Rhine crisis

France had taken the Turkish defeat in the Greek War of Independence as an opportunity to occupy Algeria, previously also nominally an Ottoman vassal, in 1830, and had aligned themselves closely with Muhammad Ali throughout the 1830s, as part of a strategy to expand their Mediterranean influence.

The United Kingdom, Prussia, and Austria feared that destabilization in the Ottoman Empire would lead to increased influence for Russia over the Dardanelles and Balkans.

Russia also viewed the total collapse of the Ottoman Empire as too risky and had followed a policy of increasing its influence by helping prop up the existing regime.

However, the Soult-led government fell only nine months later on a relatively minor vote concerning a proposed dowry for the King's second son, Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours.

In France, the surprise announcement of the Convention of London signed by the other four Great Powers on July 15 was viewed as a renewal of the grand anti-French coalitions that had been victorious in 1814 and 1815.

Starting with the liberal newspaper Le Constitutionnel on August 1, 1840, demands for a foray to the Rhine spread along with calls for territorial "compensation" for the perceived snub and the defeat of France's ally in Egypt.

As had happened during the July Revolution in 1830, there were loud calls for revision of the 1815 treaties and a revival of the militant nationalism that had dominated the Revolutionary period.

In support of this demand, he called up reservists on August 5, 1840, mobilized forces near the border, he issued a government loan for armaments purposed, and began a massive fortification project around Paris.

The new King of Prussia, Frederick William IV, proposed an expansion of the German Confederation's military and improvements to the fortifications of Mainz, Ulm, and Rastatt, while the Kingdom of Bavaria built the fortress at Germersheim.

And indeed, the combined British and Austrian Fleets, after blockading the Nile delta, did not attack Egypt, but moved east to the ports of Syria.

In September 1840, joint British, Austrian, and Ottoman forces bombarded and captured several Syrian ports from the Egyptians and Muhammad Ali's military position in the Levant became untenable.

The new cabinet, with Guizot as Secretary of State, sailed a more conciliatory course, and all five Great Powers signed the London Straits Convention (13 July 1841) settled the matter of the Dardanelles, defusing tension in Europe.

Once the threat of a general European war was lifted, the Rhine crisis's immediate impact was fairly limited outside of French internal politics.

In 1842 Victor Hugo wrote "Le Rhin" a travel book which ends with a call for France to extend its borders to the Rhine.