France under President Mitterrand and German Unification
France was one of the four occupation powers in Germany after World War II, still one of the four members in the Allied Control Council in Berlin until 1990, and one of the “two plus four” powers which negotiated the international conditions of German re-unification in the same year. Therefore it is of special interest what the positions of the French government were concerning the reunification of Germany at the end of the 1980s. A strategic motive underlying the division of Germany was the desire to weaken it such that it might never again make war against its neighbors. Together France, Britain, and the United States merged the zones they occupied, creating the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in 1949. The remaining territory, falling to Soviet control, became the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Until these territories were reunified, the Cold War dominated their international relations, reflected in their ideological and military orientations, embodied in NATO and the Warsaw Treaty respectively. Unlike the other members of the 2+4 process, France and the FRG, represented by President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, concluded a special Friendship Contract, the Élysée Treaty, in 1963. It was a remarkable caesura in the relationship between these former enemies. Both countries became the “motor” of the European unification process. This contract was remarkable not only because of the history of both countries, but because of the personal attitude of Charles de Gaulle. His foreign policy had the aim of leading France back to the circle of the leading nations in the world – in independency. The most important goal for “Gaullism” was very straightforward; it was to ensure the strength, vitality, permanence, and grandeur of the French nation. Now, after the Élysée Treaty, he thought that this aim could be fulfilled in the framework of Europe together with the FRG. However, the question is how President Mitterrand thought about this relationship between both nations in the process of unifying Europe, when Germany became united and therefore – perhaps – stronger. Another question was in our thoughts: Which experience would be dominant – Mitterrand’s generational experience as a soldier against Nazi-Germany or the experience with post-war
NATO after the Cold War, 1991–1995: Institutional Competition and the Collapse of the French Alternative
With the end of the Cold War, opportunities long foreclosed to Europe came back into view on the horizon. The prospect of Western Europe providing for its own security became a realistic proposition for the first time in fifty years. The French government developed a strategy for replacing US power with a more cohesive European Union security and defence identity which garnered substantial support from other European NATO countries, especially Germany, resulting in an intensive four-year competition over which institution would form the basis of Europe's security and defence capabilities. By the end of 1995, NATO had decisively won this contest, due to rapid reconfiguration of NATO's military structures and the test for both organisations of responding to Yugoslavia's collapse. In the final analysis, it was the military capability of NATO that defeated the French alternative security structure. This article tells the story of that evolution.
The Liverpool Cholera Epidemic of 1832 and Anatomical Dissection--Medical Mistrust and Civil Unrest
Asiatic cholera reached Britain for the first time in late 1831, with the main epidemic occurring during 1832. The disease caused profuse diarrhea, severe dehydration, collapse, and often death. There was widespread public fear, and the political and medical response to this new disease was variable and inadequate. In the summer of 1832, a series of "cholera riots" occurred in various towns and cities throughout Britain, frequently directed against the authorities, doctors, or both. The city of Liverpool, in the northwest of England, experienced more riots than elsewhere. Between 29 May and 10 June 1832, eight major street riots occurred, with several other minor disturbances. The object of the crowd's anger was the local medical fraternity. The public perception was that cholera victims were being removed to the hospital to be killed by doctors in order to use them for anatomical dissection. "Bring out the Burkers" was one cry of the Liverpool mobs, referring to the Burke and Hare scandal four years earlier, when two men had murdered people in Edinburgh in order to sell their bodies for dissection to the local anatomy school. This issue was of special concern to the Liverpool citizenry because in 1826, thirty-three bodies had been discovered on the Liverpool docks, about to be shipped to Scotland for dissection. Two years later a local surgeon, William Gill, was tried and found guilty of running an extensive local grave-robbing system to supply corpses for his dissection rooms. The widespread cholera rioting in Liverpool was thus as much related to local anatomical issues as it was to the national epidemic. The riots ended relatively abruptly, largely in response to an appeal by the Roman Catholic clergy read from church pulpits, and also published in the local press. In addition, a respected local doctor, James Collins, published a passionate appeal for calm. The Liverpool Cholera Riots of 1832 demonstrate the complex social responses to epidemic disease, as well as the fragile interface between the public and the medical profession.