diverse experiences of French warfare and occupation. We also have to look at the political discourse that responded to, reflected and formed these experiences with its images. Protestant northern and eastern Germany, and particularly Prussia, suffered more than other German regions under French rule following the dramatic Prussian–Saxon defeat of 1806–07. The hatred of France and all things French was more developed in political discourse there than elsewhere in Germany. The patriotic–national mobilization for the ‘War of Liberation’ in 1813 extended beyond the small elite of the educated strata. This paper will therefore analyse, not only the images of Napoleon and the French in Prussia and northern Germany, but also their social, political and cultural context.