Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Bismarck's War

  • The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe
  • By: Rachel Chrastil
  • Narrated by: Sarah Borges
  • Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (17 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Bismarck's War

By: Rachel Chrastil
Narrated by: Sarah Borges
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Less than a month after it marched into France in summer 1870, the Prussian army had devastated its opponents, captured Napoleon III and wrecked all assumptions about Europe's pecking order. Other countries looked on in helpless amazement. Pushing aside further French resistance, a new German Empire was proclaimed (as a deliberate humiliation) in the Palace of Versailles, leaving the French to face civil war in Paris, reparations and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.

Bismarck's War tells the story of one of the most shocking reversals of fortune in modern European history. The culmination of a globally violent decade, the Franco-Prussian War was deliberately engineered by Bismarck, both to destroy French power and to unite Germany. It could not have worked better, but it also had lurking inside it the poisonous seeds of all the disasters that would ravage the twentieth century.

Drawing on a remarkable variety of sources, Chrastil's book explores the military, technological, political and social events of the war, its human cost and the way that the sheer ferocity of war, however successful, has profound consequences for both victors and victims.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Rachel Chrastil (P)2023 Penguin Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Thirty Years War cover art
The Burgundians cover art
The Eagle and the Lion cover art
Kutuzov cover art
The Weimar Years cover art
The Soviet Century cover art
The Napoleonic Wars cover art
The Franco-Prussian War cover art
A Certain Idea of France cover art
Battle for the Island Kingdom cover art
Louis Botha cover art
Winning Independence cover art
Russia's War cover art
Culloden cover art
The Splintered Empires cover art
Crimea cover art

Critic reviews

A fresh and compelling history of the most important European war between Waterloo and World War I. In rich and engaging detail, she shows how it laid much of the foundation for the wars of the twentieth century, even as it was seen at the time, and subsequently remembered, as a relatively conventional conflict. A tour-de-force. (David A. Bell, Princeton University)

What listeners say about Bismarck's War

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    11
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Superb history of a conflict often forgotten by many. Well written and researched. Great narration.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A new perspective after Michael Howard’s landmark work.

A worthwhile book, spoiled rather by an amazingly exaggerated style of reading, as if an exciting ‘bedtime story’. Emphasis is applied even where none is required, devaluing that emphasis. The reader must have been exhausted by it all. In reality, the words speak for themselves.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good on the military and social aspects of the war

The book held my attention and provided me with a good overview of this important conflict. The main focus is on the battles themselves, and the effect of the war on civilian populations. Readers who want detailed information about the diplomatic and political history of the war may be disappointed. It would be good if a political history of the war could also be provided on audible.

After finishing the book, I had more sympathy with the German position than I had previously. But any assessment would require a detailed analysis of the short and long term causes of the war, which is not available here. Like others, I noticed the reader was unsuited to the material but I persevered and then got used to it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Poor narration

The book received good reviews and I was looking forward to a modern account of the Franco-Prussian war. Unfortunately the reading style is suitable to a romantic novel rather than to serious history. It became so irritating that I gave up and didn't finish the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Fine book but poor narration

Good to have an up to date popular history to hand. Narration seems more suited to fiction, with inappropriate emphasis and tone for a history book. Given that most sentences in the book contain at least one German or French word (eg place or character name), it would have been helpful had the narrator been able to pronounce words in those languages.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Narration is intrusive and annoying for non-fiction

The narration ruin this for me. Continual changes in tone, dramatic pauses and emphasis are not appropriate for non-fiction.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Disliked narrator .Interesting book though obviously lots about battles.

Disliked narrator…particularly method of giving dates..so irritating. Interesting book…lots about battles…would have preferred more about why war came about and it’s important consequences

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Français exécrable!

An excellent history of an under-recorded period (at least in the UK). BUT: if you’re looking for a reader for a book involving lots of French words, try to find someone with a basic knowledge of French pronunciation. Her attempts were comically awful. By the end I felt sorry for her struggle.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful