A suitable pretext for war arose in when the German Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was offered the Spanish throne, vacant since a revolution in France pressured Leopold into withdrawing his candidacy.
Not content with this, Paris demanded that Wilhelm, as head of the House of Hohenzollern, assure that no Hohenzollern would ever seek the Spanish crown again. To provoke France into declaring war with Prussia, Bismarck published the Ems Dispatch, a carefully edited version of a conversation between King Wilhelm and the French ambassador to Prussia, Count Benedetti.
This conversation had been edited so that each nation felt its ambassador had been slighted and ridiculed, thus inflaming popular sentiment on both sides in favor of war. France mobilized and declared war on July A Government of National Defense declared the Third Republic in Paris on September 4 and continued the war for another five months; the German forces fought and defeated new French armies in northern France. Following the Siege of Paris, the capital fell on January 28, , and then a revolutionary uprising called the Paris Commune seized power in the capital and held it for two months until it was bloodily suppressed by the regular French army at the end of May Bismarck acted immediately to secure the unification of Germany.
He negotiated with representatives of the southern German states, offering special concessions if they agreed to unification. The negotiations succeeded; patriotic sentiment overwhelmed what opposition remained. The new German Empire was a federation; each of its 25 constituent states kingdoms, grand duchies, duchies, principalities, and free cities retained some autonomy.
The King of Prussia, as German Emperor, was not sovereign over the entirety of Germany; he was only primus inter pares , or first among equals.
Victory in the Franco-Prussian War proved the capstone of the nationalist issue. South German particularism was now cast aside. In reaction, the Prussian and Bavarian armies mobilized a day later. By the 19th of July, France officially declared war and hostilities commenced. Under Marshal Adolphe Niel, urgent reforms were made. Universal conscription and a shorter period of service increased the number of reservists, who would swell the army to a planned strength of , men on mobilization.
Those who were not conscripted were to be enrolled in the Garde Mobile, a militia with a nominal strength of , men. As the Franco-Prussian war broke out, these reforms could not be fully implemented, thus the mobilization of reservists was chaotic and the Garde Mobile was generally untrained and mutinous. The infantry were equipped with the breech-loading Chassepot rifle, one of the most modern mass-produced firearms in the world at the time. French tactics emphasized the defensive use of Chassepot rifle in trench-warfare style fighting.
The army also had a precursor to the machine-gun: the mitrailleuse, which could unleash significant firepower but lacked range and was comparatively immobile, thus prone to being overrun. Recruitment and organization of the various armies were almost identical, and based on the concept of conscripting annual classes of men who then served in the regular regiments for a fixed term before being moved to the reserves.
In peace times, this process gave the strength of , men and in wartime about 1,, men. Being fairly old though, it was compensated by the Krupp 6-pounder steel breech-loading cannons being issued to Prussian artillery batteries. The Prussian army was controlled by the General Staff, which was a full-time body at the head of the Prussian Army. It was responsible for the continuous study of all aspects of war, and for drawing up and reviewing plans for mobilization or campaign, under Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke.
Having such an organisation was a unique army feature in Europe. The Franco-Prussian War begins As Bismarck foresaw, no other nations decided to intervene in the war. Though Austria-Hungary and Denmark had both wished to avenge their recent military defeats against Prussia, they chose not to intervene in the war due to a lack of confidence in the French. In early August, Napoleon took the offensive but he soon withdrew before the Germans could arrive, after realizing the scale of their mobilization which was faster and more effective than that of the French.
This allowed the Germans to deploy far quicker. By mid-August, a series of battles took place all over France and the Germans were constantly on the offensive. With the adept leadership of Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, the Prussian encircled the French and broke their lines, ultimately resulting in the surrender of Napoleon and his entire army, This marked the end of the Second French Empire. The uprising forced the proclamation of a Provisional Government and thus the proclamation of a Third French Republic, by general Trochu, Favre and Gambetta at Paris on the 4th of September.
During the middle of January, the government placed bread on the ration list, setting the daily quota at grams for adults and half that amount for children.
Parisians then realized that they were on the verge of starvation. As for the Prussians, this meant a quick solution to the conflict as Frederick III writes on his diary entry for January 7, "There is news from Bordeaux that provisions in Paris would be exhausted about the end of January, and at best could only last until early in February.
I trust this may be true. According to the story, the people of Paris forgot what meat was and they had to subsist on leaves or roots dug up from under stones. Terrible diseases broke out and in three months 12, people died. Bread no longer existed while all the dogs were captured and eaten. Balloons served to carry the mail and diplomats outside the city safely from Prussian attack.
Pigeons were used to carry messages. For more on this aspect of the siege read "Airlift " by John Fisher. The price of rats became so high that not everyone could afford this delicacy, which was considered of the highest quality since rats fed on cheese and grains. The Siege of Paris, A Political and Social History. Greenwood Press Publishers. The War Against Paris- Cambridge University Press. The French Army and Politics- to Peter Bedrick Books.
New York. This item was created by a contributor to eHistory prior to its affiliation with The Ohio State University. As such, it has not been reviewed for accuracy by the University and does not necessarily adhere to the University's scholarly standards. Skip to main content. You are here Home » Articles. Roberto Naranjo. Notes: 1. In the summer of , this rivalry would explode into full-scale global warfare, pitting France and the Allies against Germany and the Central Powers in the most devastating conflict the world had yet seen.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Louis Blues goaltender Glenn Hall. Jefferson Davis, president of the fallen Confederate government, is captured with his wife and entourage near Irwinville, Georgia, by a detachment of Union General James H.
At the time, it was the largest rescue package ever granted by the U. On May 10, , the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.
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President Hayes embraced the new technology, though he rarely received phone calls.
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