Abstract
The siege of Strasburg of 1870 has scarcely been investigated until now. Rachel Chrastil’s study fills this gap and contributes to the debate on the significance of the Franco-German War of 1870/1 in the development of modern warfare. It sheds light on a wide range of topics, such as international law, humanitarianism, national identity, and gender roles. One of the main sources of the study is personal diaries written during the siege, but the source material also includes memoirs, archival documents, and published accounts of the siege.
The eight chapters of the book follow a chronological order, but nevertheless each has a different thematic focus. The first chapter studies how the war challenged the inhabitants of Strasbourg to consider their own position and role in the conflict before the siege began. The second chapter shows how the beginning of the siege established a sharp line between insiders and outsiders, not only spatially but also socially. In the following chapter the author analyses the siege in the context of the tradition of warfare and of international law. She stresses that although many contemporaries shared the opinion that the bombardment of civilians was unacceptable, according to international conventions of the time siege warfare was not unlawful.
The next two chapters are dedicated to different phases of the siege. They chronicle how the inhabitants of Strasbourg experienced the bombardments and the strains of being detained within the city walls. Adopting a gender perspective, Chrastil first draws the reader’s attention to the diverging meaning that contemporaries attributed to male and female suffering. This is powerfully illustrated by the fact that although the majority of the civilians who died due to the bombardment of Strasbourg were male, the media almost exclusively concentrated on female victims of the siege. The author then proposes to explain the reaction of the inhabitants of Strasbourg to the siege experience using the concept of well-being as it was developed by the economist Amartya Sen. This concept, she argues, helps to recognize agency and to avoid an all too facile division into heroes and victims.
The sixth chapter examines the successful initiative of some Swiss dignitaries to obtain the promise from the German military authorities to ensure safe passage for civilians who wanted to leave Strasbourg. Historically, this was the first humanitarian intervention on behalf of civilians in wartime. About 2000 women, men, and children were brought to Switzerland before the besiegers decided to withdraw their consent. However, although this can be read as a success story and as a sign of the growing strength of humanitarian convictions, the author cautions the reader not to overlook the ambivalences of the event. Difficult questions arose, for example, as to who should be allowed to leave and who should not. Preference was given to better-off people, as there was little willingness on the Swiss side to receive poor and needy refugees.
The next chapter provides an analysis of the final stage of the siege and the controversial discussions that preceded surrender. Chrastil delineates three positions among the city leaders. The newly appointed mayor, Emile Küss, being led by pragmatism, argued in favour of surrender, in order to save as many lives as possible. By contrast, General Uhrich, who had the military responsibility for the defence of the city, decided on what seemed to him the appropriate moment for surrender according to military duties and regulations. Still others rejected surrender altogether, as it ran counter to their notion of heroism. The author assigns these positions to three types of ethical tradition: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Although she emphasizes that these traditions are subject to historical change, the reasons for the specific constellation in 1870 might have been developed in more detail. The surrender did not only mean that Strasbourg was defeated but also that it became part of the future German Empire. The last chapter turns to the aftermath of the war and to reactions to the annexation. It depicts the mixture of careful resistance against and accommodation with the new regime.
While the author consulted source material in the German language, she has hardly made use of the recent German research on the Franco-German War. However, stating this fact is not a criticism of the author but rather a note of regret for the deplorable lack of transnational cooperation in the recent study of the war of 1870/1 in general. On the whole, Chrastil’s carefully argued study makes a valuable contribution to recent discussions on various subjects that are currently at the fore of the historiography on modern warfare.