Defeat and Foreign Rule as a Narrative of National Rebirth: The German Memory of the Napoleonic Period in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Title | Defeat and Foreign Rule as a Narrative of National Rebirth: The German Memory of the Napoleonic Period in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries |
Publication Type | Book Chapter |
Year of Publication | 2008 |
Authors | Koller, Christian |
Editor | Macleod, Jenny |
Book Title | Defeat and Memory: Cultural Histories of Military Defeat in the Modern Era |
Pagination | 30-45 |
Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
City | Basingstoke, UK |
Abstract | The Napoleonic period has played a crucial role in Germany’s cultural memory since the end of the anti-Napoleonic Wars. Between 1795 and 1805, Prussia had preserved its neutrality in the succeeding coalition wars. In 1806, it entered war against France, and on the 14 October its army experienced a disastrous defeat in the double battle of Jena and Auerstedt. The military disaster caused an enormous shock in the Prussian nd German public. In the treaty of Tilsit in July 1807, Prussia remained an autonomous state, but it lost half of its territories. It was occupied by French troops and charged with heavy contributions. In the following years, the leading ministers Stein and Hardenberg enacted a wide-ranging modernization programme that included reforms of government, administration, agriculture, trade, taxation, military and education. The author of this article takes up the argument that other historians made before him and shows how the narative of defeat and national rebirth informed the German national memory of the Napoleonic Wars. |
URL | https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230517400 |
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