The German military and excessive violence during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870/71

这一分项目将质疑史学对1870/71年战争和第一次世界大战之间严格区分的强调，或者更好地说，将其限定为支持这些冲突之间更强连续性的论点。与强调连贯性相联系的是这样一种理论，即在过度暴力的背景下打破禁忌证实了这样的假设，即真正的决裂将在19世纪70年代/19世纪80年代找到--用乌尔里希·赫伯特的话说--也就是“高度现代性”开始的时期。通过这种方式，这项研究除了获得关于军事历史的知识外，还将对关于暴力与现代性之间的联系的辩论做出核心贡献。与此同时，该项目质疑这样一种假设，即现代暴力的减少或增加遵循特定的物理规律或路径。1870/71年期间的过度暴力做法归根结底并不新鲜。相反，它们反映了拿破仑战争中已经形成的模式。在这些冲突具有游击战特征的地方，暴力在19世纪初就已经升级。欧洲内部的暴力在接下来的几十年里得到了遏制，但后来在1870/71年与法国人的斗争中又出现了新的暴行，这种观点既不符合现代暴力增加的叙事，也不符合文明进步从而暴力持续下降的叙事。这样，1870/71年战争的过度暴力首先说明了十九世纪的内在矛盾。第二，因此，显然有必要考虑局势背景，将其作为有利于爆发非法形式暴力的中心分析。考虑到所有这些，该分项目将探讨是否存在一种特定的普鲁士-德国军事暴力文化，这种文化不迟于拿破仑战争，存在于整个十九世纪和二十世纪，最重要的是可以在反游击战的背景下看到。

This sub-project will question the emphasis in the historiography on a strict break between the war of 1870/71 and the First World War or, better said, qualify it in favour of the argument of a stronger continuity between these conflicts. Linked to an emphasis on lines of continuity is the theory that the breaking of taboos occurring in the context of excessive violence confirms the assumption that the real rupture is to be found in the 1870s / 1880s, when – in the words of Ulrich Herbert – the period of ‘high modernity’ began. In this way, the study, in addition to the knowledge gained about military history, will make a central contribution to the debate on the connection between violence and modernity. At the same time, the project questions the assumption that a de- or increase in violence in modern times follows certain physical laws or paths. The practices of excessive violence in the years 1870/71 were, ultimately, not new. Instead, they reflect patterns that had already taken shape in the Napoleonic Wars. Where those conflicts assumed features of guerrilla wars, the violence had already escalated at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The observation that violence within Europe was curbed in the decades that followed, only to then assume forms of renewed brutality in the context of the struggle against the francs-tireurs in 1870/71, fits neither in the narrative of increasing violence in the modern era nor in that of the progress of civilisation and thus a continual decline in violence. In this way, the excessive violence of the war of 1870/71 illustrates, first, the inherent contradictions of the nineteenth century. Second, the necessity thereby becomes clear of taking into account the situational contexts as a central level of analysis that favoured the outbreak of illegitimate forms of violence. Keeping all this in mind, the sub-project will enquire as to the existence of a specific Prussian-German military culture of violence that emerged no later than the Napoleonic Wars, existed throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, and could be witnessed above all in the context of anti-guerrilla warfare.