The Franco-Prussian War broke out as scheduled. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The course of the war, as in history, is usually explained in textbooks only because Bismarck changed the Kaiser's telegram and angered the French emperor.

The truth is definitely not so simple, Bismarck did change the telegram, but the content of the telegram was not distorted, only a few words were changed, but such a change not only angered the French, but also angered the Germans, not only the Germans in Prussia, but the entire German nation, including those principalities and kingdoms that had always been at odds with Prussia.

Why is this so, Zhu Jinglun feels that the French are mainly to blame.

They are used to being arrogant, since the time of Louis, France has become the center of Europe, even if Britain later became proud of the world in the economy, but France is still a representative of European culture, the language used in the courts of various countries is basically French, just like several countries in East Asia, the upper elite often understand Chinese characters.

In the time of Louis XIV and Napoleon, the French were so glorious that they had long developed a sense of pride and arrogance, they could bully people, but they must not suffer.

In recent years, the French people's impression of Prussia has become worse and worse, because some people have jumped out of the newspapers from time to time to make the French pay attention to Prussia, believing that Prussia, which has defeated Denmark and Austria successively and achieved hegemony in the German region, has become a serious threat to France.

A threat does not necessarily mean war, and a threat does not necessarily provoke the emotions of the whole people.

A few years ago, when he fought Austria, Bismarck hinted to the French emperor that he was willing to support France's annexation of Luxembourg and even Belgium in exchange for French neutrality, and after the war, the French emperor hoped that Prussia would fulfill his promise, but Bismarck made the superstition to the French emperor public, which caused strong dissatisfaction in Britain, and France had to explain that it had no intention of annexing Belgium.

The French emperor was played with by Bismarck, he was humiliated by Bismarck, but it did not arouse the anger of the whole French people.

This is the real reason, the prestige of the emperor is seriously insufficient, and the public opinion controlled by the new capitalists is seriously opposed to the imperial power.

This is the current situation in France.

The French bourgeoisie did not care about the humiliation of their emperor, but they could not accept a member of the Prussian royal family as king of Spain, because then Prussia would be able to form a flank with Spain against France.

So when a coup d'état broke out in Spain, ousted the old king, and elected Prince Leopold of the Hohenzollern family of Prussia as king of Spain, the newspapers controlled by the entire bourgeois elite immediately ceased to work, and put pressure on the government all day long, criticizing the weakness of the emperor and criticizing the incompetence of the government.

Napoleon III himself could not accept that Prussia had some kind of close relationship with Spain, so he sent to the king of Prussia to ask Prince Leopold to abdicate the Spanish throne.

The King of Prussia was a relatively moderate king, and the experience of history made Prussia accustomed to showing weakness in the face of France, and King William agreed to the request of the French and persuaded his younger brother to renounce the Spanish throne. This statement should be said to have made a huge concession, and the demands of the French were fully satisfied.

But public opinion was still not satisfied, and on the contrary, a group of people instilled in the public the idea of a long-term plan, and they thought that it was better to let Prussia never have any intention of controlling Spain, so that the trouble could be solved once and for all.

The French were convinced of this view and continued to put pressure on the emperor.

Napoleon III's prestige has always been low, so he never dared to act against public opinion, and always obeyed public opinion. So he sent to Prussia again to find the king of Prussia and ask him to issue a declaration guaranteeing that the Hohenzollerns would permanently renounce their inheritance to the Spanish throne.

The King of Prussia considered this request unreasonable, and politely rejected it, saying that the Spanish question had been settled and that there was no need to talk about it, and sent his attitude back to the government, so that the Foreign Office could reply to the French.

It was this telegram that Bismarck had tampered with, and he changed it to a message in which the king refused to consult France again on the matter.

This is a fact, and it is indeed the attitude of King William, who really thinks that the matter is over.

But this telegram displeased both the French and the Germans, who considered Prussia simply unqualified to refuse the French demands, and considered their refusal to be unreasonable to France; The Germans, on the other hand, considered their king humiliated and thought that the French were too aggressive towards the Germans.

In this way, a telegram stirred up the national sentiments of the two major nations. Originally, the two great nations had a deep grudge, especially after entering the Middle Ages, Germany has been divided, and France was unified earlier, so it was always France that bullied Germany, which led to the German nation always having a hatred and victim psychology towards the French.

The French, on the other hand, have a sense of superiority, and they have reason to be arrogant in the face of a small and weak people who have historically rubbed themselves as they wanted.

This is just like the fact that many Chinese in later generations look down on Koreans and Vietnamese, and Koreans and Vietnamese hate Chinese, and similar ethnic groups cannot have a good impression.

In the end, it was the French who took the lead, because the French were more emotional, they felt humiliated, and little Prussia dared to refuse the mighty France, so people took to the streets to protest.

Napoleon III had no choice, and once the French took to the streets, the rulers of France often trembled, and the profound lessons of history left him without the courage to say no to his own people.

So the French took the lead in declaring war.

Because the French declared war first, they gave Bismarck the best reason, and he used this reason to persuade the South German states to join the war on the side of Prussia at the Federal Conference of the German Empire dominated by Prussia, knowing that when Prussia fought Austria a few years earlier, these states had been at war with Prussia.

Bismarck won all the forces he could, and also took advantage of the British anxiety about Napoleon III's expansion to persuade Britain to stay out of the matter, using the tolerance of Austria a few years earlier, to win the neutrality of Austria, and to use the old grudge of France's intervention in the Crimean War in Russia more than ten years ago, to win the neutrality of Russia, in short, he created a perfect external condition for Prussia, only to fight a duel with France, while he won the support of dozens of states.

The support of these states was not only in strength, but also had a political significance, creating to the outside world the impression that this was a national war between the German nation and the French nation, which greatly stirred up the emotions of the entire German nation, and used this war to unite the whole nation.

If it were really to be annexed by war one by one, I am afraid that ten Bismarcks would not be able to unify Germany.

The outcome of the war did not change at all, ending in a crushing defeat for France.

But the impact of the war was different, at least on the countries of the East, which was completely different from history, because the situation in the East at this time had changed dramatically from history.

On the side of the Qing court, the defeat of France was in their favor.

Ding daily appeased the foreigners, but caused the whole Qingliu and conservative forces to hostile, and Ding Daily's prestige was really insufficient, Cixi could not protect him, and then handed over the task of handling the Tianjin teaching case to another Han minister, Li Hongzhang.

The Qing court did not give up Zeng Guofan, who was scolded by scholars all over the world, but reused Zeng Guofan, directly appointed Zeng Guofan as the governor of Liangjiang, and let him go south to be responsible for controlling the Qing army along the entire Yangtze River, and responsible for dealing with the offensive of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

If Zeng Guofan's reputation had not been damaged in this lesson plan, the Qing court would not have dared to use him, and now that Zeng Guofan's reputation has become infamous, the Qing court will boldly use him, this is politics.

Before Zeng Guofan went south, he handed over to Li Hongzhang and asked Li Hongzhang how he planned to deal with the lesson plan.

Li Hongzhang told Zeng Guofan that he planned to fight with foreigners. The popular point is to flicker, that is, to deal with it, to say as well as possible in the mouth, and in the end perfunctory past, if you can not cash it, you will not cash it.

This is the difference between Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan, Zeng Guofan is sincere, Li Hongzhang is deceitful, Zeng Guofan also persuaded Li Hongzhang that he can't talk about it, he must do what he can, and he promised what he couldn't do, which was to leave trouble in the future.

I don't know if Li Hongzhang has absorbed Zeng Guofan's suggestion, anyway, the situation Li Hongzhang is facing at this time is much better than Zeng Guofan's before.

First, Zeng Guofan has attracted the firepower of all Qingliu, diehards and scholars, and then Ding Richang appeased the foreigners, Ding Richang was promoted by Li Hongzhang, and it is difficult to say if there is any agreement between the two, but then Li Hongzhang's approach obviously borrowed the effect of Ding Richang's work.

Zeng Guofan attracted all the infamy, Ding Richang appeased the foreigners, and now Li Hongzhang only needs to give the countrymen a step to make both sides accept.

The most important thing is that when Li Hongzhang came to Tianjin, France was busy fighting the war and could no longer take care of Tianjin.

Although France is a protector and there are many dead people, it is difficult to get over face, but at this time France is no longer the main problem.

Li Hongzhang concentrated on public relations with Russia, and he told the Russians that if you consider long-term interests, it is best not to arouse the resentment of the Chinese people, and he said that the Qing court was willing to give generous pensions to the Russian dead, and at the same time, it was also willing to give the Russians an explanation in law.

Externally, Li Hongzhang reached a private agreement with the Russians, promised to apologize, pay indemnity and other conditions that foreigners valued most, and first persuaded Russia, the only country that could really use force with the Qing court.

After that, Li Hongzhang went to death row, found some death row prisoners, and told them that you are going to die anyway, it is better to die for the country, and admit the Tianjin teaching case, Li Hongzhang used his own money to give the families of death row prisoners a pension of more than 20,000 taels, to appease the families of death row prisoners, so that they do not make trouble, and at the same time, he basically did not punish those key figures in this teaching case, such as county magistrate Liu Jie and other officials, and even those criminals who were arrested who really killed foreigners, he did not move, because these people have become heroes in the eyes of some people at this time.

Inside, Li Hongzhang used various means to defuse the counterattack of public opinion. If neither the families of the condemned prisoners nor the families of the actual prisoners make trouble, this matter will not continue to expand.

In the end, the Russians were given more than 100,000 taels of silver and killed more than a dozen death row prisoners, and the Russians accepted. When the French saw that the Russians had accepted it, they could only express their acceptance, and reached an agreement with Li Hongzhang on basically the same terms. Britain and the United States did not have any dead people, and since they were originally Puritans, the main reason for intervening was to protect their trade interests, so they also accepted it happily.

The Qingliu people saw that Li Hongzhang released a lot of people involved in the case, and they did not hold on to Li Hongzhang, but the result of the incident was that Zeng Guofan carried all the black pots, and Li Hongzhang got all the credit, and even in his own recital to Cixi, he was a little complacent, and he was very satisfied with his own handling methods.

Of course, the Qing court was also satisfied, Li Hongzhang was promoted to the governor of Zhili because of this, and the Qing court promoted him to the governor of Zhili, there is no doubt that Li Hongzhang became the biggest beneficiary of the Tianjin teaching plan with ruffian means, and Zeng Guofan, who showed sincerity and was more principled, became the biggest loser.

The Russians and the French reluctantly endured a sigh of relief, and the Americans accepted it when they saw it, and it was the British Empire, which was originally trying to control the situation, that it was inevitable that they would be a little disappointed, and they found that in the end, Britain was actually excluded from Chinese affairs and did not play much role.

At the beginning, they were squeezed aside by the Ming Dynasty, and then watched a group of Chinese officials turn over the clouds, they had nothing to do with this old empire, and what made them feel even more powerless was that the Taiping army completely drove the British forces out of Shanghai, which made the British feel that their power in the East was too weak, and they urgently needed to strengthen their power in the Far East and maintain the influence and control of the British Empire in this region.

The Tianjin lesson plan is already like this, and the next step is also related to actual interests, or the Shanghai issue, the British Empire still has to rely on the strength of the Ming Dynasty at this time, but fortunately, the Ming Dynasty is really helpful, and sent Xu Rongcun, a foreign affairs officer, to Shanghai to mediate.