Dr. phil. Oliver Benjamin Hemmerle, M.A.
hemmerle.post@email.de


          La Grande Nation: The Strategic History of France from 1624 to Today (Lecture)


          I.       Introduction [17.02.2009]


         II.       Richelieu, founder of modern French foreign policy [24.02.2009]:

[nothing before the Thirty Years' War is part of the exam] - Creation of modern administration and
diplomacy by Richelieu; French in Thirty Years' War; (1^st) "Rheinbund".


        III.       Louis XIV and the "natural borders" [03.03.2009]:

Conflict with Habsburg (Austria and Spain); Huguenots; Réunion policy; Alsace and Lorraine.


       IV.       French Colonialism – Part 1: Creating and loosing French North-America
[10.03.2009]:

Seven Years' War; Louisiana Purchase.


         V.       Spreading Republicanism (1792-1799/1804) [17.03.2009]:

Coalition Wars against France; Sister-Republics; Rhine as border.


       VI.       Napoleon rules the land, Britain rules the sea (1799/1804-1814/15) [24.03.2009]:

Lunéville and Amiens peace treaties; Trafalgar/Austerlitz 1805; wars with Austria 1805 and 1809;
war with Prussia 1806; (2^nd) "Rheinbund"; continental system (economic war against Britain); war
in Spain from 1809; war with Russia 1812; campaigns of 1813/1814; Hundred Days and Waterloo.


      VII.       Another Napoleon: foreign policy of Napoleon III. (1848-1870) [31.03.2009]:

Crimean War; Italian Unification; France and the Austrian-Prussian War of 1866;
Franco-Prussian/German War of 1870/71.


     VIII.       French Colonialism – Part 2: Loosing Europe, creating a new colonial Empire
(1830-1914/1919) [07.04.2009]:

Algeria (special role in colonial system); failed creation of Empire in Mexico;  French in Africa
and Asia; Fashoda Incident (1898); influence in the Middle East after WW I.


       IX.       In the shadow of Prussia and Germany – forming alliances with Britain and Russia
(1871-1914) [14.04.2009]:

Loss of Alsace-Lorraine 1871; Boulanger Crisis; Franco-Russian Alliance; Franco-British "Entente
cordiale"; (2^nd) Moroccan Crisis of 1911.


        X.       "Revanche" at a high price (WW I and the Versailles treaty) [21.04.2009]:

Belgian neutrality/Schlieffen Plan; "Miracle of the Marne"; Italian participation; crisis of 1917
(mutinies, Russian revolutions); US participation; regaining Alsace-Lorraine; post-WW I treaties
(Versailles, Saint-Germain-en-Laye , Trianon etc.); Ruhr occupation; Locarno; Briand and
Stresemann.


       XI.       In mortal danger (late interwar-period and WW II) [28.04.2009]:

Appeasement policy (ignoring remilitarization of Rhineland and reintroduction of conscription in
Germany etc.); Maginot line; French defeat 1940; Vichy government; de Gaulle exile government; US
position; Casablanca conference; Collaboration and Résistance; North Africa landings; D-Day; French
not participating at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences; French presence at German capitulation
in Reims and Karlshorst; French occupation zone in Germany.


      XII.       Reconstructing France, loosing the colonies, leaving the military integration of
NATO (1944 till the end of the Cold War) [05.05.2009]:

Indochina War; Suez Crisis; Algerian War; French nuclear weapons; Franco-German friendship and
cooperation treaty (1963); France and Europe; leaving military integration of NATO; France and
Africa (especially former colonies); France and the Middle East; France and the German
"Reunification".


    XIII.       At least a minor super-power? (France today) AND Q & A session [12.05.2009]

(2^nd) Gulf War 1991; Kosovo; French in "War on Terror"; position against Iraq War; fully rejoining
NATO.