Explanation: In the Franco-Prussian War, the conservative nationalist Otto Von Bismarck baited the French Emperor Napoleon III into declaring war on Prussia. This was part of a long-running effort by Bismarck to unite the various German states under one ruler by trying to cultivate a spirit of ‘in-group out-group’, instead of letting the Germans all see each other as outsiders. It was a largely successful ploy, leading to an outpouring of German support for Prussia.

Prussia would win the war, and the prestige from their bold ‘defence’ of German rights would provide the impetus needed for the Prussian monarch to claim rulership of Germany as a whole, and for the smaller princely states to agree to the royal union. Prussia would also take Alsace-Lorraine from France, a disputed region with a great deal of cultural mixing.

Imperial Germany, then, was largely satisfied with its gains, and focused on consolidation. In France, on the other hand, discontent over the results were so severe a civil war broke out wherein an anarchist commune in Paris was brutally crushed, and for decades afterwards, revanchisme - ‘revenge’ as an ideological motivation - would be a major theme in French politics.

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