Revanchism (from
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
revanche, "
revengeRevenge is a harmful action against a person or group as a response to a grievance. Although many aspects of revenge resemble the concept of justice, revenge connotes a more injurious and punitive focus as opposed to a harmonious and restorative one...
") is a term used since the 1870s to describe a political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a
countryIn geography, a country is a geographical region. The term is often applied to a political division or the territory of a state, or to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region...
, often following a
warWar is a reciprocated, armed conflict, between two or more non-congruous entities, aimed at reorganising a subjectively designed, geo-politically desired result...
. Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and
retributionRetribution may refer to:* Retributive justice* Retribution Engine, a video game engine* Retribution , a novel by Jilliane Hoffman* Dreamland: Retribution, a 2007 novel by Jim DeFelice and Dale Brown...
ist thought and is often motivated by economic or geo-political factors. Extreme revanchist ideologues often represent a hawkish stance, suggesting that desired objectives can be achieved through the positive outcome of another war.
Revanchism is linked with
irredentismIrredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...
, the conception that a part of the cultural and ethnic
nationA nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin. The development and conceptualization of the nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries,...
remains "unredeemed" outside the borders of its appropriate
nation-stateThe nation-state is a certain form of state that derives its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
.
Revanchism (from
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
revanche, "
revengeRevenge is a harmful action against a person or group as a response to a grievance. Although many aspects of revenge resemble the concept of justice, revenge connotes a more injurious and punitive focus as opposed to a harmonious and restorative one...
") is a term used since the 1870s to describe a political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a
countryIn geography, a country is a geographical region. The term is often applied to a political division or the territory of a state, or to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region...
, often following a
warWar is a reciprocated, armed conflict, between two or more non-congruous entities, aimed at reorganising a subjectively designed, geo-politically desired result...
. Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and
retributionRetribution may refer to:* Retributive justice* Retribution Engine, a video game engine* Retribution , a novel by Jilliane Hoffman* Dreamland: Retribution, a 2007 novel by Jim DeFelice and Dale Brown...
ist thought and is often motivated by economic or geo-political factors. Extreme revanchist ideologues often represent a hawkish stance, suggesting that desired objectives can be achieved through the positive outcome of another war.
Revanchism is linked with
irredentismIrredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...
, the conception that a part of the cultural and ethnic
nationA nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin. The development and conceptualization of the nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries,...
remains "unredeemed" outside the borders of its appropriate
nation-stateThe nation-state is a certain form of state that derives its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
. Revanchist politics often rely on the identification of a
nationA nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin. The development and conceptualization of the nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries,...
with a
nation-stateThe nation-state is a certain form of state that derives its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
, often mobilizing deep-rooted sentiments of
ethnic nationalismEthnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations...
, claiming territories outside of the state where members of the ethnic group live, while using heavy-handed nationalism to mobilize support for these aims. Revanchist justifications are often presented as based on ancient or even autochthonous occupation of a territory known by the
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
term
Urrecht, meaning a nation's claim to territory that has been inhabited since "
time immemorialTime immemorial is a phrase meaning time extending beyond the reach of memory, record, or tradition. The implication is that the subject referred to is, or can be regarded as, indefinitely ancient...
", an assertion that is usually inextricably involved in revanchism and irredentism, justifying them in the eyes of their proponents.
Origin
Motivations of territorial aggression and counter aggression are as old as
tribal societiesThe internal social structure of a tribe can vary greatly from case to case, but, due to the small size of tribes, it is always a relatively simple structure, with few significant social distinctions between individuals. Some tribes are particularly egalitarian, and most tribes have only a vague...
, but the instance of
revanchism that gave these furious groundswells of opinion their modern name lies in the strong desire during the
French Third RepublicThe French Third Republic was the republican government of France between the end of the Second French Empire in 1870 and the Vichy Regime after the invasion of France by the German...
to regain the mainly German-speaking
Alsace-LorraineAlsace-Lorraine was a territorial entity created by the German Empire in 1871 after the annexation of most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and on the east of the Vosges Mountains...
after the humiliating defeat in the
Franco-Prussian WarThe Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between France and Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria...
of 1870/71. Emperor Napoleon III had declared and lost the war, and, in the
Treaty of FrankfurtThe Treaty of Frankfurt was a peace treaty signed in Frankfurt on May 10, 1871, at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.- Summary :The treaty:...
, France lost Alsace-Lorraine, previously annexed by King Louis XIV in the 17th century.
Georges ClemenceauGeorges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician, and journalist. He served as the prime minister of France from 1906-1909 and 1917-1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles...
, of the Radical Republicans, opposed participation in the
scramble for AfricaThe Scramble for Africa, also known as the Race for Africa, was the result of conflicting European claims to African territory during the New Imperialism period, between the 1880s and the First World War in 1914....
and other adventures that would divert the Republic from objectives related to the "blue line of the
VosgesFor the department of France of the same name, see Vosges.The Vosges are a range of low mountains in eastern France, near its border with Germany...
" in Alsace-Lorraine. After the governments of
Jules FerryJules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman, republican. Was a promoter of laicism and among others, supported colonial expansion.- Early life :...
had pursued a number of colonies in the early 1880s, Clemenceau lent his support to Georges Ernest Boulanger, a popular figure, nicknamed
Général Revanche, who it was felt might overthrow the Republic in 1889. This ultra-nationalist tradition influenced French politics up to 1921 and was one of the major reasons France went to great pains to woo
RussiaThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, resulting in the
Franco-Russian AllianceThe Franco-Russian Alliance was a military alliance between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire that ran from 1892 to 1917. The alliance ended the diplomatic isolation of France and undermined the supremacy of the German Empire in Europe....
of 1894 and, after more accords, the
Triple EntenteThe Triple Entente was the name given to the loose alignment between the United Kingdom, France, and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907...
of the three great Allied powers of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
: France, Great Britain, and Russia.
French revanchism was the main force behind the
Treaty of VersaillesThe Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, which regained Alsace-Lorraine for France, pinned the blame of the World War on Germany and extracted huge reparations from the defeated powers. The conference was not only opened on the anniversary of the proclamation of the
Second ReichThe German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871 to 1918, when it became a German republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of Wilhelm II .The term Second Reich...
, the treaty had also to be signed by the new German government in the same room, the
Hall of MirrorsThe Hall of Mirrors is the central gallery of the Palace of Versailles and is one of the most famous rooms in the world....
.
A German revanchist movement
responded to the lossesFrench–German hereditary enmity describes the three centuries of hostile relations and revanchism between France and Germany, from the Thirty Years' War to World War II , after which it was overcome...
of World War I. Pangermanists within the
Weimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
called for the reclamation of territories considered to be the "rightful" property of a German state due to pre-war borders or because of the territory's historical relation to Germanic peoples. The movement called for the re-incorporation of Alsace-Lorraine, the
Polish CorridorThe Polish Corridor was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Germany from her province of East Prussia...
and the formerly Austrian
SudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia.The name is derived from the...
(see
BohemiaBohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands, currently the Czech Republic...
,
MoraviaMoravia is a historical region in central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, one of the former Czech lands. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region.-Geography:...
,
SilesiaSilesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in present-day Poland, with parts in the Czech Republic and Germany....
). This
irredentismIrredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...
had also been characteristic of the
Völkisch movementThe völkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic". The term völkisch, meaning "ethnic", derives from the German word Volk , corresponding to "people", with connotations in German of "people-powered", "folksy" and...
in general and of the
Alldeutsche Verband (Pan-Germanic League), which had been a motivating factor behind German unification in 1871.
Other examples
There are a number of historical examples, past and present, which can be interpreted in part to revanchism. Revanchist sentiments earlier in the 19th-century, for example, may have galvanized nationalist emotions leading to two wars between the
Kingdom of PrussiaThe Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918, until the defeat of Germany in World War I, was the leading state of the German Empire, comprising almost two-thirds of the area of the empire...
and
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
over
SchleswigSchleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark...
and
HolsteinHolstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....
, the
First war of SchleswigThe First Schleswig War or Three Years' War was the first round of military conflict in southern Denmark and northern Germany rooted in the Schleswig-Holstein Question, contesting the issue of who should control the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The war, which lasted from 1848–1851,...
1848-1851 and the
Second war of SchleswigThe Second Schleswig War was the second military conflict as a result of the Schleswig-Holstein Question. It began on February 1, 1864, when Prussian forces crossed the border into Schleswig.Denmark fought Prussia and Austria...
in 1864.
In the 20th century, similar sentiments prevailed in post-World War I
HungaryHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
, which called for a revision of the borders set up by the
Treaty of TrianonThe Treaty of Trianon was the peace treaty concluded in 1920 at the end of World War I by the Allies of World War I, on one side, and Hungary, seen as a successor of Austria-Hungary, on the other. The treaty established the borders of Hungary and regulated its international situation...
, especially regarding
TransylvaniaTransylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term frequently encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, awarded to
RomaniaRomania is a country located in Southeastern and Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory...
, and south Slovakia, which has a Hungarian majority.
Modern revanchist politics often center around certain areas of historic competition and claims of ownership, as in the cases of
Carpathian RutheniaCarpathian Ruthenia, aka Transcarpathian Ruthenia, Transcarpathian Ukraine, Zakarpattia, Rusinko, Subcarpathian Rus, Subcarpathia is a small region in Central Europe, now...
,
KosovoKosovo is a disputed territory in the Balkans. Its majority is governed by the partially-recognised Republic of Kosovo , a self-declared independent state which has de facto control over the territory; the exceptions are some Serb enclaves...
, with its Albanian majority, the
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country in the central Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, and in South-central Asian region of
KashmirKashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent...
, with its Muslim majority. And
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
/
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
.
As part of the recurring immigration debates in the United States, anti-illegal immigration groups have raised the specter of a "
reconquistaThe Reconquista was a period of 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula succeeded in retaking the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims...
" (reconquest) of the American Southwest by Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Much of the Southwest was originally part of
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, prior to being annexed by the United States in the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe HidalgoThe Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is the peace treaty, largely dictated by the United States to the interim government of a militarily occupied Mexico, that ended the Mexican-American War...
. There has never been a significant movement among Mexicans or Mexican-Americans to return the conquered lands to Mexico, although anti-illegal immigration groups have argued that there is an erasure of the borders between these two countries due to massive
illegal immigrationIllegal immigration is immigration across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. Illegal immigrants are also known as illegal aliens to differentiate them from legal aliens...
and alleged separatist sentiments held by the illegal immigrants.
See also
- Expansionism
In general, expansionism consists of expansionist policies of governments and states. While some have linked the term to promoting economic growth , more commonly expansionism refers to the doctrine of a nation's expanding its territorial base usually by means of military aggression...
- Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between France and Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria...
(1870)
- French-German enmity
French–German hereditary enmity describes the three centuries of hostile relations and revanchism between France and Germany, from the Thirty Years' War to World War II , after which it was overcome...
- French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France between the end of the Second French Empire in 1870 and the Vichy Regime after the invasion of France by the German...
(1870-1940)
- Irredentism
Irredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...
- Karelian question in Finnish politics
The Karelian question or Karelian issue is a dispute of Finnish politics over whether or not to try to regain sovereignty over the Finnish Karelia and other territories ceded to the Soviet Union in the Winter War and the Continuation War...
- Reconquista (Mexico)
The term Reconquista was popularized by Mexican writers Carlos Fuentes and Elena Poniatowska to describe the demographic and cultural presence of Mexicans into the Southwestern United States...
- Recovered Territories
Recovered or Regained Territories was the official term used by the Communist Polish post-war authorities to denote those territories which were assigned by the Big Three allies to Poland and incorporated into Poland after the Second World War...
- Rump state
A rump state is the remnant of a once-larger government, left with limited powers or authority after a disaster, invasion, military occupation, secession or partial overthrowing of a government. In the last case, a government stops short of going in exile because it still controls part of its...
(a geopolitical state of existence that revanchism may create, seek to correct, or both)
- Status quo ante bellum
The term status quo ante bellum comes from Latin meaning literally, the state in which things were before the war.The term was originally used in treaties to refer to the withdrawal of enemy troops and the restoration of prewar leadership. When used as such, it means that no side gains or loses...
- Uti possidetis
Uti possidetis is a principle in international law that territory and other property remains with its possessor at the end of a conflict, unless provided for by treaty. Originating in Roman law, this principle enables a belligerent party to claim territory that it has acquired by war...