The Nile of the West

The Eastern Crisis saw an upsurge in nationalism known as the Rhine Crisis that was a landmark in Franco–German hostility and in the movement towards German unification. The news of the July 1840 treaty met in France with public fury and calls for war. This in turn caused a storm in Germany that saw the composition of the future national anthem, the Deutschlandlied. The Rhine Crisis, a clash of poets and a clash of cultures, also took place on that battleground between Liberalism and reaction that was Germany. Among Germans, this involved alongside atavistic reflexes an agonising choice between French-inspired Liberalism and Austro-Prussian authoritarianism. In turn, this fed into the diplomacy of the Eastern Crisis through key backdoor initiatives from Berlin and Vienna.