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

这个子项目将质疑史学界对1870/71年战争和第一次世界大战之间严格分离的强调，或者更好地说，将其限定为支持这些冲突之间更强的连续性的论点。与强调连续性相联系的是这样一种理论，即在过度暴力的背景下发生的禁忌的打破证实了这样一种假设，即真实的破裂将在19世纪70年代/80年代被发现，用乌尔里希赫伯特的话来说，当时是“高度现代性”时期开始的时候。通过这种方式，除了获得有关军事历史的知识外，这项研究还将为关于暴力与现代性之间联系的辩论做出核心贡献。与此同时，该项目质疑现代暴力的减少或增加遵循某些物理规律或路径的假设。1870 - 1871年的过度暴力行为最终并不新鲜。相反，它们反映了在拿破仑战争中已经形成的模式。这些冲突具有游击战的特点，但暴力在世纪初已经升级。在随后的几十年里，欧洲内部的暴力受到了遏制，只是在1870/71年反对法国轮胎工的斗争中，暴力形式又重新出现了，这既不符合现代暴力增加的叙述，也不符合文明进步的叙述，因此暴力不断减少。这样，1870 - 1871年战争的过度暴力首先说明了19世纪的内在矛盾。第二，因此，显然有必要考虑到局势背景，将其作为有利于爆发非法暴力形式的分析的核心层面。考虑到这一切，该分项目将调查是否存在一种特定的普鲁士-德国军事暴力文化，这种文化不晚于拿破仑战争出现，存在于整个世纪，并一直持续到二十世纪，尤其是在反游击战的背景下。

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.