This book is a masterpiece of scholarship, and the only comprehensive work on its subject in any language. It will prove indispensable for all students of Franco-German relations during the Revolutionary period—and since.
Sydney Biro has systematically investigated every available source. With the mass of new material coördinated and interpreted in the light of modern scholarship, he is able to guide the reader through the labyrinth of fact and fancy which surround the main issues. The reader will admire Biro's placing of thesis and antithesis, both in internal policies of France, and in foreign policies, in such a way that the narrative never flags. Fact is added to fact until each point is demonstrated, and then the story focuses on the next aspect of the subject.
French diplomacy during the years in question was colored by France's yearning for the Rhine frontier. Biro begins his work with a discussion of how the question of the Rhine frontier originated. He analyzes completely every aspect of the problem during the five years concerned, and he shows how the Rhine problem has always affected Franco-German relations. Throughout he is concerned with the economic, moral, and political considerations as well as the military ones.
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