France Before The War
By Robin Darking
In 1870, France lost the war with Prussia and in turn lost a lot of land as well. Included in this loss were the provinces in Western France, and Alsace-Lorraine, which were annexed to Germany. France lost face in this battle, as well as part of their economy.

The battle over Morocco with Germany being lost for a time, France was further shamed and with the threat of war, and backed off. Unfortunately for Germany, they pressed the issue and joint control of Morocco was given to France and Spain.

W.W.I was France’s way of getting the colonies back that it had lost, getting the shame that it had suffered in several humiliating defeats wiped off it’s proverbial political slate board, and to get better alliances with Britain and Russia to fend off attacks from Germany.

Most of this, and probably all of this could have been negotiated and gotten without war. As for saving face, a small alternative to winning against Germany would have been to politely snub them in several ways, diplomatically, without the use of armed forces.

Instead of going to war over colonies in Africa, setting up treaties with other countries on how to govern them, and split the exported goods to each country. An example would be, on year one Germany would take a set amount of precious metals, while France would take out a set amount of herbs and spices. Each limited amount could be set up so that no country could make more than another a year, everyone would profit, and it would drain the colonies less.

Alliances with Britain and Russia were quite strong, but an alliance is never strong enough. Proposing trade deals to boost the economy with other countries would help, as well as looking at the long term effect of having these trade deals. Looking into pulling back from colonies and focusing on France itself and how it could defend it’s interests more easily would have been a good idea.

Again, all of the above would have helped France regain it’s political front and stop it from looking so ridiculous in it’s plans for defeating Germany. If war was found absolutely necessary, taking a look as if attacks coming from all sides would happen instead of only one.

Bibliography

Trenches on the Web: http://www.worldwar1.com/ InfoPlease : http://www.infoplease.com/countries.html W.W.I Encyclopedia: http://www.sackville.w-sussex.sch.uk/FWWsackville.htm

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