France is a country with strong nationalist sentiments, and the high degree of national identity of the people, stimulated by humiliation, is extremely easy to form an irrational hatred, which is of course directed against Germany, because of the Franco-Prussian war they were humiliated. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Therefore, after the Franco-Prussian War, the French government and the people were full of a kind of revanchist sentiment.

Stimulated by this patriotism, the French raised an excess of reparations, paid off their military expenses to Germany in 1873, and reluctantly withdrew their troops from France under the supervision of Britain, Russia and other international powers.

After withdrawing from the troops stationed in France, Bismarck could no longer use the occupation of France to contain and suppress France, so he decided to use the diplomatic means he was good at trying to isolate France throughout Europe.

In 1873, Germany co-opted Austria-Hungary and Russia to sign a treaty of alliance between the three monarchies, hence the name "Three Emperors Alliance". Bismarck even tried to win over Britain to sign a land and sea alliance, but Britain refused, the British Empire is setting off a new diplomatic boom of glorious isolation, only intending to close the door, mainly to close the door of Europe, in the case of European countries not expanding outward, to enjoy the British Empire's world colonial cake, in Britain, rather than getting involved in the rotten quagmire of endless disputes in Europe, it is better to let European countries play balance with each other, and Britain owns the world. So Britain rejected Bismarck.

Despite all his diplomatic skills, Bismarck found that France seemed to be out of control, free from the reins of the German Empire, and becoming unpredictable.

After the withdrawal of German troops, relying on a strong sense of revenge, in May 1873, Marshal MacMahon, an ultra-royalist figure who advocated revenge against Germany, became the president of the French Republic with the support of Catholicism.

In August of that year, the Bishop of Nancy published the "Letter of the Pastor", openly calling on the French to pray for the return of Alsace and Lorraine to France, and a month later the Bishop of Paris issued a similar appeal, and the French national sentiment reached a fever.

Why does the church support the national sentiment in France, the main thing is a matter of faith, Prussia, which promoted the unification of Germany by force, is a Protestant country, and France is a Catholic country, and the Thirty Years' War broke out in history because of religious issues, so after the Franco-Prussian War, Germany not only annexed Alsace and Lorraine, two Catholic regions, but also merged into the southern German region of Germany, which is actually a Catholic region, which led to a great reduction in the power of Catholicism, and the church was very dissatisfied.

At this stage of history, the French Church was ruled by a group of very fanatical religious leaders, and various religious problems were constantly set off all over the world, including wars broke out in China, Vietnam and other places.

The agitation of the Church stirred up the emotions of the French people, and the newspapers clamed for war every day.

Under the leadership of Marshal McMahon, the French government is also desperately trying to rebuild its armed forces, on the other hand, the French government actually has no choice, in the face of fierce national sentiment, either choose to be tough, or they can only choose the platform, this kind of republican state, forced by public opinion and generally lack of diplomatic flexibility and policy space, even in the 21st century, can not be avoided.

The national mood in the face of France, as well as the rearmament of France, put Bismarck under great pressure.

In response to this-for-tat, he first used German civil forces to suppress French civil forces, and tried to make France compromise through public opinion warfare. Under the impetus of Bismarck, the German folk sentiment was also very fierce, and the war not only stimulated the national sentiment in France, but in fact stimulated the German national sentiment even more, without this national sentiment, even if Bismarck had the ability to reach heaven, it would be impossible to bridge the Protestant North with the Catholic South, because historically, because of religious issues, they killed each other more tragically.

Under Bismarck's push, German newspapers began to threaten France, threatening that since France wanted revenge, then Germany should take the initiative in the face of a war that was doomed to break out and launch an active attack on France.

Bismarck took advantage of this war public opinion to induce the German parliament to increase military appropriations and pass a seven-year military bill to continue to expand Germany's military power in order to threaten France.

The French Foreign Minister took advantage of the German threat and sent a plea to the European powers that Germany was preparing to start a war against France.

As a result, France won a diplomatic victory, and public opinion in the major powers generally did not support Germany, believing that after the Franco-Prussian War, Germany had become strong enough to threaten the European balance, and Germany should not be allowed to continue to weaken France.

Under the public opinion of various countries, Bismarck had to make a compromise and ordered the newspapers to publish articles that calmed the hearts of the people and slowly calmed down the popular sentiment in Germany.

However, the national sentiment in Germany is easy to suppress, but the French really do not want peace, and they are bent on revenge as soon as possible, which is not only a matter of public opinion, but also the appeal of French politicians. No politician would have taken the responsibility of permanently abandoning Alsace and Lorraine, so France could only be the enemy of Germany. Moreover, France sees that international public opinion is in favor of France, and they hope that war will break out as soon as possible, so as to use the strength of Britain and Russia and other countries to regain the lost territory, and even further dismember Germany, so that the European continent can return to the past German division state, France can obtain strategic security, and once again stand in the position of a European power.

By 1875, the Germans gave France another chance.

Russell, the British ambassador to Germany, held a dinner at the embassy, which was attended by ambassadors from all over the world.

At the banquet, the German general Radowitz told the French ambassador that "if France is intent on revenge, do not expect German politicians to wait for France to gather strength and conclude an alliance before attacking."

The irresponsible words of the German general were taken advantage of by French Foreign Minister De Kaaz to print his original words into a document and send them to various governments, so as to prove that Germany had the intention to attack France, and to try to arouse the alarm of all countries against Germany again.

As a result, Britain and Russia protested to Germany. The Tsar and Great Britain, on behalf of the governments, sent representatives to Berlin to demand that Germany refrain from waging war against France.

Bismarck was anxious, repeatedly assured that Germany had no plan to start a war, which slowly calmed down the crisis, which made Bismarck understand that the balance of power in Europe he had built had been broken, his diplomacy had failed, and the alliance with Russia was simply a dead letter, and it was impossible to protect Germany, so after this crisis, Bismarck submitted his resignation, but the Kaiser did not approve it, Bismarck couldn't handle it, so that the Kaiser could find someone to clean up this mess.

But the crisis also made the French understand that the German threat was real, but the intervention of the Great Powers was illusory, and that the French could not pin their security on the protection of Britain and Russia.

As a result, the French government's voice of revenge is also slowly weakening, and they need to continue to have enough strength in order to truly take revenge. After the Franco-Prussian War, France lost Alsace and Lorraine, two coal and iron resource centers, and their industrial strength was greatly reduced, and they needed to obtain benefits from overseas to make up for France's shortcomings.

In Chinese history, there was also this kind of strategy, after the rise of the Mongols, they continued to attack the Jin State, and the response of the Jin State was not to forcibly block it, but to go south as well, fighting the strategy of losing the Southern Song Dynasty by the Mongols, and finally the Jin State perished.

This kind of strategy of losing the east corner and reaping the mulberry elm seems to be full of truth, but in fact it is an extremely inferior strategy, first of all, mentally speaking, it is impossible for an empire to return to its former glory without the ruthlessness to fall down and get up from where.

In fact, he is a means of avoiding the important and trivial, treating the symptoms but not the root cause, and avoiding contradictions, then contradictions will always erupt, and the root cause of France's weakness is because it has suffered a major blow from Germany, and only a tough counterattack can reshape France's position in Europe. But instead of doing so, France began to expand overseas.

Japan later opted for this turtle-like strategy, and under the aggression of the great powers, they planned to make up for it from their neighbors Korea and the Manchus, which at first seemed to succeed, but it also caused Japan to spiral out of control and was doomed to failure. In addition, Japan's international status has never been able to become a first-class one.

In Chinese history, there is an example that is just the opposite. During the Warring States Period, the Qin State implemented Zhang Yi's Lianheng strategy, but later, under the operation of Su Qin, the five eastern states jointly attacked Qin and invaded Hangu Pass with five times the force. In the face of the dilemma of diplomatic strategy failure, the Qin people did not choose to surrender to a strong enemy, and refused to hand over an inch of land. Instead, he chose to fight a bloody battle with the Five Nations Alliance, and this courage to face the predicament finally achieved the Qin people's domination of the world.

At any time, strategy and tactics are only auxiliary, and the competition between countries is always a head-to-head contest of blood and fire, and countries that cannot recognize this cruel reality, or dare not face this tragic reality, will never be able to truly stand up.

This is the state of France today, and in the face of German oppression, France has chosen to expand overseas. Just as the waves of nomads continued to migrate to the west under the oppression of the Xiongnu, Turkic Mongols and other powerful peoples from the east, they may also have the idea of losing the east corner and harvesting the mulberry elm, but they have all disappeared into history.

Although the Chinese nation also faced this oppression, and even lost the country, it was able to fight back again and again, so as to stand up again and again, while the Indians chose to avoid risks most of the time, so they were ruled again and again. Some people may not recognize this distinction and think it is too vain, but look at how many countries in the 21st century are worried about China's rise, and after India's economy began to develop rapidly, everyone still has their eyes on China, not as a threat, but as a potential counterweight to China. It is because they found that although the Chinese have also lost their inferiority, as long as they usher in stable development opportunities, they will choose to face the past head-on, rather than slippery avoidance.

Another interpretation of the expansion of the French overseas is actually to circumvent the pressure of Germany, and from the perspective of the great history of the great migration of peoples in the world, it is actually that the French nation began to migrate overseas from the continent under the oppression of the Germanic people.

That's why there is a very puzzling situation, when the French are clamoring for revenge, Bismarck counter-threatens France through the media, and he seems to be extremely panicked and even unprepared. Because Bismarck was really terrified when he saw that the French were united and wanted to take revenge on Germany, and he knew that even if Germany could defeat France again and again, this kind of well-established nation, as long as it did not lose its spirit, would always start again.

And when France began to expand to weak overseas areas, Bismarck not only did not worry about the increase in France's strength, but vigorously supported France's overseas expansion, because Bismarck knew very well that France's curve to save the country was actually to give up competing with Germany head-on, and once the French nation lost this spirit of facing difficulties, Germany would not have to worry.

Don't the French understand this truth, French politicians are not idiots, the problem is that they understand it, but it is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice, and there is a real lack of courage, so they can only choose to expand overseas.

But one of the greatest difficulties of overseas expansion was that the more they dispersed their forces to expand overseas, the more they could not get rid of the state of German threat to France.

Therefore, even if they expand, they cannot expand with peace of mind, and they are in a dilemma, and they need the support of other great powers.

There is no doubt that the Ming Dynasty is a big country, in terms of population, there is no country in Europe that can be compared, and Tsarist Russia has only 90 million people, and it will not reach 150 million until before World War I. Economically, although the industrial base of the Ming Dynasty is still very weak, but the speed of industrialization is very fast, especially in the field of tea and silk weaving industry, the talent is too good, even if these two industries can not become pillar industries, but it is of great economic significance, because these two industries are highly commercialized products with excellent economic benefits.

The most important thing is that the transcendent position of the Ming Dynasty in East Asia has almost no natural enemies, which makes France, which is looking for allies all over the world, feel that although cooperation with the Ming in East Asia cannot weaken the threat of Germany to their own country, it can effectively guarantee France's interests in East Asia, and even help France further develop its interests in the Far East and make up for the weakness of its own economy.

Therefore, the French have long been actively looking for the Ming Dynasty, they hope to carry out all-round cooperation with the Ming Dynasty in East Asia, including industry and finance, to deepen cooperation, France believes that there is a broad space for cooperation between the two countries, but before the Ming economy was sluggish, Zhu Jinglun's willingness to change is not strong, plus the burden of disaster relief in the north, so there is no cooperation with the French, now for the sake of counterbalancing the British, coupled with the improvement of economic conditions, the Ming can bear the cost of reform, then you might as well really establish a long-term, positive with France, Constructive and in-depth cooperation.