International relations (1814–1919)

This article covers worldwide International relations of the major powers, 1814-1819, with links to more detailed articles. The entire era was generally peaceful in Europe and the Americas. The largest war was the American Civil War (1861-65); other countries stayed out. In Europe wars were much smaller, shorter and led frequent than ever before. The quite century was shattered by World War I (1914-1918), which was unexpected in timing, duration, casualties, and long-term impact.

1814-1830: Restoration and reaction

The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) dissolved the Napoleonic world and attempted to restore the monarchies he overthrew, ushering in an era of reaction. Under the leadership of Metternich, the prime minister of Austria (1809-48) and Castlereagh, the foreign minister of Great Britain (1812-22), it set up a system to preserve the peace. Under the Concert of Europe (or "Congress system") the major European powers, Britain, Germany, Prussia, Austria and (after 1818) France, pledged to meet regularly to resolve differences. This plan was the first of its kind in history, and seemed to promise a way to collectively managed European affairs and promote peace. It was the forerunner of the League of Nations and the United Nations.

It resolved the Polish-Saxon crisis at Vienna and the question of Greek independence at Laibach. The following ten years saw five European Congresses where disputes were resolved with a diminishing degree of effectiveness.

The main goal for Czar Alexander I of Russia was to form a league that could intervene and stop revolutions against monarchies and traditionalism; he had in mind the French Revolution of the 1790s. The British refused to cooperate in a scheme not directly related to British interests. As a result by 1822, the whole system collapsed.

British policies

British foreign policy was set by George Canning (1822-27), who avoided close cooperation with other powers. Britain, with its unchallenged Royal Navy and increasing financial wealth and industrial strength, built its foreign policy on the principle that no state should be allowed to dominate the Continent. It wanted to support the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against Russian expansionism. It opposed interventions designed to suppress democracy, and was especially worried that France and Spain planned to suppress the independence movement underway in Latin America, and put Bourbon kings on the thrones of Mexico, Columbia, Chile, Peru and Buenos Aires (Argentina). Canning cooperated with the United States to promulgate the Monroe Doctrine to preserve newly independent Latin American states. His goal was to prevent French dominance and allow British merchants access to the opening markets.

Slave trade

An important liberal advance was the abolition of the international slave trade. It began with legislation in the United States and Britain in 1807, as enforced more and more rigorously by the British Royal Navy. Slavery itself was abolished in northern states of the United States (1777-1804), and in the British Empire in 1833.

1830-1850s

Britain continued as the most important power, followed by France, Russia, Prussia and Austria. The United States was growing rapidly in size, population and economic strength, especially after its defeat of Mexico in 1848. Otherwise it avoided international entanglements as the slavery issue became more and more divisive. The Crimean War was the most important war, especially because it disrupted the stability of the system. Britain strengthened its colonial system especially in India, while France rebuilt its empire in Asia and North Africa. Russia continued its expansion south (toward Persia) and east (into Siberia). The Ottoman Empire steadily weakened, losing control in parts of the Balkans to the new states of Greece and Serbia.

British policies

From 1830 to 1865, with a few interruptions, Lord Palmerston set British foreign policy. His goal was to keep Britain dominant by maintaining the balance of power in Europe. He cooperated with France when necessary, but did not make permanent alliances with anyone. He tried to keep autocratic nations like Russia and Austria in check; he supported liberal regimes because they led to greater stability in the international system. However he also supported the autocratic Ottoman Empire because it blocked Russian expansion.

Ottoman Empire

Greek independence

Main article: Greek War of Independence

In 1821, the Greeks rose up against the Ottoman Empire. The prolonged revolt forced the Great Powers (Britain, France and Russia) to recognize the claims of the Greek rebels to separate statehood (in the 1827 Treaty of London) and intervene against the Ottomans at the Battle of Navarino. Greece was initially to be an autonomous state under Ottoman suzerainty, but by 1832, in the Treaty of Constantinople, it was recognized as a fully independent kingdom.

Serbian independence

Main article: Serbian Revolution

Principality of Serbia in 1817

Crimean War

Main article: Crimean War

The Crimean War (1853-56) was fought between Russia on the one hand and an alliance of Great Britain, France, Sardinia, and the Ottoman Empire on the other. Russia was defeated.

In 1851 France under Napoleon III compelled the Sublime Porte (the Ottoman or Turkish government) to recognize it as the protector of Christian sites in the Holy Land. Russia denounced this claim, since it claimed to be the protector of all Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. France sent its fleet to the Black Sea; Russia responded with its own show of force. In 1851, Russia sent troops into the Ottoman provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. Britain, now fearing for the security of the Ottoman Empire, sent a fleet to join with the French expecting the Russians would back down. Diplomatic efforts failed. The Sultan declared war against Russia in October of 1851. Following an Ottoman naval disaster in November, Britain and France declared war against Russia. Most of the battles took place in the Crimean peninsula, which the Allies finally seized. London, shocked to discover that France was secretly negotiating with Russia to form a postwar alliance to dominate Europe, dropped its plans to attack St. Petersburg and instead signed a one-sided armistice with Russia that achieved almost none of its war aims.

Diplomats at the Congress of Paris, 1856, settled the Crimean War; painting by Edouard Louis Dubufe

The Treaty of Paris signed March 30, 1856, ended the war. It admitted the Ottoman Empire to the European concert, and the Powers promised to respect its independence and territorial integrity. Russia gave up a little land and relinquished its claim to a protectorate over the Christians in the Ottoman domains. The Black Sea was demilitarized, and an international commission was set up to guarantee freedom of commerce and navigation on the Danube River. Moldavia and Wallachia remained under nominal Ottoman rule, but would be granted independent constitutions and national assemblies.

New rules of wartime commerce were set out: (1) privateering was illegal; (2) a neutral flag covered enemy goods except contraband; (3) neutral goods, except contraband, were not liable to capture under an enemy flag; (4) a blockade, to be legal, had to be effective.

The war helped modernize warfare by introducing major new technologies such as railways, the telegraph, and modern nursing methods. In the long run the the war marked a turning point in Russian domestic and foreign policy. Russian intellectuals used the defeat to demand fundamental reform of the government and social system. The war weakened both Russia and Austria, so they could no longer promote stability. This opened the way for Napoleon III, Cavour (in Italy) and Otto von Bismarck (in Germany) to launch a series of wars in the 1860s that reshaped Europe.

1860-1871: Nationalism and unification

Italy

Main article: Italian unification

The stages of Italian unification during 1829–71

The Risorgimento was the era 1830-1870 that saw the emergence of a national consciousness. Italians achieved independence from Austria and from the Pope, and secured national unification.

The papacy secured French backing to resist unification. Pope Pius IX, fearing that giving up control of the Papal States would weaken the Church and allow the liberals to dominate conservative Catholics.

United States

Main articles: American Civil War and France in the American Civil War

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Southern slave states seceded from the Union and set up an independent country, the Confederate States of America. The North would not accept this affront of American nationalism, and fought to restore the Union. British and French aristocratic leaders personally disliked American republicanism and favoured the more aristocratic Confederacy. The South was also by far the chief source of cotton for European textile mills. The goal of the Confederacy was to obtain British and French intervention--that is war against the Union. Confederates believed (with scant evidence) that "Cotton is king" -- that is, cotton was so essential to British and French industry that they would fight to get it. The Confederates did raise money in Europe, which they used to buy warships and munitions. However Europe had a surplus of cotton in 1862; stringency did not come until 1862, and meanwhile Britain depended heavily on American grain. France would not intervene alone, and in any case was less interested in cotton than in securing its control of Mexico. The Confederacy would allow that if it secured its independence, but the Union never would approve. Washington made it clear that any official recognition of the Confederacy meant war with the U.S.

Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert helped defuse a war scare in late 1861. The British people, who depended heavily on American food imports, generally favoured the United States. What little cotton was available came from New York, as the blockade by the U.S. Navy shut down 95% of Southern exports to Britain. In September 1862, during the Confederate invasion of Maryland, Britain (along with France) contemplated stepping in and negotiating a peace settlement, which could only mean war with the United States. But in the same month, US president Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation. Since support of the Confederacy now meant support for slavery, there was no longer any possibility of European intervention.

Meanwhile the British sold arms to both sides, built blockade runners for a lucrative trade with the Confederacy, and surreptitiously allowed warships to be built for the Confederacy. The warships caused a major diplomatic row that was resolved in the Alabama Claims in 1872, in the Americans' favour.

Germany

Main article: Unification of Germany

Imperialism

Most of the major powers (and some minor ones such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark) engaged in imperialism, building up their overseas empires especially in Africa and Asia. Although there were numerous insurrections, historians count only a few wars, and they were small-scale: two Anglo-Boer Wars) (1880–1881) and (1899–1902), the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), First Italo-Ethiopian War (1895-96), Spanish–American War (1898), and Italo-Ottoman war (1911). The largest was the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and it was the only one that saw two major powers fighting it out.

French Empire in Asia and Africa

France seizes Mexico

Napoleon III took advantage of the American Civil War. Spain, Britain and France, angry over unpaid Mexican debts, sent a joint expeditionary force that seized the Veracruz customs house in Mexico in December 1861. Spain and Britain soon withdrew after realizing that Napoleon III intended to overthrow the Mexican government under elected president Benito Juárez and establish a Second Mexican Empire. Napoleon had the support of the remnants of the Conservative elements that Juarez and his Liberals had defeated in the Reform War, a civil war of 1857-61. Thus began the French intervention in Mexico in 1862. Napoleon used his French army to install Austrian archduke Maximilian of Habsburg on the throne in Mexico. Juárez rallied opposition to the French; Washington protested and refused to recognize the new government. After its total victory over the Confederacy in 1865, the U.S. sent 50,000 experienced combat troops to the Mexican border to make clear its position. Napoleon III had no choice but to withdraw his army. Juarez regained control and executed the hapless emperor Maximilian.

Scramble for Africa

Main article: Scramble for Africa

Areas controlled by the powers in 1913, shown along with current national boundaries.

  Belgian

  British

  French

  German

  Italian

  Portuguese

  Spanish

  Independent (Ethiopia and Liberia

In the "scramble for Africa," Britain and France, as well as Germany, Italy and Portugal, greatly expand their colonial empires in Africa. The King of Belgium personally controlled the Congo. Bases along the coast become the nucleus of colonies that stretch inland. Tensions netween Britain and France reached tinder stage in Africa. At several points war was possible, but it never happened. In British areas, workers from India were brought in to build railways, plantations and other enterprises.

Ottoman holdings in North Africa were taken over. In 1875 Britain purchases the Suez canal shares from the almost bankrupt khedive of Egypt, Isma'il Pasha.

Kenya

Main article: History of Kenya

The experience of Kenya is representative of the colonization process in East Africa. By 1850 European explorers had begun mapping the interior. Three developments encouraged European interest in East Africa. First, was the emergence of the island of Zanzibar, located off the east coast. It became a base from which trade and exploration of the African mainland could be mounted. By 1840, to protect the interests of the various nationals doing business in Zanzibar, consul offices had been opened by the British, French, Germans and Americans. In 1859, the tonnage of foreign shipping calling at Zanzibar had reached 19,000 tons. By 1879, the tonnage of this shipping had reached 89,000 tons. The second development spurring European interest in Africa was the growing European demand for products of Africa including ivory and cloves. Thirdly, British interest in East Africa was first stimulated by their desire to abolish the slave trade. Later in the century, British interest in East Africa was stimulated by German competition, and in 1887 the Imperial British East Africa Company, a private concern, leased from Seyyid Said his mainland holdings, a 10-mile (16-km)-wide strip of land along the coast.

Germany set up a protectorate over the Sultan of Zanzibar's coastal possessions in 1885. It traded its coastal holdings to Britain in 1890, in exchange for German control over the coast of Tanganyika.

In 1895 the British government claimed the interior as far west as Lake Naivasha; it set up the East Africa Protectorate. The border was extended to Uganda in 1902, and in 1920 most of the enlarged protectorate became a crown colony. With the beginning of colonial rule in 1895, the Rift Valley and the surrounding Highlands became the enclave of white immigrants engaged in large-scale coffee farming dependent on mostly Kikuyu labour. There were no significant mineral resources—none of the gold or diamonds that attracted so many to South Africa. In the initial stage of colonial rule, the administration relied on traditional communicators, usually chiefs. When colonial rule was established and efficiency was sought, partly because of settler pressure, newly educated younger men were associated with old chiefs in local Native Councils.

Following severe financial difficulties of the British East Africa Company, the British government on 1 July 1895 established direct rule through the East African Protectorate, subsequently opening (1902) the fertile highlands to white settlers. A key to the development of Kenya's interior was the construction, started in 1895, of a railway from Mombasa to Kisumu, on Lake Victoria, completed in 1901. Some 32,000 workers were imported from British India to do the manual labour. Many stayed, as did most of the Indian traders and small businessmen who saw opportunity in the opening up of the interior of Kenya.

Japan becomes a power

Main article: Foreign relations of Meiji Japan

Starting in the 1860s Japan rapidly modernized along Western lines, adding industry, bureaucracy, institutions and military capabilities that provided the base for imperial expansion into Korea, China and islands to the South. It saw itself vulnerable to aggressive Western imperialism unless it took control of neighboring areas. It took control of Okinawa and Formosa. Japan's desire to control Korea and Manchuria, led to the first Sino-Japanese War with China in 1894–1895 and the Russo-Japanese War with Russia in 1904–1905. The war with China made Japan the world's first Eastern, modern imperial power, and the war with Russia proved that a Western power could be defeated by an Eastern state. The aftermath of these two wars left Japan the dominant power in the Far East with a sphere of influence extending over southern Manchuria and Korea, which was formally annexed as part of the Japanese Empire in 1910.

Taiwan

Main article: History of Taiwan

The island of Formosa (Taiwan) had an indigenous population when Dutch traders in need of an Asian base to trade with Japan and China arrived in 1623. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) built Fort Zeelandia on the coastal islet of Tayowan (off modern Tainan). They soon began to rule the natives. China took control in the 1660s, and sent in settlers. By the 1890s there were about 2.3 million were Han Chinese and 200,000 members of indigenous tribes. After its victory in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–95, the peace treaty ceded the island to Japan.

Japan expected far more benefits from the occupation of Taiwan than they actually received. Japan realized that its home islands could only support a limited resource base, and it hoped that Taiwan, with its fertile farmlands, would make up the shortage. By 1905, Taiwan was producing rice and sugar and paying for itself with a small surplus. Perhaps more important, Japan gained enormous prestige by being the first nonwhite country to operate a modern colony. It learned how to adjust its German-based bureaucratic standards to actual conditions, and how to deal with frequent insurrections. The ultimate goal was to promote Japanese language and culture, but the administrators realize they first had to adjust to the Chinese culture of the people. Japan had a civilizing mission, and it opened schools so that the peasants could become productive and patriotic manual workers. Medical facilities were modernized, and the death rate plunged. To maintain order, Japan installed a police state that closely monitored everyone. In 1945, Japan was stripped of its empire in Taiwan was returned to China.

British policies

In Britain the Liberals were not so naive and idealistic as to reject the imperial heritage; many Liberals such as H. H. Asquith became active imperialists. Liberal Party policy around 1880 was shaped by William E. Gladstone as he repeatedly attacked Disraeli's imperialism. On the other hand national interest was always paramount, and the Liberals were quick to seek common ground with the Conservatives in regard to the Berlin Treaty, in which the party lost the moral high ground as a critic of imperialism.

Free trade imperialism

Britain in addition to taking control of new territories, developed an enormous power in economic and financial affairs in numerous independent countries, especially in Latin America and Asia. It lent money, built railways, and engaged in trade. The Great London Exhibition of 1851 clearly demonstrated Britain's dominance in engineering, communications and industry; that lasted until the rise of the United States and Germany in the 1890s.

The Eastern Question

Main articles: Eastern Question; Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878; and Congress of Berlin

In the 1870s the "Eastern Question" was the mistreatment of Christians in the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire, and what the Christian great powers ought to do about it. Britain, France, and Austria opposed the Treaty of San Stefano (March 1878) because the Ottoman Empire gave to Russia too much influence in the Balkans, where insurrections were frequent. War threatened. After numerous attempts a grand diplomatic settlement was reached at the Congress of Berlin (June-July 1878). The new Treaty of Berlin - revised the earlier treaty. Germany's Otto von Bismarck (1815-98) presided over the congress and brokered the compromises. One result was that Austria took control of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, intending to eventually merge them into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When they finally tried to do that in 1914, local Serbs assassinated Austria's Archduke and the result was the First World War.

British policies

After losing power in Britain in 1874, Liberal leader Gladstone returned to center stage in 1876 by calling for a moralistic foreign policy, as opposed to the realism of his great adversary Benjamin Disraeli. The issue drew the party line between Gladstone's Liberals (who denounced the immoral Ottomans) and Disraeli's Conservatives (who downplayed the atrocities and supported the Ottoman Empire as an offset to Russian power). Disraeli had threatened war with Russia on the issue and Gladstone argued he was wrong. Liberal opinion was convulsed by atrocities in the Balkans, in particular the massacre of more than 10,000 Christian Bulgars by Turkish irregulars. Gladstone denounced the Turks as "abominable and bestial lusts ... at which Hell itself might almost blush" and demanded they withdraw from European soil. The pamphlet sold an astonishing 200,000 copies. The climax was his "Midlothian campaign" of 1880 when he charged Disraeli's government with financial incompetency, neglecting domestic legislation, and mismanagement of foreign affairs. Gladstone felt a call from God to aid the Serbians and Bulgarians (who were Eastern Orthodox Christians); he spoke out like some ancient Hebrew prophet denouncing tyranny and oppression. The real audience was not the local electorate but Britain as a whole, especially the evangelical elements. By appealing to vast audiences denouncing Disraeli's pro-Turkish foreign policy, Gladstone made himself a moral force in Europe, unified his party, and was carried back to power.

Coming of World War

Naval race

The British Dreadnaught (1906) made all battleships obsolete because it had ten long-range 12-inch big guns, mechanical computer-like range finders, high speed turbine engines that could make 21 knots, and armour plates 11 inches thick

After 1805 the dominance of Britain's Royal Navy was unchallenged; in the 1890s Germany decided to match it. Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849 – 1930) dominated German naval policy from 1897 until 1916. Prussia never had a major navy, nor did the other German states before the German Empire was formed in 1871. Tirpitz took Empire's modest and turned it into a world-class force that could threaten the British Royal Navy. The British responded with new technology typified by the Dreadnaught revolution, and remained in the lead. Tirpitz was thus not strong enough to confront the British in World War I; the one great naval Battle of Jutland failed to end Britain's control of the seas or break the stifling blockade it imposed on Germany. Germany turned to submarine warfare, which antagonized the largest neutral power, the United States.

See also

• Causes of World War I
• History of U.S. foreign policy

Timelines

• Timeline of British diplomatic history
• Timeline of United States diplomatic history

Further reading

• New Cambridge Modern History (13 vol 1957-79), old but thorough coverage by mostly British experts
  • Bury, J. P. T. ed. The New Cambridge Modern History: Vol. 10: the Zenith of European Power, 1830-70 (1964)
  • Crawley, C. W., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History Volume IX War and Peace In An Age of Upheaval 1793-1830 (1964)
  • H. C. Darby and H. Fullard The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 14: Atlas (1972)
  • Hinsley, F.H., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 11, Material Progress and World-Wide Problems 1870-1898 (1979)
• Black, Jeremy. A History of Diplomacy (2010)
• Figes, Orlando. The Crimean War: A History (2011) excerpt and text search
• Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500-2000 (1987), stress on economic and military factors
• Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy (1995), not a memoir but an interpretive history of international diplomacy since the late 18th century
• Langer, William. An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed. 1973); highly detailed outline
• Langer, William. European Alliances and Alignments 1870-1890 (1950)
• Langer, William. The Diplomacy of Imperialism 1890-1902 (1950)
• Schroeder, Paul W. The Transformation of European Politics 1763-1848 (Oxford History of Modern Europe) (1994) 920pp; history and analysis of major diplomacy online
• Seaman, L.C.B. From Vienna to Versailles (1955) 216pp; brief overview of diplomatic history online
• Sontag, Raymond. European Diplomatic History: 1871-1932 (1933), basic short summary
• Taylor, A.J.P. The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918 (1954) (Oxford History of Modern Europe) 638pp; history and analysis of major diplomacy

Coming of World War I

• Clark, Christopher. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (2013) excerpt and text search
• Kennedy, Paul M., ed. The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880-1914 (1979)
• MacMillan, Margaret. The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (2013)
• Neiberg, Michael S. Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I (2011)
• Tucker, Spencer, ed. European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia (1999)

Imperialism

• Baumgart, W. Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion 1880-1914 (1982)
• Hodge, Carl Cavanagh. Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800-1914 (2 vol. 2007)
• Page, Melvin E. et al. eds. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (2 vol 2003)
• Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876-1912 (1992)
• Stuchtey, Benedikt, ed. Colonialism and Imperialism, 1450-1950, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011

Britain

• Bartlett, C.J. Defence and Diplomacy: Britain and the Great Powers 1815-1914 (1993)
• Bourne, Kenneth. Foreign Policy of Victorian England, 1830-1902 (1970)
• Cain, P.J. and Hopkins, A.G. "The Political Economy of British Expansion Overseas 1750-1914", Economic History Review, (1980) 33: 463-90.
• Chamberlain, Muriel E. Pax Britannica?: British Foreign Policy 1789-1914 (1989)
• Gallagher, John and Robinson, Ronald. "The Imperialism of Free Trade", Economic History Review (1953) 6#1 pp 1-15.
• Goodlad, Graham D. British Foreign and Imperial Policy 1865-1919 (1999) excerpt and text search
• Hyam, Ronald. Britain's Imperial Century 1815-1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (3rd ed. 2002) excerpt and text search
• Lowe, C.J. The reluctant imperialists: British foreign policy, 1878-1902 (1969) 257pp plus 150 pp of documents
• Lowe, C.J. and Michael L. Dockrill. Mirage of Power: 1902-14 v. 1: British Foreign Policy (1972); Mirage of Power: 1914-22 v. 2: British Foreign Policy (1972); Mirage of Power: The Documents v. 3: British Foreign Policy (1972); vol 1-2 are text, vol 3 = primary sources
• Lowe, John. Britain and Foreign Affairs 1815-1885: Europe and Overseas (1998) excerpt and text search
• Mulligan, William, and Brendan Simms, eds. The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660-2000(Palgrave Macmillan; 2011) 345 pages
• Ward, A.W. and G.P. Gooch, eds. The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783-1919 (3 vol, 1921–23), old classic; vol 2 and 3 cover 1815 to 1914
• Webster, Charles. The Foreign Policy of Palmerston (1951) online edition; covers 1830-1865
• Weigall, David. Britain and the World, 1815-1986: A Dictionary of International relations (1989)

Primary sources for Britain

• Wiener, Joel H. ed. Great Britain: Foreign Policy and the Span of Empire, 1689-1971: A Documentary History (4 vol 1972) vol 1 online; vol 2 online; vol 3; vol 4 4 vol. 3400 pages

France

• Bury, J. P. T. France, 1814-1940 (2003)
• Jardin, Andre, and Andre-Jean Tudesq. Restoration and Reaction 1815–1848 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1988)
• Mayeur, Jean-Marie, and Madeleine Rebirioux. The Third Republic from its Origins to the Great War, 1871–1914 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1988) excerpt and text search
• Wetzel, David. A Duel of Giants: Bismarck, Napoleon III, and the Origins of the Franco-Prussian War (2003)

Germany

• Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789–1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. (1997) online edition
• Clark, Christopher. Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (2006)
• Detwiler, Donald S. Germany: A Short History (3rd ed. 1999) 341pp; online edition
• Holborn, Hajo. A History of Modern Germany (1959–64); vol 1: The Reformation; vol 2: 1648–1840; vol 3: 1840–1945; standard scholarly survey
• Kennedy, Paul. The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860–1914 (1980) excerpt and text search
• Maehl, William Harvey. Germany in Western Civilization (1979), 833pp; focus on politics and diplomacy
• Padfield, Peter. The Great Naval Race: Anglo-German Naval Rivalry 1900-1914 (2005)
• Scheck, Raffael. “Lecture Notes, Germany and Europe, 1871–1945” (2008) full text online, a brief textbook by a leading scholar
• Sheehan, James J. German History, 1770–1866 (1993), the major survey in English
• Steinberg, Jonathan. Bismarck: A Life (2011), most recent scholarly biography
• Stürmer, Michael. 'Bismarck in Perspective," Central European History (1971) 4#4 pp. 291-331 in JSTOR
• Taylor, A.J.P. Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman (1967) online edition
• Taylor, A.J.P. The Course of German History: A Survey of the Development of German History since 1815. (2001). 280pp; online edition

Russia

• Jelavich, Barbara. A Century of Russian Foreign Policy 1814-1914 (1964)
• McMeekin, Sean. The Russian Origins of the First World War (2011) excerpt and text search
• Ragsdale, Hugh, and Valeri Nikolaevich Ponomarev eds. Imperial Russian Foreign Policy (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1993) excerpt and text search
• Reynolds, Michael. Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918

United States

• Beisner, Robert L. ed, American Foreign Relations since 1600: A Guide to the Literature (2003), 2 vol. 16,300 annotated entries evaluate every major book and scholarly article.
• Brune, Lester H. Chronological History of U.S. Foreign Relations (2003), 1400 pages
• Burns, Richard Dean, ed. Guide to American Foreign Relations since 1700 (1983) highly detailed annotated bibliography
• Deconde, Alexander, et al. eds. Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy 3 vol (2001), 2200 pages; 120 long articles by specialists.
• DeConde, Alexander; A History of American Foreign Policy (1963) online edition
• Findling, John, ed. Dictionary of American Diplomatic History 2nd ed. 1989. 700pp; 1200 short articles.
• Herring, George. From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (Oxford History of the United States) (2008), 1056pp
• Hogan, Michael J. ed. Paths to Power: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations to 1941 (2000) essays on main topics
• Lafeber, Walter. The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 1750 to Present (2nd ed 1994) university textbook; 884pp online edition
• Paterson, Thomas, et al. American Foreign Relations: A History (7th ed. 2 vol. 2009), university textbook

Others

• Akagi, Roy Hidemichi. Japan's Foreign Relations 1542-1936: A Short History (1979)
• Beasley, William G. Japanese Imperialism, 1894–1945 (Oxford UP, 1987)
• Bosworth, Richard. Italy: The Least of the Great Powers (1979)
• Bridge, F.R. From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary 1866-1914 (1972)
• Hale, William. Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000. (2000). 375 pp.
• Hsü, Immanuel C.Y. China's Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858–1880 (1960),