The Decline of Bismarck's European Order : : Franco-Russian Relations 1875-1890 / / George Frost Kennan.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Kennan, George Frost,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©1979
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (480 p.)

In an attempt to discover some of the underlying origins of World War I, the eminent diplomat and writer George Kennan focuses on a small sector of offstage events to show how they affected the drama at large long before the war even began. In the introduction to his book George Kennan tells us, "I came to see World War I . . . as the great seminal catastrophe of this century--the event which . . . lay at the heart of the failure and decline of this Western civilization." But, he asks, who could help being struck by the contrast between this apocalyptic result and the "delirious euphoria" of the crowds on the streets of Europe at the outbreak of war in 1914! "Were we not," he suggests, "in the face of some monstrous miscalculation--some pervasive failure to read correctly the outward indicators of one's own situation?" It is from this perspective that Mr. Kennan launches a "micro-history" of the Franco-Russian relationship as far back as the 1870s in an effort to determine the motives that led people "to wander so blindly" into the horrors of the First World War.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF PLATES -- AUTHOR'S NOTE -- Introduction: The Approach -- Prologue: The Strange Events of 1875 -- Part I: The Background -- 1 Russian Opinion and the War with Turkey -- 2 Franco-Russian Relations, 1879-1880 -- 3 New Tsar-New Alliance -- 4 A Bit About Personalities -- Part II: The Bulgarian "Gdchis" -- 5 Complications in Bulgaria -- 6 The Unification of Bulgaria -- 7 The Aftermath of Unification -- 8 The Estrangement of 1886 -- 9 Katkov's Attack -- 10 The End of Battenberg -- 11 The Break Repaired -- Part III: The Reinsurance Treaty: Giers vs. Katkov -- 12 France in the Spectrum of Russian Finance -- 13 Bismarck's Anxieties -- 14 The Tsar's Crisis of Decision -- 15 France and the Russo-German Crisis -- 16 Russian Winter, 1887 -- 17 The Crisis Survived -- Part IV: The Demise of the Bismarckian System -- 18 The Aftermath of the Reinsurance Treaty -- 19 The Ferdinand Documents -- 20 The Deteriorating Three-Emperor Relationship -- 21 Financial and Military Stirrings -- 22 1889. The Russian Break with Germany -- Conclusions -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY -- INDEX