The Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of France, 1870-1871 by Michael HowardReview by: Gordon A. CraigThe American Historical Review, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Jul., 1962), pp. 1011-1012Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1845267 .

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Howard: The Franco-Prussian War 101 I

and notes that through their theory of human love and friendship they have decidedly affected European literature from the Renaissance to the present.

The essays of Professors Harbison and Ferguson competently illuminate aspects of their special topics, but there is something embedded in them that troubles a reader who wants his history straight.

For Harbison, Machiavelli and More symbolize the perennial tension between the attitudes of realist and moralist. Yet they had much in common, and so Machiavelli is called a "realist" with a strong dash of idealism, and More an "idealist" with a strong dash of realism. On looking deeper, the thesis seems to be that the political thought "of the brilliant generation that included Machiavelli and More was the result of two things: the social tensions accompanying the dissolu- tion of medieval institutions, and the simultaneous impact of the classical revival." This approach to the matter of cause and origins is repeated elsewhere in the essay, and we are told that The Prince and Utopia were not the only "products" of this fruitful coincidence, but they were perhaps the greatest.

The known competence of Ferguson with respect to the "Renaissance" in historical thought raises high expectations concerning his present essay. He writes of the "revisionists" since I900 who, he neatly says, "have collaborated in the task of bringing chaos out of order." His analysis and sketch of the main currents in the story are admirable and will be read with profit by the historically minded. Let us observe that he is "happy to note" a swing of the pendulum back toward appreciation of the originality of Renaissance culture. Hard upon this, curiously, he begins a retreat into some sort of sociological mystification, introduc- ing talk of "forces." Some of these, present in medieval culture but not of such prominence as to be "determining factors" so early, were "most influential in shaping the culture of the Renaissance." With no disapproval he records "a grow- ing tendency to find the original motive forces of historical development in basic alterations of the economic, political and social system" and declares Renaissance culture was the product of the cities. Perhaps feeling that to invoke the force of human originality is a shameful resource for historians a century after Burckhardt, he finally suggests a peaceful solution of critical controversies and rests on the conclusion that the Renaissance "was essentially an age of transition." So indeed are all ages for historians, since change is the stuff of history.

Duke University ERNEST W. NELSON

THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR: THE GERMAN INVASION OF FRANCE, i870-i871. By Michael Howard. (New York: Macmillan Com- pany. I96I. Pp. xiii, 5I2. $I5.oo.)

AT the beginning of this new book on the Franco-Prussian War, Michael Howard explains diffidently that the only previous single-volume account-that of Emil Daniels-was published more than thirty years ago and that, since then, enough new material has come to light to make a new study useful to scholars

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1012 Reviews of Books

and to the public at large. Readers of this splendid volume will find this apology unnecessary, for this book is a model of what a study in military history should be, and, with its publication, the author enters the first rank of contemporary British historians.

This is a far cry from the kind of drum-and-trumpet history that brought military studies into justifiable disrepute fifty-odd years ago. To be sure, the battles are all here, superbly described by a scholar who has the gift of demon- strating the relevance of past military practice to the strategical and tactical prob- lems of the twentieth century, and of discussing technical problems wih authority and clarity. But the strictly military aspects of this conflict are placed here in their wider context. With skill and economy, Howard establishes the intimate relationship between the war effort and the political and social circumstances of the belligerent countries, paying particular attention to such things as the prob- lem of civil-military relations in both Germany and France. His pages on the mobilization schemes of Gambetta and Freycinet give a skillful analysis of the resilience of the French nation and show, by implication, why Moltke, in his post-I871 Aufmarschpldne, always regarded Russia as an easier foe to defeat than France; while, in his account of the flagging of German energies in the last months of the war and the simultaneous collapse of Gambetta's hopes, he shows the limitations of propaganda and patriotic appeals in a war whose rigors had to be borne by the common people. Finally, in his chapters on the war after Sedan, and particularly in his treatment of irregular warfare and the German response to it, he has written what is in effect an extended essay on the origins of the kind of ideological conflict that has been the curse of the twentieth century, and of the forces that encouraged it. All in all, this is a book of remarkable scope, and no student of the period can afford to neglect it.

In his treatment of the principal actors in this great drama, the author shows a refreshing freedom from stereotypes and a readiness to exercise charity in his judgments. He reserves his greatest admiration for commanders who courageously made the most of impossible situations, inadequate resources, and unreliable manpower, like Chanzy and Faidherbe, and for cool practitioners of their trade, like Goeben. Moltke appears here not as the infallible strategist but, more realisti- cally, as a commander of undeniable genius who was capable, nonetheless, of potentially fatal mistakes of judgment; and Gambetta appears not as the voice of the real France but as an idealist whose work was flawed with irrationality, and who, perhaps, challenged fortune without weighing the odds or the cost to the French people. As for Bazaine, the target of so much abuse since the capitulation of Metz, Howard finds him, despite his faults, deserving of sympathy. "The real accusation," he says, "lies not against Bazaine himself, but against the military system which bred him and allowed him to rise to the command of the French army. Nations get the generals, as well as the governments, they deserve."

Stanford University GORDON A. CRAIG

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