Author: Charles River Editors
Narrator: Bill Caufield
Unabridged: 2 hr 47 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Published: 10/21/2023
Genre: History - Europe - France
Prussian leaders, especially Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor and advisor to Prussia’s king, believed Prussia could be a united and respected power, but only without the traditional Austrian dominance. At the time, the Austrian empire was a collection of ethnically diverse peoples and had been dominated by a socio-political conservatism that sought to keep the empire ruled in Hapsburg tradition.
After Prussia was victorious in the Austro-Prussian War, Bismarck played a waiting game where the unification of Germany was concerned, as the joining of the southern states - initially resistant to Prussian rule, friendly with Austria, and bent on independence - would have to be overcome. What was needed was “a clear case of French aggression” toward either Prussia or the southern states. Not only would such a move by Emperor Napoleon III trigger the terms of the treaty between the German states, but it would keep the remaining world powers out of the conflict. It would be a dispute over the throne of Spain that would cause Napoleon III to act.
If trench warfare was an inevitability during the war, it is only because the events leading up to the First Battle of the Marne were quite different. The armies at the beginning of the war moved quickly through the land, but the First Battle of the Marne devolved into a bloody pitched battle that led to the construction of trenches after the Germans retreated, blocked in their pursuit of Paris. When the aftermath disintegrated into a war between trenches, some Germans thought they had the upper hand since they were occupying French territory, but with fewer soldiers than the combined Allied nations and fewer resources and supplies, it was possibly only a matter of time before they were ultimately defeated. The commander of the German armies, General Helmuth von Moltke, allegedly said to Kaiser Wilhelm II immediately after the First Battle of the Marne, "Your Majesty, we have lost the war."
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, when Western Europe was governed by a Germanic warrior-caste, the theory of a just and virtuous war took root. The Roman Church enhanced its authority by sanctifying oaths taken for jus...
According to most assessments of the age, France was not typically home to the systematic, “scientific” anti-Semitism that had such deep roots in Germany, and even more so further east in Russia and its dependencies. As proof of this, w...
If you want to discover the captivating history of the Napoleonic Wars, then pay attention...The Napoleonic Wars, which took place between 1803 and 1815, were spearheaded by probably France’s best tactician and military strategist to date, Gen...
Nearly 50 years after Napoleon met his Waterloo, generals across the West continued to study his tactics and engage their armies the same way armies fought during the Napoleonic Era. Despite advances in military technology and the advent of railroad...
In the late 18th century, as political unrest stirred in the heart of Paris, local residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the city’s urban cemeteries faced a pressing crisis: the putrefying stink of rotting corpses, many of which were lik...
As one of the seminal social revolutions in human history, the French Revolution holds a unique legacy, especially in the West. The early years of the Revolution were fueled by Enlightenment ideals, seeking the social overthrow of the caste system t...
The French Revolution of the late 1790s was one of the critical events in the history of Europe. It was the defining moment - a historic landslide that ushered the world into a new, completely different epoch. Alas, all such changes come at a great ...
The fifth in the new Naxos AudioBooks series ‘In a Nutshell’, The French Revolution is a short and accessible introduction to one of the most important periods in European history. It brings vividly to life the implacable Robespierre, th...
In the early 18th century, eighty years prior to revolution, France went wild for stocks and bonds. Mechanics dropped their tools, tradesmen closed their shops. There was but one profession, one employment, one occupation, for persons of all ranks f...