Revanchism

Revanchism (French: revanchisme, from revanche, "revenge") is the political manifestation of the will to reverse the territorial losses which are incurred by a country, frequently after a war or after a social movement. As a term, revanchism originated in 1870s France in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War among nationalists who wanted to avenge the French defeat and reclaim the lost territories of Alsace-Lorraine.^[1]

Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist thought and is often motivated by economic or geopolitical factors. Extreme revanchist ideologues often represent a hawkish stance, suggesting that their desired objectives can be achieved through the positive outcome of another war. It is linked with irredentism, the conception that a part of the cultural and ethnic nation remains "unredeemed" outside the borders of its appropriate nation-state.^[2]

Revanchist politics often rely on the identification of a nation with a nation state, mobilizing sentiments of ethnic nationalism to claim territories outside of where members of the ethnic group currently live. Such claims are often presented as being based on ancient or even autochthonous occupation of a territory since "time immemorial".