ABSTRACT
Bismarck sticks in my throat', wrote the Dean of St Paul's as he heard of the Prussian successes in the war against France in 1870. It was all very alarming, he added, 'when one reflects that our own turn may come'. Despite the attention devoted to empire, contemporaries realized that the United Kingdom could be directly threatened from the mainland of Europe. The Franco-Prussian War was a warning that the peaceful evolution of the Continent could not be guaranteed. General war in Europe was a possibility on a number of occasions over the next three decades in 1875, for example. War was not an illegal act and all European statesmen were prepared to resort to it if there seemed a sufficiently clear balance of advantage. The paradox was that a French recovery could only take place outside Europe in parts of the world where a clash with Britain was most likely.
