The ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, now in its sixth month, is deeply rooted in the history of conflicts in the West. In the 19th Century, Prussia, then under Chancellor Otto von Bismark, began to seriously advance the idea of unification of Southern German states under one strong State (which later became Germany).
France, under Napoleon the Third, saw a stronger unified Germany as a threat to its own standing within Europe and war between France and Prussia was inevitable. France eventually declared war with Prussia but lost. While the French lost the war, it was a war fought to enforce Spain’s neutrality amidst Prussia’s territorial expansion.
