France–Germany relations
France–Germany relations, or Franco-German relations, form a part of the wider politics of the European Union. The two countries have a long – and often contentious – relationship stretching back to the Middle Ages. After World War II, the two nations have largely reconciled. Since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1958, they have been among the founders and leading members of the European Communities and later the European Union along with Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium.
General relations between the two countries since 1871, according to Ulrich Krotz, have had three grand periods: "hereditary enmity", "reconciliation" and since 1963 the "special relationship" embodied in a cooperation called Franco-German Friendship. In the context of the European Union, the cooperation between the two countries is immense and intimate. Even though France has, at times, been eurosceptical in outlook, especially under President Charles de Gaulle, Franco-German agreements and cooperations have always been key to furthering the ideals of European integration.
In recent times, France and Germany are among the most enthusiastic proponents of the further integration of the EU. They are sometimes described as the "twin engine" or "core countries" pushing for moves. A tram straddling the Franco-German border, across the river Rhine from Strasbourg to Kehl, was inaugurated on 28 April 2017 symbolizing the strength of relations between the two countries.
History
Early interactions
Both France and Germany track their early history from the territories of Gaul and Germania, and to the time of Frankish Empire under Charlemagne, which included most of the area of both modern-day France and Germany, as well as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and northern Italy.Predecessors, which lived on the territory of modern France and Germany fought together in the Gallic War against Julius Caesar and the Roman Republic between 58 and 50 BC. According to Caesar, the Gallic Volcae Tectosages had once crossed the Rhine and colonized parts of Germania, but had since become militarily inferior to the Germani. He also writes that Germani had once crossed the Rhine into northeast Gaul and driven away its Gallic inhabitants, and that the Belgae claimed to be largely descended from these Germanic invaders. Years later, Both Gaul and Germania were both invaded by the Roman Empire.
Years after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, The death of Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious and the following partition of the Frankish Empire in the 843 Treaty of Verdun marked the end of a single state. While the population in both the Western and Eastern kingdoms had relative homogeneous language groups, Middle Francia was a mere strip of a mostly blurring, yet culturally rich language-border-area, roughly between the rivers Meuse and Rhine – and soon partitioned again. After the 880 Treaty of Ribemont, the border between the western and eastern kingdoms remained almost unchanged for some 600 years. Germany went on with a centuries-long attachment with Italy, while France grew into deeper relations with England.
Despite a gradual cultural alienation during the High and Late Middle Ages, social and cultural interrelations remained present through the preeminence of Latin language and Frankish clergy and nobility.
France and the Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, a member of the Austrian House of Habsburg, inherited the Low Countries and the Franche-Comté in 1506. When he also inherited Spain in 1516, France was surrounded by Habsburg territories and felt under pressure. The resulting tension between the two powers caused a number of conflicts such as the War of the Spanish Succession, until the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 made them allies against Prussia.The Thirty Years' War, devastating large parts of the Holy Roman Empire, fell into this period. Although the war was mostly a conflict between Protestants and Catholics, Catholic France sided with the Protestants against the Austrian-led Catholic Imperial forces. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 gave France part of Alsace. The 1679 Treaties of Nijmegen consolidated this result by bringing several towns under French control. In 1681, Louis XIV marched into the city of Strasbourg on 30 September, and proclaimed its annexation.
Meanwhile, the expanding Muslim Ottoman Empire became a serious threat to Austria. The Papal States initiated a so-called Holy League against the "hereditary enemy" of Christian Europe. Far from joining or supporting the common effort of the Holy Roman Empire and Poland-Lithuania, France, under Louis XIV, invaded the Spanish Netherlands in September 1683, a few days before the Battle of Vienna. While Austria was occupied with the Great Turkish War, France initiated the War of the Grand Alliance. The attempt to conquer large parts of southern Germany ultimately failed when Imperial and Imperial circle troops were withdrawn from the Ottoman border and moved to the region. However, following a scorched earth policy that caused a large public outcry at the time, French troops devastated large parts of the Palatinate, burning down and levelling numerous cities and towns in southern Germany.
France and Prussia
In the 18th century, the rise of Prussia as a new German power caused the Diplomatic Revolution and an alliance between France, the Habsburgs and Russia, manifested in 1756 in the Treaty of Versailles and the Seven Years' War against Prussia and Great Britain. Although a German national state was on the horizon, the loyalties of the German population were primarily with smaller states. The French war against Prussia was justified through its role as guarantor of the Peace of Westphalia, and it was in fact fighting on the side of the majority of German states.Frederick the Great led the defense of Prussia for 7 years, and though heavily outnumbered, defeated his French and Austrian invaders. Prussia and France clashed multiple times, and many more times than the other countries. This started years of hatred between the two countries. Frederick the Great was soon respected by all of his enemies, and Napoleon himself used him as a model for battle.
The civil population still regarded war as a conflict between their authorities, and did not so much distinguish between troops according to the side on which they fought but rather according to how they treated the local population. The personal contacts and mutual respect between French and Prussian officers did not stop entirely while they were fighting each other, and the war resulted in a great deal of cultural exchange between the French occupiers and German population.
Impact of French Revolution and Napoleon
German nationalism emerged as a strong force after 1807, as Napoleon conquered much of Germany and brought in the new ideals of the French Revolution. The French mass conscription for the Revolutionary Wars and the beginning formation of nation states in Europe made war increasingly a conflict between peoples rather than a conflict between authorities carried out on the backs of their subjects.Napoleon put an end to the millennium-old Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Napoleon formed his own Confederation of the Rhine, and reshaped the political map of the German states, which were still divided. The wars, often fought in Germany and with Germans on both sides, as in the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, also marked the beginning of what was explicitly called French–German hereditary enmity. Napoleon directly incorporated German-speaking areas such as the Rhineland and Hamburg into his First French Empire and treated the monarchs of the remaining German states as vassals. Modern German nationalism was born in opposition to French domination, under Napoleon. In the recasting of the map of Europe after Napoleon's defeat, the German-speaking territories in the Rhineland adjoining France were put under the rule of Prussia.