Bismarck's War

The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe

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By Rachel Chrastil

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$19.99

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$25.99 CAD

A new history of the war that toppled the French Empire, unified Germany, and set Europe on the path to World War I 
 
Among the conflicts that convulsed Europe during the nineteenth century, none was more startling and consequential than the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Deliberately engineered by Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the war succeeded in shattering French supremacy, deposing Napoleon III, and uniting a new German Empire. But it also produced brutal military innovations and a precarious new imbalance of power that together set the stage for the devastating world wars of the next century. 
 
In Bismarck’s War, historian Rachel Chrastil chronicles events on the battlefield in full, while also showing in intimate detail how the war reshaped and blurred the boundaries between civilian and soldier as the fighting swept across France. The result is the definitive history of a transformative conflict that changed Europe, and the history of warfare, forever. 

Genre:

  • “Rachel Chrastil colorfully describes how the Franco-Prussian War destroyed the long European peace established after Napoleon's defeat in 1815. Beginning as a midsummer cabinet war between monarchs, one of them Napoleon's nephew, Bismarck's invasion of France bogged down in winter rain and snow, and became a rancorous war of peoples that kindled the inferno of World War I.”
     —Geoffrey Wawro, author of The Franco-Prussian War and A Mad Catastrophe
  • “Rachel Chrastil has written a fresh and compelling history of the most important European war between Waterloo and World War I. In rich and engaging detail, she shows how it laid much of the foundation for the wars of the twentieth century, even as it was seen at the time, and subsequently remembered, as a relatively conventional conflict. A tour-de-force.”
     —David A. Bell, Princeton University
  • Bismarck’s War brings the Franco-Prussian War to life through the words and deeds of participants both on and off the battlefield. Rachel Chrastil’s fascinating examination of the conflict compellingly narrates its military and political dimensions, and it puts the war in a global context, emphasizing its human cost and the international response to the humanitarian crisis it created. An engrossing, compassionate, and critical interrogation of a decisive historical event.”
     —Carolyn J. Eichner, author of The Paris Commune

On Sale
Sep 5, 2023
Page Count
512 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9781541604100

Rachel Chrastil

About the Author

Rachel Chrastil is a professor of history and provost and chief academic officer at Xavier University in Cincinnati and a former Fulbright scholar. The author of Organizing for War, The Siege of Strasbourg, and How to Be Childless, she lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Learn more about this author