 Welcome back to those who are coming back in to join us for our third panel. I'm just going to hang back for an extra minute or so until the number of participants number that I have in front of me for stabilizers are still people coming in at this point. So I'll just hold back for another 60 seconds or so. Okay, well, let's start. I trust everyone had a good lunch. Let me welcome now panel free fighting the Franco Prussian war we've got free papers lined up by Mark Hewitt's and our mail to rule. We've got Olivia for card. And it'll be our mail will be both presenting a paper, but also sharing this session so he's got the advantage of timing himself. One and a half hours. So there'll be plenty of time hopefully for questions and answers at the end, just to remind everyone of course that these sessions these panels are being recorded. So I'm over to you. Good afternoon. It is a huge pleasure to purchase this colloquium this afternoon, even though 2pm is rarely the best time to catch public attention. Nevertheless, I'm sure everyone will be captivated by our panelists right now, or if some of you are going to dive in a deep reflection. I think all messages we that will be delivered will inspire your subconsciousness in this room table. We will deal with warfare violence and political objectives during the Franco Prussian war. For that, let me introduce you our lecturers. Welcome to welcome Professor Mark, you with some who is a professor of German history and politics at University College London. His most recent books are Germany and the modern world 1880 1914 at Cambridge. Absolute war violence and mass warfare in the German lands and the people's war histories of violence in the German lands. However, you will speak on cultures of violence in the Franco Prussian war. Afterwards, we will have the pleasure to listen to Professor Olivier Forcade, with whom I have a special link because he was my first professor of international relations. As a military academy, a long time ago. And then, and then my PG director at Paris Urban University, where I teach us in contemporary history and international relations, specialized on the history of intelligence, he's going to deal with with a topic applied to this conflict. Director of Urban University Press, he published many books, a bit in French, L'engagement des Américains dans la guerre 1917-1918, dans le secret du pouvoir, l'approche française du renseignement du 17th au 18th siècle, a République secret histoire des services spéciaux de 1918-1939. Finally, I will conclude or I will speak between these two laterals, and I will, I will deal with the consequences of this conflict on the current French political structures. Professor Marc, your speech examines what is meant by cultures of violence, before going on to assess the impact of violence on German conscript in 1870-1871. It is based on a reading of correspondence, diaries and memoirs. The floor is yours. Thank you. Kind introduction, I feel that someone should do your introduction, but unfortunately I'm not prepared. I'm going to share my screen now, hopefully. I'd like to talk today about cultures of violence during the Franco-German war. What do we mean by the term cultures of violence and why should we be interested in them. The term culture itself of course is contested but its use in this context I think derives from two sources principally. A distinction made above all in studies of the Second World War between primary group loyalty, situational factors including physical conditions, the effects of technology and institutional constraints on action, typically within armies, and culture in a broad sense, which is held to explain soldiers' attitudes and their way of waging war from Victor Davis Hansen's claim that there's a Western way of waging war extending back 2,500 years to ancient Greece and based on evolving forms of civic militarism to John Lin's investigation of battles between antiquity and the present culminating in a chapter on terrorism, which shows our reactions to combat of altered in accordance with changing cultural expectations. And there's been a connected debate stimulated by George Moss's investigation of the brutalizing effects of war on combatants and civilians about La Couture du Guerre during the First World War. Stefan Oduan Rousseau and Annette Becker in particular have posited that war cultures in each combatant country connected those on the fighting front with those on the home front. War culture or Couture du Guerre, right, Joe Winter and Antoine Prost, is a term alluding to the mental furniture men and women drawn to make sense of their world at war, seeping into every aspect of domestic life and constituting what George Orwell was to call the moral pollution of war. For Oduan Rousseau, especially this pollution included changing attitudes to violence. These historians of war, including contributors to Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerhard Cromaik and Irina Renz's kind of food security a man from 1993, and Hirschfeld and others. Maxif Arman from 1997 have generally come to agree that there are overlapping cultures of war corresponding to different urban, rural, regional, confessional class and gender based milieu. Here, I'd like to link these two sets of claims to a third set, which is more closely aligned with citizens attitudes in the 19th century, and which derives from research into the American Civil War. The question is, given the nature of mass warfare from the Revolutionary Wars onwards, and given the advent of modern warfare with the introduction of new types of weaponry after the 1850s. Why did conscripts and civilians go to war with so little opposition or resistance. Why did they carry on fighting, and what was the long term impact of their participation in military conflict. In my opinion, it's worth asking whether something analogous to Michael Barton's notion of character, or Gerald Lindemann's concepts of courage, played a part where a constellation of values, including those of duty, honor, godliness, chivalry and masculinity, initially permitted courageous acts, or I quote, heroic action undertaken without fear, at least on the part of educated middle class volunteers. As such men and for others, how important was the cause for which they were fighting, and what did it consist of, this is a question considered by James McPherson amongst many others. Did the causes for which soldiers fought continue to motivate them until the end of the conflict, or were they replaced by varying phases of disillusionment as troops worn down by the firepower of breach loading rifles, and the randomness of death resulting from the exploding shells of distant artillery. The evaluation of the longer term effects of such combat proved more difficult than for the, for that of 20th or even early 21st century conflicts for which more evidence exists, including of course extensive psychiatric records. All of these questions and difficulties apply to the 19th century wars in which German soldiers participated. In addition to an assessment of the conditions of war itself, which is Mark Neely Jr. as pointed out, remain contested. They entail the investigation of experiences, emotions, psychological impact, memory, history, autobiography, writing, visual representation and public debate, which affected citizens willingness to go to war and to wage it, and their memories of the conflict on which their willingness to wage the next war depended. How did war fit into the broader spheres of foreign and domestic policy. In this talk, I'd like to address the question why soldiers continue to fight, even after the conditions which they faced proved unexpectedly grueling. Franco-German war, of course, was bloody. According to Adam Buchholz, there'd been 1600 Prussian casualties and 8000 Danish ones in the Schleswig war in 1864, 9000 Prussian dead and wounded, and 44000 Austrian casualties in the Austro Prussian war in 1866, and 116,696 Prussian losses, that's to say dead and wounded in the Franco-German war in 1870 to 71. Unlike in 1864 and 1866, the weaponry, tactics and training of the German army's opponent were as effective or could be as effective, given good decision making, as their own, leading to higher German losses, at Spickern on the 6th of August, which involved the First Army, and in which more than two Prussians and Hanoverians died for every French casualty or were injured, the 4,500 German casualties to 2,000 French, and a similar number of dead and wounded at Fert or Frischfiller, in which the Third Army was engaged on the same day, 11,000 French casualties, compared to 10,500 Germans. And of course at Mars Latour and Grave Lot on the 16th and 18th of August, in which roughly 35,000 were killed or wounded on each side. Some soldiers who'd served in 1866 were already fearful of what was to come in 1870. A later ordinary soldier like the Bavarian Florian Kuhnhauser, for example, who'd been in Vienna in July 1870 and fought an Austrian side four years earlier with a Bavarian unit, went to France with mixed feelings of trepidation and enthusiasm. Within me, a great struggle was going on for a new all too well from 1866 what it means to go to war, and now against such a powerful feared opponent, he recalled. For someone who was not a career soldier, this is certainly excusable. The thought of being torn away again from my profession and from business, and have to leave Vienna, which had become so dear to me, had a depressing effect on my spirit. By the 6th of August, he was in France, rousing himself after spending the night outside in the rain. I shall never forget this first night in France, he wrote, hungry, soaked to the skin and covered in excrement and dirt. It's every indication that German troops went off to war with a mixture of different feelings, including the foreboding or reluctance of their parents, particularly in farming communities, a general acceptance of mobilization, hopes of heroism or adventure, and a belief in the defensive national character of the conflict against France. But they then encountered unexpectedly nauseating and disorienting conditions of combat. There are many examples of testimony, both published and unpublished, including samples of the 89,659,000 letters delivered by the Postal Service of the North German Confederation, between the 16th of July 1870 and the 31st of March 1871, plus the 11 million or so letters carried by the South German Postal Services. From the contemporaneous experiences or aliveness of middle class, one year volunteers such as Edmund Mech, who was a trainee teacher from Bavaria, to the letters of barely literate villagers such as Gerhard Becker from the Rhineland, you blame the paper, you'll not be angry that the paper is so bad, he wrote, for his poor handwriting, but could find no excuse for his complete lack of grammar. He wrote without commas, full stops, or any other punctuation. Once he was like Mech, patriotic pride was frequently intermixed with fear of and disgust at the sights and smells of combat. His first glimpse of war was the battlefield of Wissenburg, shortly after the fighting had taken place on the 4th of August. The view of which will always remain fresh in my memory, my whole life long, he wrote. The Germans and French who were reconciled by the unsuable angel of death lay peacefully beside one another, and the sight of them cut deep into my heart. So many had said in a noble holy enthusiasm. Yes, I want to die for my fatherland. But here, in view of those who sacrificed their lives on the altar of the fatherland a few hours ago, such enthusiasm would disappear from many. Leaving Wissenburg, Mech's regiment had rested near the village, which he decided to walk around, coming across 11 dead in a row in a vegetable garden. They're gaping wounds who were visible to my eye. No mourning heart cried over their corpses, no thankful or loving hand closed the eyes of these brave ones. The warm prayer climbed up from their coffins to heaven, lonely, unknown and unmoaned, they lay on foreign soil, far from their high mat and their loved ones. At the same time, I was brave like a man and caught to mind the holy affair for which you are standing in the field. I said to myself that I would go to fight for the home of my loved ones and for my dear beloved fatherland. At the Battle of Vert on the 6th of August, such feelings evaporated. The air was full of smoke and torn apart by millions of bullets. It was turmoil, as if the elements of the earth were going to split apart. I was able to watch this for a few minutes. Then we went into the pandemonium against the enemy. It surrounded us like swarming insects and only the cracking of hit trees and the collapsing of so many vital healthy comrades showed how these insects were different from another, sorry, showed that these insects were from another realm of nature. Ranchers fell down, cracking and poor wounded soldiers twisted around sighing, groaning and pleading for help, wallowing in their own blood. At 7pm the battle was over, won gloriously, as he put it. However, many had paid with life, health and limbs. The sites on the field where they rested were horrific. One soldier had his foot blown off, left hanging by threads of nerves. Another had had the right side of his face torn away from his eye to his chin. A terrifying picture banished the drunkenness of victory for the most part and had a shaming effect. A soldier's became conscious that humans had done all this, we called Kuhnhauser of the day after the battle. Rank and file troops usually from rural or working class communities were rarely tempted to dramatize the plight in this way. Even after fighting, many were stoical and taciturn with Heinrich Becker's postcard home after the Battle of Kloverlot on the 18th of August, typical. God did not abandon us, but many a comrade is no longer there. The majority, however, were moved by what they'd experienced to write at greater length. Johann Hohn had fought on the 18th from 4am to 9pm. I thank God that I remained without injury under a rain of bullets and grenades, he confessed to his father. When we go to battle again is not known to us. God may give his blessing to reach. As he watched the wounded been brought in by structure, he found it indescribable. I would have much more to write, but unfortunately for this one has no rest. Johann Hohn described the grenades which exploded above us and flew around and over as like doves, obliging his comrades to hide behind a wall. He'd been wounded above the eye in the fighting but remained on the field until 10pm, pushing back the French with many losses. Similarly, Ferdinand Valman, who'd already witnessed terrible fire before the Battle of Kloverlot, gave a fuller franca report of the fighting on the 18th. A great battle was again waged and we were under terrible grenade fire for seven hours in the wood. Underlining the horror of the fighting, he counted the shells, at least 200 grenades, before climbing up. I cannot describe this terrible thing for you. He was hit but not badly wounded. Many comrades have gone, he concluded. On the 24th, he repeated the same words, I cannot know right for you everything terrible. The battle lasted into the night. How many prayers of thanks climbed up to the heavens that evening, asked Friedrich Schuiffer and his diary. His own company had lost 107 dead and wounded more than half of the total. As they'd marched into battle on the 16th, the first already lay there dead and wounded before the last had entered the fray. The reaper had a rich harvest here. It seemed as if the entire French army had trained its guns on us. When the commander gave a speech amidst the debris of the regiment, tears rolled from our eyes. Schuiffer was proud of his company's achievement, but he also longed for a quick end to the war. His sentiments stood in stark contrast to his earlier bravado as he joyfully answered yes to the prospect of enlistment. It's hard to be sure how profound and long lasting these impressions of combat were. Priests were the main embedded witnesses. Admittedly, they approached the conflict with a complicated superstructure of moral and patriotic expectations, but many agreed with Edmund Fleider that wartime conditions and norms diverged from those of peacetime. There's no question that a life like that of the campaign could not leave people as they are in their habitual and ordered circumstances he wrote. Everything became more extreme, with a steady alternation of security and danger, having an innovating impact, propelling one's entire physical and psychic life into a torpor and rage, into a rapid irregular torrent. One has no conception of the disorder of war, if one has not seen it with one's own eyes or at the Catholic chaplain Gottlob Dettinger, and these days were just a shocking for one's morale. The day of battle brought mass suffering, awful pain, an indescribable misery for hundreds of thousands, went on Dettinger, as the most terrifying spectacle was left behind the front of a relentlessly advancing army, thankfully unseen by most soldiers. The wounded seem to really relive the terrors of their last hours in wild febrile fantasy. Some who made their way to field hospitals were a horrible sight. They were trying which we saw like this, which there were not a few had had his whole face shot away. The nose was fully gone in the place of his eyes one could see thick yellow festering areas in the hollows of the bone, and in the entire massive flesh, the countenance of a human could no longer be recognized. I think this is one of the reasons of these sorts of testimony because I think it's difficult to realize just how explicit they were and their explicitness contrasts I think very markedly with coverage in the in the press at the time. What were the effects of such experiences, and how were they related to longer lasting memories of war. There was such a long term impact of conscript soldiers exposure to violence. The volume of the official medical report the sanity to its birth that examined war psychosis was published in 1885, and listed only 316 cases from the 1.5 million men mobilized. The reports conclusion noted and occurred a moderate increase of the mentally ill during the duration of wartime activities. This ever inquiry in Germany into the psychiatric effects of warfare, and the army had not employed psychiatrists during the war itself. Although the report shows that there was no overall increase of the longer term of those treated for psychosis. It also reveals that there was no means for such treatment to take place during wartime. Instead is hundreds of contemporaneous and many retrospective ego documents, which state that combatants were deeply affected by what they'd experienced. I argue that soldiers experiences of violence altered the ways in which war was perceived. It is true of course that the patriotic mythology of the Franco German war was established during the conflict and became an orthodoxy after 1871, linked to a widespread belief in Germany that the bonapartist regime had provoked the conflict that this justifiable war had been born by the German people in its entirety, and that the war gave rise to unification. There are indications that the mass experience of violence in 1870 to 71, which existed in different forms, and was added to similar but smaller scale expertise to violence in 1864 and 66 transformed many citizens conceptions of conflict. This transformation was not largely a matter of the changing conditions of warfare. In the previous period of mass warfare in 1805 to 15, the majority of German troops had faced similar conditions, albeit with variations, but with also higher mortality rates, yet few soldiers wrote of their suffering. The same effect was not discernible in the decades after the Franco German war, when reports and recollections of fears, revulsion and mourning were openly articulated alongside a dominant narrative about an historic patriotic struggle. This subtext which corresponded to the emotional responses of a broad cross section of troops played a part in veterans private memories and subjects public discussions of the military and of war during the imperial era. This did not prevent of course war mongering within the army and in extra parliamentary leagues, most famously by come up under goats, whose book best folk in bathroom in 1883 urged Germans and I quote, to work incessantly towards a final struggle for the existence and greatness of Germany. Instead, fears and hopes of war were added to the corny copier of other ambitions and anxieties, which comprise the political life of the Kaiser Reich. The left in place Janus faced images of warfare, deriving above all from the intimate and unstable connections between national myth making and veterans own darker sets of recollections of the wars of unification. Like Malker in 1890, many citizens appear to have found it impossible to banish the specter of an unlimited war threatening civilization and costing hundreds of thousands of human lives. In 1914, the remaining veterans of the wars of unification were old men, their voices largely drowned out by generations who had no experience of military conflict. Some of the succeeding generations evidently regretted that they'd missed their opportunity to participate in a glorious war. Many others though, were less enthusiastic. One of the most belligerent national liberal organ shiffer was not alone in noting and I quote the deadening seriousness, which has settled down on the people during the July crisis of 1914. Our people had heavy hearts wrote to your devil, both the left liberal editor of the barely in a target but in 1916. The possibility of war was a frightening giant nightmare, which caused as many sleepless nights. There were no reasons for mass opposition to and quiet doubts about the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, ranging from anti militarism within sections of the SPD to a concern amongst individual newspaper readers that the slaughter of the Russo Japanese and Balkan wars will be repeated on a much larger scale. There were no reasons for doubts about conflict, perhaps the principle underlying one was the persistence of ambivalence about the prospect of a future war dating back to the 1860s. Arguably, this was the main legacy of German cultures of violence in 1870 to 71. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Mark. I had a very joyful speech on the evolution of the battle effects on soldiers and populace. And it reminded me a conference I took part in in 2014 at Grablat Museum. When a lecturer spoke on ordinary, ordinary violence, and I blew up. And because I disagree with him. I believe that violence is not and is never ordinary. Above all, if you have already experienced it, and everything you dealt with during this speech reminded me some operational experience I had. And I deeply agree with your analysis. Thank you very much indeed. Instead of speaking right now, I will let the floor to Olivier Forcade. Because we have been a bit longer than scheduled and Olivier, if you have to speak a bit longer to I prefer to reduce my speech. The floor is yours. Olivier, Olivier, do you hear me? Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Thank you very much, my colonel, for your welcoming. I'm sure you are a very, very good German. You are, of course, an excellent friend. He was an excellent student. You are an excellent officer. And now German. So thank you very much, but 20 minutes for me too, of course. On August 1870s, the attack on St-Abrécan marked the start of Franco-Prussian war operations. A month later, to this day, the French army was defeated and Napoleon III capitulated at Sedan. My supposition is that intelligence is probably the French missing dimension at this time. So we would like to examine successively three dimensions. First, the strategic intelligence and the diplomacy of Napoleon III and his military and political chiefs. Then the intelligence at the operative scale. And finally, and partly the tactical intelligence in particular from human sources. So first, some consideration on strategic intelligence about the Franco-Prussian war. At first, we have to consider the aim of the French diplomatic policy in France and in Russia. Let us first project a new understanding of the French and Prussian intelligence processes in two states with very different civil and military institutions. With the aim of informing Napoleon III and Bismarck, intelligence of military interests is defined here as the sum of military intelligence and environmental intelligence. In a political and diplomatic sense. The aim is to inform the military and political leaders. It's so necessary to situate the only military events in the past strategic and diplomatic decades. In particular, the victorious Prussian phase on the summer of 1870 must be replaced and understood within the framework of the Dutch and as you know, between from the invasion of Schleswig-Holstein and reinforced by the victory Prussian on Australia in Sadova in 1866. So strategic intelligence is reinforced and implemented over the long term of several years of foreign policy and military policy. However, this goal of France's foreign policy by calling into question the principles of European equilibrium led Napoleon III to increase its foreign expeditions. So, two remarks. First remarks. There is a Prussian political war goal with the, which is the unification of the German states by Prussia. France's goal is to oppose this German project by relieving of the southern German states, first Bavaria, then Tsar, Palatina, S to Asia. But it will squander this goal of defense in the eyes of European allies by falling into the trap of the empty dispatch. For me, it's perhaps Bismarck's masterpiece of intoxication. When war was declared, France found itself without an ally. On July, however, during the Council of Ministers, the Duke of Gravant, Minister of Foreign Affairs, assured that France could count on its lies. So what happened? One explanation is the position of Russia. The role of Alexander Garchakov, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Russia, is now known with the study of Stefanie Bergo. His thesis demonstrates to us the place of Russia in Bismarck's geopolitics. Russia's neutrality with Prussia is due to the policy of European aggression since the Crimean War, giving force to pressure and Russian cooperation to malicious Russian neutrality in 1864-66. Its purpose is to prevent a Prussia-French alliance, to have the support of Berlin to revise the Treaty of Paris of 1856, and to make it in a conservative barrier against revolutionary movements. Thus allowing Bismarck to push his goal towards the unity of Germany. My second remark for supposing that France squanders the four factors of strategic intelligence. For what of having clearly defined its political criteria of what would be the enemy's defeat. It does not know how to access German military and logistical resources as a state of forces of the European partners. In particular, diplomatic information established that the mobilizations of the Austrian and Italian armed forces would exceed by several weeks the French mobilization that Napoleon wanted to achieve into the three weeks, two or three weeks. So Napoleon III will fight to gather resources to win the war. First, demographic resources with the mobilization and concentration of troops lower than the forecast of the Minister of War, Joseph Rendon, then General Lebeuf after 1868. The difficulties of mobilizing the French armies and first of all logistics, which marked the divisions of the old army, the sanctities of unenthusiastic concretes, ardent merchants, volunteers, attentive to their promotion, reservists, recruits from 1869 and the Defense Army National Network set up by Gambetta at last. So it was the first mistake. Second, economic resources to equip its troops. Many of these soldiers have a lack of uniform and armaments when they were and devised at the end of August. In comparison with the disordered forces of the reserve, the rapidly operational colonial troops went against the image and proved to be of great operational value, including symbolically in the battles of Baze at the end of August 1870. Third, third aspect, it's the logistic resources with an underestimation of the importance of the railway mains of transport of troops to lead concentration. It's very important and fundamental to move its forces in the strategic maneuver. If a central railway commission was indeed created on March 1869, the mobilization will stumble in 1870 on the right logistics issues of the concentration of French forces and they worked. Napoleon remains the principle of Napoleon Bonaparte, get involved and see. Maybe it was late. Composed of general officers and representatives of the railway companies. His railway commission was to consider the question of transport of troops by right, but not planned for the employment of the railway is what time could be established. Finally, so, second part, the operative level of intelligence before and at the beginning of military operations. This is a very important operational level of intelligence. Operational level aims to design the maneuver, which is the meeting on continental and maritime dimensions at the beginning of the war. Of course, in this, in this way, we have to consider many aspects. The first is planning in order to establish a geometry of the field and the manoeuvre. You have to consider the setting of priorities to be shared with the components to be supported and support team. Then the search for reason in operations to take the initiative on the adversary action and reaction. You have to consider the distribution of efforts and resources as intensity of your effort. During the campaigns of Prima, Italian, Mexico, no plan of campaign have been rigorously work out. So Napoleon III have consulted Adolf Thierre and Jomini before entering campaign in Italy. But the problem was the plan with his general staff. In fact, it seems that the French military leaders hardly cared about planning. They were relying on the superiority of the troops to beat the enemy, whether they encountered them. And we know that General Prussia made his bitter observation after the defeat of 1870 in his famous book, The French Army. He was indeed one of the few officers to worry after the Battle of San Juan. At first sight, the French army was unprepared if it were to enter a campaign against the Prussian army. However, the French military attaché in Berlin, General Colonel Stoffel, who had been authorized to follow more during the campaign against Australia, underlined in his reports the degree of preparation reached by the Prussian army in the field, training, mobilization, and command. In July 1869, he estimated that the forces of the North German Confederation could be mobilized and concentrated on the French border only in three weeks. But he wasn't believed, some even suspecting him of buying in Bismarck pain. Martyr Le Boeuf himself, then Minister of War, thought he was exaggerating the danger far too much. And General Ducro, who had been in command in the 6th Strasbourg Division since 1865, also increased his warnings about the threat posed by Prussia. In 1868, he warned, we must not hide from ourselves. Our preparation compared to that of Prussia is not good. And the day the struggle begins, our forces will be two of our adversaries in the proportion of one to three. So, in spite of the lessons of Sadova in 1866 and of Luxembourg one year later, the political project of a vast military reform, announced in 1866 by Napoleon, was abandoned. This reform don't exist. However, Napoleon had been able to learn the lessons of the victories against Russia in 1856 and against Eastern Italy in 1859, despite the rise in power of his army, which had only one against armies that were even less well prepared. In May 1867, therefore, in anticipation of a confrontation with Russia, he asked for real operational preparation for Generals Le Boeuf and Le Boeuf. Work on the composition of the armies. The two reports were merged into a single document, which was printed in 100 copies under the title of composition of the armies. And therefore, taking inspiration from Prussia's ideas as decided that in the event of war, the French army would be divided into three armies. This question is well known. You know it. So Bismarck obtained with his human agents in Paris, this document, the composition of the armies. In the French military and political tradition of the offensive, Napoleon remained attached to his plan with an excessive optimism, not shared by his generals, who nevertheless executed it. As expected, the mobilization and concentration operation were carried out simultaneously. There was also a movement by Rai, launched by Le Boeuf, at mid-July, with confusion. So I would like to finish with a third remark about the operational level of intelligence, with the question of human sources. By comparison between France and Prussia. Human intelligence is at the heart of the Prussian intelligence system, with open sources, and staff officials coming to follow the French manoeuvres, for example, in Chalon from 1867, continuing their observation by traveling across the country after. First, the case of a young unmarried Zurich resident, Edouard Brun, under the cover of an owner, recruiting agents as human sources of the military attache. Major Alfred Valderz, who arrived in Paris on February 1870, takes the system. Two months later, Tissus was able to report elements linked into the French campaign plan. In fact, the complete state drawn up by the emperor and the composition of the army of 1868, including Le Brun had two copies. Valderz also cultivated a relationship with a young officer of the minister of law, Staff Captain Théodore Jung, who had met at the Parva Salon in April 1870. The latter had published on the crisis in the French army for Goveta's account in July 1868, in the Revue politique and littéraire, signed by Tissus, a Republican lawyer, two articles on the military budget, and the declarations of Marshall Neal about the military crisis in France. In addition, signed to the war depot, Jung had access to Stoffel's French-attaché military reports. In the surroundings of Goveta, who also frequented the Parva Salon, there was also a Dutch businessman, Alexander Mendel, who was a parent of Bleich-Höder. The difference in intelligence gathering with France could not have appeared better. Of course, Stoffel was able to establish a connection with the Bleich family and also with the socialist Wilhelm Leaknescht. However, he only responded in this to the demands of his constituents, the minister of wars and the emperor's private secretary, Pietrie. Second remark, the Crimean War and Sadova recalled the importance of the war depot in France in conflict planning to spur a revival of military statistics as strategic intelligence had been called since the First Empire. You know three very important French officers. One was Polish at first, Viktor Tansky, then colonel Eugène Sager, and staff colonel Jules Leval was responsible for preparing planning for a conflict with Russia. This planning is established by the preparation of maps on the German states, resulting from 37 reconnaissance missions carried out by staff officers during the prince and summer of 1867 to 1869 in the Rhineland and in the Rhine, Fezor, Elm or Oder. So we have to consider two clandestine missions mobilizing 27 officers under various covers of tourists, painters or journalists. And last remark, we could consider that the intelligence gathering process deployed by the Prussians and the French was largely similar for Air Force and military attaché, for example. With similar collection methods, however, the exploitation of intelligence was quite different in the two countries. In Berlin, the Central Nachrichtenbüro under the Auszärtiges Amt received data concerning political questions, while also concerning the armies fell under the pursuit of the Nachrichtenbüro of the Grossen Generalstab. Also created in January 1867, this service was entrusted to Major Brandt. But unlike Stieber, the staff officer was accountable only to the chief of staff. And this one would inform the chancellor and possibly the minister of war if necessary. So this mark emerged as the primary decision maker for the use of intelligence. His main need was to know when and where the French would attack, thus prompting his intelligence services to use both foresight and open information that works from September 1867. And at this point of view, the manipulation of the mistress of a net of court, the emperor and an officer in the office of the French Minister of War is enough to guide this Mark's decision. Last remarks on the French side, operational management was far from comparable. First, there was no intelligence office within Foreign Affairs, but so the political directorates ran specialized intelligence missions. The management of these agents was in fact delegated to the heads of delegation, according to their goodwill and their appetite. Second, and finally, the war depot was never that military espionage service that Ducro, Tensky or Lowell wanted it. So French autocracy offered only a double polarization of course, but political leadership was shared between the emperor and his advisors, including Minister of State and Prime Minister. So we can conclude by saying that if we could compare the two systems of intelligence and the two processes, this mark make good utilization of intelligence. It wasn't the case of Napoleon III and his generals. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much Olivier and you stressed very well the importance of intelligence, not only in war, but in preparation of the war, and how it is difficult for a country when it is isolated to build an intelligence network and as as warned, General Trochu in 1867 in his famous book, The State of the French Army, in which he stressed the high level of end preparation of the army for such a conflict. A point that is very important when a country has only one very reliable and well informed source, like it was in Berlin with his, with its military attaché Colonel Stoffer, as you said, it is important to believe the message he sent and the analysis he can send to the capital because if Paris would have taken into account all the information and analysis sent by Stoffer, perhaps the it is always easy to remake the war some years later, but the difficulties perhaps would have been a bit less harsh for the French armies. Now, I will, I will try to shorten my speech. And when we are dealing with, with the Franco-Pouchean war, we have to consider, finally, two wars into a single conflict. The first phase is an imperial war. And this dynastic war, they were, this phase was a dynastic war and corresponded to the cannons of the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, restoring limitations to war on land between sovereign European states. The second phase is what, what I would say the Republican, the Republican war that was vigorously launched by a new government established after the fall of the empire. And therefore, the government of national defense was set up to continue the hostilities. So I will try, I will deal first with the political aspiration of having people in arms, because the main aim of, for instance, Gambetta was to restore the republic, a democratic republic, and I will, I will try to stress in a second Gambetta's fear of civil war and all these aspects influenced after war, the political structure of France and influence the fifth republic, the constitution of the fifth republic we still have currently in my country. The idea of, of arming the people arose at the beginning of August during the imperial phase of the war, when the first concerns about the real effectiveness of the French troops arose on nine August 1870. As an opposition MP, Gambetta publicly called for a mass mobilization, considering that France was not only facing the Prussian army, but an armed nation. Finally, as soon as he became homeland minister during the republican phase of the war, Gambetta wanting to generalize the war involves all the nation and mobility and mobilized all resources, sent out numerous letters and siacolas in which he heard resistance. Let every French man receive or take a rifle and let him place himself as the disposal of the authorities, the fatherland is in danger. He understood perfectly well what was at stake at the time and fought against the opposition and inertia that were sure to hamper their action. The war that Gambetta decided to pursue, even though the armies were defeated, took on the general dimension. The political and administrative structures of France had to be changed. The spiral of defeat and passivity had to be replaced by one of dynamism and face in the republican future of the country. It was therefore important not to limit themselves to transform a civilian into a combatant, a simple armed resistance fighter, scientists, doctors and anyone with special skills were also recruited to serve the great national cause. In parallel with this policy, Gambetta reorganized a military structure over which he eventually stood and encouraged the arming of the people to lead a guerrilla war against the invaders. To raise their hope and instill a sense of pride, the political leader had to find historical legitimacy by recalling France's greatness and its ability to overcome difficulties. In addition to that, the new constituted government was thinking for legitimacy as well. How could a new republic be promoted and people encouraged to fight the enemy. The difficulties for these new leaders were to find the best historical and ideological references to remind the greatness of France and her ability to influence the world. When back to the past, the second republic could not be mentioned because its first president, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, became the recently captured and abdicated emperor. The latest greatness and glory of France were linked to the first empire's military campaigns, and it was not conceivable to refer this aspired republican restoration to Napoleon I. This past did not match with Gambetta's political orientation. He could only refer to the fatherland in danger of facing the European monarchies, which were refused for emigrate during the French Revolution. The French Revolution, as Karen Wallay showed that in her second slide this morning during her briefing, was the only period that combines the fall of tyranny and the fight against the occupier. The popular mobilization was supposed to provoke the awakening of consciousness. Nevertheless, Gambetta was very prudent in reminding the revolutionary period because he did not want at all any assimilation of his republican project with a tyrannic, with a dramatic terror during which thousands of people were murdered. Indeed, the violence of this dark period was stressed by a half million of people jailed and around 40,000 people killed. Gambetta hesitated therefore to reactivate the memory of a period that could provoke the opposite feeling, the opposite feeling, sorry, he was thinking. Therefore, his attitude quickly appeared ambiguous because while exalting the mass uprising, the republican symbol for excellence is thought to considerably limited scope. The action of Frontier and all irregular units was limited by Gambetta's fear of an overly massive mass uprising. Although he appealed to patriotism and urged his fellow citizens to take up arms, he quickly revealed a strong reluctance to see flourishing throughout the country armed groups with actions he could not control. On September 26, Gambetta mission the delegation of Paris to prevent the deployment of the Prussians to limit their possibilities of acquisitions to harass them day and night, always and everywhere. In order to encourage and uprising against the invader, a decision was published on the 28th September concerning the compensation of the Frontier. However, the very next day, Gambetta made public a decision that was radically different from what he had been encouraging for almost a month. He decided to incorporate all the regular companies and units of Frontier into the regular armies of the war and the East. The famous German strategist, Colmar von der Gotz, an actor and historian of the Franco-Prussian war, believed he couldn't explain Gambetta's about faith by military considerations. I said, he wrote sorry, Gambetta knew his militias well. He knew that he could not immediately demand victory from them. It is to him that belongs a well-known saying, success cannot be improvised. He believed only in the technical superiority of the Prussian army, a superiority that can certainly be defeated if the means are great enough. In other words, Gambetta would have sought a fight from the strong to the strong without saying that France was no longer capable of it. His analysis do not seem to take into account an essential factor that was a political situation that was, and I should say that was the internal political situation in France. The chaos in which the country found itself gave free reign to all kinds of excesses because the radical communists and anarchists' currents that had been compressed since 1848 saw an opportunity to raise their heads. The situation in France was therefore favorable to revolutionary expression, and this was what Gambetta feared as he wanted at all costs to avoid taking France into civil war. And content will be almost mentioned some elements about this topic this morning during his panel. In a decree on 13 September, Gambetta is particularly explicit on this subject, recalling that only the state can use armed force and that any offender would be de facto outlawed. He kept in mind that on 7 and 8 August, an insurrectionary attempt had already taken place in Marseille, in the southern part of France, under the leadership of Gaston Cremieux. This left radical man, close to communist circles, tried in vain to proclaim the republic and established a revolutionary commune in Marseille. He was arrested and jailed after being sentenced by a martial court, but was released on the night of 4 to 5 September when the empire fell. Resuming his radical activity, he created the League d'Umilie, which very quickly came into conflict with the government of national defense. Robert Middleton, a British witness and observer of this conflict described Marseille in September as a troubled area where brigands and intrigues meet. This almost mafia like then tried to use irregular units and set up as an armed or legitimized by the right of the sovereign people to defend themselves in the absence of a constituted and democratically elected state. The revolution was on the march there and the fights in the east and the north of France were the pretext to seizing the power in Paris. At the start, Bakunin reappeared in Lyon on 15 September 1870 and with other internationalists set up a committee for the salvation of France, which on 17 September proclaimed the abolition of the state and the constitution of revolutionary communes. The colonization or internal disorder would inevitably be detrimental to the action undertaken by the government of national defense against the invader. It was therefore important, the revolutionary threat to be neutralized and that order could rain in the French rear. So, Gambetta ordered General Krusa, who had come to reinforce the army of the Loire, to send around 15,000 troops to Lyon to put an end to the agitation that was shaking the town. On 28 September, the day, the decree on the birth of the frontier was published, as I already mentioned, the revolution failed in Lyon. And then took a first administrative measure to exercise control over the regular units that he had called for. This by decree of the 29th are already mentioned too. He placed all the companies of frontier and a regular fighters at the disposal of the minister of war. Jean-Eve Guillaure, a French historian pointed out that during the war, Gambetta was constantly talking about war in excess. At the end of January 1871, he stated that only the breeze of the revolution can save us. But in fact, he was very of the extreme left, which wanted to combine the war of national defense with civil war as in 1793. As early as for September, a delegation from the international called for mass uprising. On 7 September, Blanqui published a text on la patrie en danger, the fatherland in danger, which he dated from 20th fructitor 78. And this date is very important because not not by the day, but by the meaning because he used Blanqui used the calendar created by the French revolutions. The actions of October corresponded to the rise in power of the irregular units with action started to disturb the pressure and rare. Continuing his endeavor to control the units and gauge in combat. The minister of war, that is to say, Gambetta, gathered the company of frontier under the name of auxiliary army by decree of 14th of October. For his part, most never seized to warn his generals against actions that were conducted on the German rear. He also began to dedicate significant manpower to the security of his logistical supplies. However, the facts confirmed Gambetta fear as the league committee in Marseille appeared as a seditious movement. The city of Marseille experienced agitation, which led to the proclamation of a revolutionary commune on 1 November. All kinds of swingers and political activists lived together. On November 1, a sharp position broke out within the city, the city council, between moderates and revolutionaries causing the National Guard and the city guard to clash. The committee, including members of the international was formed and declared the commune revolutionary. General Cluzeray, who had alongside Bakunin participated in the uprising in the commune of Lyon joined the Marseille movement after the failure of his attempt at their own insurrection. Gambetta dismissed the prefect Estheros, who was quite close to the anarchist movements and replaced him with another man, Joseph Jean. This last victim of a failed attempt on his life, the new prefect took the department in hand and reestablished Republican order. It was the beginnings of the commune and Gambetta feared that the temptations of revolution would discredit the Republican idea. He knew the Marseille protagonist in particular, and he knew all about their revolutionary ideas. In full knowledge of facts, Gambetta therefore made a difficult choice. He preferred to give up an effective method of action to find the precious, rather than risk a political and social configuration in France that could jeopardize the image of democracy. On 1 November, he issued a circular number 29, in which he announced that any unit of frontier that lacks energy would be dissolved and dissolved. This led to his approach and thus brought up the sources of recruitment of irregular troops. Gambetta took four major decisions. He had a decree issued on 2 November, proclaiming the general mobilization of all able bodied men aged between 21 and 40, married or widowed with children. Bearing in mind the attack on his prefect on Marseille, Gambetta wanted to grant his stability in the country. And implementing his renunciation by publishing the decree of 1 November, by which he integrated all irregular units into the army, considerably restricting the freedom of action of the frontier. Finally, and as an extension of his previous actions, he proceeded with a massive serve by decree on 7 November. In the act, which was generally in scope, definitively sealed his renunciation of using all the regular warfare levers in this war. Without giving any precise indication, he placed as his disposal all the human resource to employ it where the government needed it. With no constraints, he wanted to guard against any change of direction from an insurrection initially directed against the invader into a revolutionary movement, dedicated to the conquest of power. This current and rigorous approach is characteristic characteristics of Gambetta's thinking, which remained faithful to his idea of safeguarding the republican idea. From 1872 onwards, Gambetta took part in the annual banquet held in memory of Osh, General Osh, the republican symbol of the end of the wars of Vendée, and of the rest of civil peace. Many shared the idea that price being blocked, it was necessary that the center of will and action to be carried everywhere. However, Gambetta, the risk of being defeated by Prussia was perhaps better than that of France devastated in a civil war. Through the war, his obsession was to preserve the credibility of a republican democracy to avoid any return of royalty. After the war, he never ceased to denounce the spirit of violence, which has so often led democracy astray, because national sovereignty or the sovereignty of the people cannot be disordered. I will shorten a bit in order to conclude. And I would say, Gambetta had an impressive political and strategic long term vision. The roots of the current French Republic are in his action and determination, joining efforts done by Adolphe Thiers, as said Professor Tom this morning, but certainly not in those of the commune de Paris, as a certain political romanticism would have us believe. The best violence and uprising in May 1871 are the opposite side and will power of the republican restoration, wished by Gambetta, and did not influence the evolution of our three different constitutions. In the war than influence, it was surely on the contrary, to make the political system the most stable possible and far from any violent temptation and way of expression that concludes my briefing. You know, I read a few questions and we will start with Jeff Phillips, who asked if he wants to ask his question. I think that might be a technical question. Okay. Is it possible to have a larger speaker screen is that. It was another he asked. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much, but the professors very kindly already answered it. Because I guess you had a question dealing with pushing artillery I guess if I remember well. The question I asked was, how was it in view of the fact that Friedrich Krupp was an international arms salesman and was particularly targeting the French army that they were said that the French army significantly underestimated what the partial artillery we're going to get and get up to during the war. And that's been been very kindly answered already by by professor for card. Mark, do you want to stop the answer. No, I've got nothing. I think so I'd answer that. I believe that the underestimation of by French by French command was not only in artillery concern but in all domains. And it is quite surprising that the French command did would never took into account the lessons learned from the US Civil War, and it, and it's industrial aspect and consequences in terms of massive destruction and the use of railways for instance. The Germans Christians learned a lot from the American Civil War, and they were fully prepared to to sent very quickly that troops towards the front, towards the frontiers the borders, and they were very well prepared in maneuvering in such geographical and environment. In the contrary, the French troops of the French command because the French, the private the French private we are very, very tough they were, they were very good soldiers. They were unfortunately very poorly led and because they are their command was to pride and overseas deployment and colonial experiences. But the war, the face against pressure was totally different the warfare was a total warfare. They did not prepared they did not learned because they were focused on different warfare in their colonial or overseas deployments. And this is why I would explain the under the huge underestimation. From the French side towards the Persian one. Maybe, could I add to that. I mean, from the German side, I think commanders were surprised about French actions between the 16th and the 18th. Why nothing happened on the 17th of August. So there was a, there was a shock that the French commanders hadn't, hadn't prosecuted prosecuted the continued the battle on the on the on the 17th. On the German side, I think, obviously there is an emphasis on mobilization and movement. There's also far too much movement from Malka's point of view. The first Army moves straight in front of the second Army and ignores Malka's order to to desist Stein Stein just carries on. So there is disorder there's certainly lots of lots of poor coordination in the German armies to in in defense. And this is exactly the point which I'm way back in 1965, Professor Michael have wrote across one of my essays about about about the points that push an army is that the plan was fine. There was no way that you could not give Stein Mets a command in view of his magnificent performance in the in the Austro-Prussian war. And so they were numbered with him and it wasn't until he outright criticized the Friedrich Karl at the siege of Mets that the opportunity arose for him to be sent off to be sent off to be a governor of Poland. Yeah, I agree. And now we have a question from Philip Mead for you, Mark. Oh yeah, this is about. Well, about descriptions of battle experience to what extent was there a close change in the descriptions of personal battle experience in the second half of the 19th century as compared to the Napoleonic Wars. And how did new military technology or increasing literature contributes that change. In my view, there is a qualitative change to my knowledge there's not if you buy textual analysis you mean discourse analysis, or more formal linguistic analysis. I'm not aware of useful studies, but virtually everyone working in this field is conducting texture analysis at some level they're looking at and comparing different forms of ego documents so memoirs diaries correspondence over the long period and often in short, in short periods. So reading of the these documents from the Revolutionary Wars. Currently reading memoirs of the Weimar years. There's a really significant change which is quite difficult to to explain it's not stylistic. In my view, the there are literary critics who've argued that there's a largely stylistic shift and it's about changing sensibilities. And the sensibilities do change but I think the main impact of changing sensibilities is when conscript soldiers engage in engaging battle. And then the sense is a fronted in a in a new way, and they commit this to paper. And the way in which they do it alters fundamentally and Karen Hargermann's got I think the best database of memoirs and diaries of the Napoleonic Wars and the Revolutionary Wars and she got 146 memoirs and diaries that published just after the Napoleonic Wars so in the decades after Frank Cooley, I think on the German side has got the largest collection of similar memoirs and diaries after the wars of unification, Franco German war just on the Franco German war. There are 432 memoirs and diaries in his database. I think this points to a more obvious fact that publishing war literature, the expectations of a public buying that literature of change fundamentally. When you compare the 1820s on the 1870s and particularly 1890s when a lot of the memoirs came out. There are changes in the way in which war is portrayed in the press there are changes in publishing, but I still think from looking at these diaries and memoirs and comparing memoirs sort of retrospective accounts to contemporaneous accounts within diaries and letters. I think the main changes is what soldiers experience and the way that they react to those experiences of combat in the 1810s and then in the 1860s early 70s. If I may, I would like to come back on the strategic and tactical culture of officers. I don't know if I may, Arnel. Yeah, please, please. It's very important to take into account the experiences of foreign expeditions of a generation of officers in France. For example, General Ducault or Colonel Charles Adon du Pique, were in the foreign expedition in the Ottoman Empire in Syria at the beginning of the 60s and they have learned a lot of lessons, tactical. But we have to consider the fact that they generation underestimate the aspect of intelligence in continental war and of industrial war. We will remember the fact that the École Supérieure de Guerre, which was founded after the defeat in 1876, don't consider the economic warfare or industrial aspects as a fundamental matter. It was a matter of formation. It was the same situation for intelligence at the beginning of this École Supérieure de Guerre. So you have a generation of officers and generals who underestimate these two fundamental questions of 1870. Thank you very much Olivier. And we have a last question for you Mark again. You are very successful today. John Varnay. Yeah, okay. The question is, for those who have not got it, did the story, sorry, did the story is told by soldiers traumatic experiences of the war reached governments at the time, and the British example that not happening. I think in the Franco-German war. To my knowledge, not. There was very little. I've not read within, within government that there was much acknowledgement of this, of this type of literature. The numbers of letters going back and forth in 90 million during the course of the war. Well actually just over 100 million if you can include the South German state means that most of these letters were not, were not censored. The government didn't take much notice of them. I think that is in stark contrast to what happens in the First World War, where there are regular reports of the contents of letters. The letters are open by officers but they're also the regular reports on a, on a, in each, in each army, and, and there's constant commentary on grumbling, grumbling on the home front and grumbling on the fighting front. And that that that's quite different I think from what happens in the wars of unification. Thank you governments do take notice of the First World War material. Thank you very much Mark. Michael, it's 330. It's time for having a break or refreshment break. Michael's had to step out our mouth so I'm just going to fill in very quickly for him. Thank you everyone, our panelists, and especially to our mouth for wearing two hats, presenting and sharing which is never an easy job. As I was saying we're going to go for a coffee break now, but please everyone rejoin us again at 4pm, 1600 for the final panel of the day, which is going to be on the impact of the Franco-Prussian war on military thoughts so I look forward to seeing all of you in about 30 minutes. Thank you and thank you again to our panelists. Thank you Mark.