We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
ON 5 SEPTEMBER 1870, following the French debacle at Sedan and the capture of Napoleon III, but before the declaration of the French Republic, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote on its editorial page:
It is not unfair to say that the sympathies of the people of this country are almost entirely with the Prussians, and that they are so arises in a great measure from the regard which the people have for our German citizens. It is true that the intelligent mind of America saw that this present war was forced upon Prussia, that she would have avoided it if avoidance had been possible, and that all the suffering, pain and death which are to be its fruits are traceable to the overweening ambition of the adventurer Napoleon.
Our sympathy for Prussia is only another evidence of the hatred of tyranny and injustice which fills the American mind. We had no quarrel with France any more than we had with Prussia, but our regard for the Germanic element here led us to esteem it there at home, and our natural love of liberty made us rejoice in the defeat of the man who had ruled France with despotic wrong.
This statement reflects a community with a large population of German immigrants (both Jewish and Christian). The editorial projects positive attitudes towards the ‘intelligence, thrift, industry’ of the German Americans— ‘Honest, educated, energetic and genial, they made good citizens, and their advent was helpful to the Republic’—back on the Fatherland, and Prussia is identified with the ‘hatred of tyranny and injustice’ that characterizes the American sensibility. France is identified almost entirely with the capricious rule of Napoleon III. This represents the dominant trend of American public opinion even in areas without a significant German American population: decidedly pro-Prussian, for various reasons.
Speaking on Thanksgiving Day two and a half months later, Morais takes a very different tack. Prussia is now presented as an awesome military power that has not only humiliated its opponent but threatens to destroy its capital city. Like Isaac Mayer Wise and the editorialist cited above, he evinces disdain for Napoleon III; however, he identifies France not with the Emperor but with Paris, the centre of science and the arts, a place of magnificence and beauty, the very survival of which is in peril.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
