Franco-Prussian War
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| Franco-Prussian War | |||||||||||||
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| Categories | Military history of France Military history of Germany |
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| Date | July 19, 1870 - May 10, 1871 | ||||||||||||
| Place | France and Germany | ||||||||||||
| Result | Decisive German victory | ||||||||||||
| Battles of the Franco-Prussian War | |||||||||||||
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The Franco-Prussian War (July 19, 1870 – May 10, 1871) was fought between France and Prussia (backed by the North German Confederation) allied with the south German states of Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg. The conflict marked the culmination of tension between the two powers following Prussia's rise to dominance in Germany, still a loose federation of quasi-independent territories.
The war began over the possible ascension of a candidate from Prussia's Hohenzollern royal family to the Spanish throne, which was opposed by France. The French issued an ultimatum to King Wilhelm I of Prussia to have the candidacy withdrawn, which was done. Aiming to humiliate Prussia, Emperor Napoleon III of France then required Wilhelm to renounce any possible further Hohenzollern candidature to the Spanish throne. King Wilhelm refused, and Prussia's prime minister Otto von Bismarck phrased the king's refusal in the famous Ems Dispatch, basically a propagandised account of the negotiations between France and Prussia over the matter, leaking the document to the press. Outraged, the French declared war on Prussia. Over a six-month campaign, the German armies defeated the French in a series of battles fought across northern France. Napoleon III was captured at the Battle of Sedan, followed by a prolonged siege of the French capital, Paris. The immediate result was the bloody Paris Commune of 1871 and France becoming the only republican Great Power in Europe. Paris fell on 28 January 1871. During the final stages of the war, the German states proclaimed their union under the Prussian King, uniting Germany as a nation-state (the German Empire).
In France and Germany the war is known as the Franco-German War, in French as Guerre franco-allemande de 1870 (French-German War of 1870) and in German as Deutsch-Französischer Krieg (German-French War), which perhaps more accurately describes the combatants rather than simply France and Prussia alone.
Contents |
Causes of the war
Tensions had long been running high between Prussia and France following the Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War and its subsequent annexation of almost all Northern Germany. The humbling of Austria and Prussia's new territorial gains had shattered the European balance of power that had existed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
Following the end of the Austro-Prussian War, Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck and the French emperor Napoleon III had attempted to reach a private agreement regarding the balance of power in Europe. Napoleon III wished to realise French aspirations for "natural borders", a long term goal of French foreign policy since the Middle Ages - to annex all land west of the Rhine river and the Alps including Belgium, the southern Netherlands and Luxembourg, and Savoy. A solid defensible border was also insurance against the possibility of a united Germany unfriendly to France.
Savoy had been obtained from Italy following French support for Italian independence from Austria. Now Napoleon III sought Prussian neutrality when attempting to acquire Luxembourg and Wallonia (the French-speaking part of Belgium), while expecting Prussian neutrality as "compensation" for French neutrality during the Austro-Prussian War and for Prussian territorial gains. Bismarck was non-committal at best, but to the French government, Bismarck appeared to agree to or at least agreed not to obstruct any French moves against the Low Countries.
The Luxembourg Crisis
Thus in 1867, France began by negotiating the purchase of Luxembourg from the Dutch government, as Luxembourg was then in personal union with the Netherlands. Assuming that Bismarck would honour his part of the agreement, the French government was shocked to learn that instead Bismarck, Prussia and the North German Confederation were threatening war should the sale be completed. Luxembourg lay astride one of the principal invasion routes an army would use to invade either France or Germany. The city of Luxembourg's formidable fortifications, constructed by the famous military engineer Marshal Vauban were considered "the Gibraltar of the North", and neither side could tolerate the other controlling such a strategic location. To mediate the dispute, the British hosted the London Conference (1867) attended by all European great powers. It confirmed Luxembourg's independence from the Netherlands and guaranteed its independence from all other powers. War appeared to have been averted, at the cost of thwarting French designs.
French prestige and domestic politics
- Main article: Second French Empire
France's position in Europe was now in danger of being overshadowed by the emergence of a powerful Prussia, and France looked increasingly flat-footed following Bismarck's successes. In addition, France's ruler Napoleon III was on increasingly shaky ground in domestic politics. Having successfully overthrown the Second Republic and established the Bonapartist Second Empire, Napoleon III was confronted with increasingly virulent demands for democratic reform from leading republicans such as Jules Favre along with constant rumours of impending revolution. In addition, French aspirations in Mexico had suffered a final defeat with the execution of the Austrian born French puppet Emperor of Mexico Maximillian in 1868. The only force uniting the French was the universal desire to punish Prussia for its "arrogance". It was hoped that a war with Prussia would unite the French nation behind Napoleon III, quash any republican or revolutionary sentiment behind reactionary nationalism, re-establish France as the paramount power in Europe, and gain France the Rhineland and later Luxembourg and Belgium.
Bismarck and German nationalism
Prussia in turn was also beset with problems. While revolutionary fervour was far more muted than in France, Prussia had recently acquired millions of new suspicious citizens as a result of the Austro-Prussian War. The remaining German kingdoms and principalities maintained a steadfastly parochial attitude towards Prussia and German unification, their suspicions only heightened following Austria's defeat. The German princes insisted upon their independence and balked at any attempt to create a federal state. Before the war, only some Germans, inspired by the recent unification of Italy, accepted and supported nationalism, for German nationalists had been defeated by Prussia during the unsuccessful revolution of 1848 and 1849. It was only during the war that the mood in Germany would change. Although many Germans admired France, more and more of them felt that defeating France was necessary, and even the princes began to realise that Germany must unite in order to preserve the fruit of an eventual victory. Bismarck had an entirely different view. He was interested only in strengthening his state and the power of its king. Uniting Germany appeared immaterial to him unless it improved Prussia's position. Bismarck considered the conflict with France inevitable, knowing that France would not quietly tolerate a powerful state to its east. He also viewed the war as a means to end the influence which France had long since exercised over Germany, and to win the South German states as allies to the North German Confederation created in 1867.
Crisis and the outbreak of war
Napoleon III and Bismarck independently sought a suitable crisis to ferment, and in 1870 one arose. The Spanish throne had been vacant since the revolution of September 1868. The Spanish offered the throne to the German prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a distant cousin of King Wilhelm of Prussia. Fearing that a Hohenzollern king in Prussia and another one in Spain would put France into a two-front situation, Napoleon III was determined this time to stand up to the expansion of Prussian influence. He successfully forced the Wilhelm I to urge the prince's withdrawal from his Spanish candidacy. Disappointed that the Prussians had backed down so easily, the French government tried to prolong the crisis. In a newspaper interview, Napoleon III announced that a renewal of the Hohenzollern candidature would result in France going to war. The French ambassador in Prussia Vincent Benedetti was then ordered to require Wilhelm I to guarantee that no Hohenzollern would ever again be a candidate for the Spanish throne. When the French ambassador bypassed the diplomatic channels and directly confronted the king at his holiday resort, King Wilhelm became infuriated. His message to Berlin (the Ems Dispatch) reporting this interview with the French ambassador was edited by Bismarck in such a way as to provoke French indignation, and then leaked for publication. France officially declared war on July 19, 1870.
Alliances and diplomacy
Diplomatically and militarily, Napoleon III looked for support from Austria, Denmark, Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg as all had recently lost wars against Prussia. However, Napoleon III inexplicably failed to conduct any diplomacy to secure revanchist alliances from these states. Denmark had twice fought and lost to Prussia during the First and Second Wars of Schleswig and was unwilling to confront Prussia again. Austria also refused to risk confronting Prussia again so soon after the near disaster of the Austro-Prussian War.
To make matters worse, acts by Napoleon III and his governments had isolated France from the other European powers. Russia remained neutral, unwilling to aid France after French participation in Russia's humiliation during the Crimean War. Italy was also disinclined to assist France, having been forced to surrender claims to Savoy to France as the price for assistance against Austria during the Italian wars for unification. In addition, Napoleon III had made himself protector of the Papal States, infuriating Italian nationalists who wanted Italy united with Rome as the capital.
Bismarck had also worked assiduously to diplomatically isolate France from the other European powers. As part of the settlement of the Austro-Prussian War, secret treaties of mutual defense were signed between Prussia and Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg. Bismarck also added the threat that should the south German monarchs refuse to honour their treaty commitments, he would personally appeal to pan-German nationalists in southern Germany to overthrow their royal houses. Bismarck then made public French correspondence demanding Belgium and Luxembourg as the price for remaining neutral during the Austro-Prussian War - Britain in particular took a decidedly cool attitude to these French demands - which they called 'tipping policy' - and showed no inclination to aid France. Though it had enjoyed some time as the leading power of continental Europe, the French Empire had found itself dangerously isolated in the face of the allied German states.
According to the secret treaties signed with Prussia and in response to popular opinion, Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg mobilised their armies and joined the war against France. While not prepared to join a united Germany, the south German monarchs could not ignore public opinion which would not stand for another Bonapartist invasion of Germany.
Opposing forces
The French Army comprised approximately 400,000 regular soldiers, some veterans of previous French campaigns in the Crimean War, Algeria, Franco-Austrian War in Italy, and in Mexico supporting the Second Mexican Empire. The infantry were equipped with the breech-loading Chassepot rifle, one of the most modern firearms in the world at the time. With a rubber ring seal and a smaller bullet, the Chassepot had a maximum effective range of some 1,500 meters with a rapid reload time. The artillery was equipped with somewhat less modern muzzle-loading bronze 4 pounder (2 kg) cannons little changed from Napoleonic times. In addition, the army was equipped with the precursor to the machine-gun — the mitrailleuse, which was mounted on an artillery gun carriage and grouped in batteries in a similar fashion to cannon. The army was nominally led by Napoleon III with Marshals François Achille Bazaine, Patrice MacMahon and Jules Trochu among others.
The Prussian Army was composed not of regulars but a conscript army. Service was compulsory for all men of military age, thus Prussia and its North and South German allies could mobilise and field some 1.2 million soldiers in time of war. The sheer number of soldiers available made mass-encirclement and destruction of enemy formations advantageous. The army was still equipped with the "needle-gun" Dreyse rifle of fame from the Battle of Königgrätz which was by this time showing the age of its 25 year old design. The deficiencies of the needle-gun were more than compensated for by the famous Krupp 6 pounder (3 kg) breech-loading cannons being issued to Prussian artillery batteries. Firing a contact-detonated shell filled with zinc balls and explosive, the Krupp gun had a range of 4,500 meters and blistering rate of fire compared to muzzle loading cannon. The Prussian army was commanded by Field-Marshal Helmuth von Moltke and the Prussian General Staff. The Prussian army was unique in Europe for having the only General Staff in existence, whose sole purpose was to direct operational movement, organise logistics and communications and develop the overall war strategy. In practice, a chief of staff was a much more important figure in the Prussian Army than in any other army, because he had the right to appeal against his superior to the commander of the next highest formation. Thus, for example, the Crown Prince was unable to contradict the advice of his Chief of Staff, General Leonhard, Count von Blumenthal, for fear of a direct appeal (in this case) to his father the King.
Given that France maintained a strong standing army, and that Prussia and the other German states would need weeks to mobilise their conscript armies, the French held the initial advantage of troop numbers and experience. French tactics emphasised the defensive use of the Chassepot rifle in trench-warfare style fighting, however German tactics emphasised encirclement battles and using artillery offensively whenever possible.
French incursions
On 28 July 1870, Napoleon III left Paris for Metz and assumed command of the newly titled Army of the Rhine, some 100,000 strong and expected to grow as the French mobilisation progressed. Marshal MacMahon took command of I Corps (4 divisions) near Wissembourg, Marshal François Canrobert brought VI Corps (4 divisions) to Châlons-sur-Marne in northern France as a reserve and to guard against a Prussian advance through Belgium. A pre-war plan laid out by the late Marshal Adolphe Niel called for a strong French offensive from Thionville towards Trier and into the Prussian Rhineland. This plan was discarded in favour of a defensive plan by Generals Charles Frossard and Bartélemy Lebrun, which called for the Army of the Rhine to remain in a defensive posture near the German border and repel any Prussian offensive. As Austria along with Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden were expected to join in a revenge war against Prussia, I Corps would invade the Bavarian Palatinate and proceed to "liberate" the south German states in concert with Austro-Hungarian forces. VI Corps would reinforce either army as needed.
Unfortunately for General Frossard's plan, the Prussian army was mobilising far more rapidly than expected. Against all expectations, the south German states had come to Prussia's aid and were mobilising their armies against France. The Austro-Hungarians, still smarting after their defeat by Prussia, seemed content to wait until a clear victor emerged before committing to France's cause.
Already, by August 3 1870 some 320,000 German soldiers were now massed near the French border. A 40,000 strong French offensive into southern Germany would run into superior numbers and be rapidly cut off and destroyed. Napoleon III, however, was under immense domestic pressure to launch an offensive before the full might of Moltke's forces were mobilised and deployed. Reconnaissance by General Frossard had identified only one Prussian division guarding the border town of Saarbrücken, right before the entire Army of the Rhine. Accordingly, on July 31 Napoleon III ordered the Army forward across the Saar River to seize Saarbrücken.
Occupation of Saarbrücken
General Frossard's II Corps and Marshal Bazaine's III Corps crossed the German border on August 2, 1870 and evicted the Prussian 40th Regiment of the 16th Division from the town of Saarbrücken. The Chassepot rifle proved its worth against the Dreyse rifle, French riflemen regularly outdistancing their Prussian counterparts in the skirmishing around Saarbrücken. However the French suffered 86 casualties to the Prussian 83 casualties. Saarbrücken also proved to be a dead-end in terms of logistics - only one single railway there led from the border to the German hinterland which could be easily defended by a single force, and the only river systems in the region ran along the border instead of inland.
While the French hailed the invasion as the first step towards the Rhineland and later Berlin, General Frossard was receiving alarming reports from foreign news sources of Prussian and Bavarian armies massing to the south-east in addition to the forces to the north and north-east.
Moltke had indeed massed three armies in the area - the Prussian First Army commanded by General Karl von Steinmetz (50,000 soldiers) opposite Saarlouis, the Prussian Second Army commanded by Prince Friedrich Karl (134,000 soldiers) opposite the line Forbach - Spicheren, and the Prussian Third Army commanded by Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (125,000 soldiers) poised to cross the border at Wissembourg. Cavalry reconnaissance had identified a French division of MacMahon's corps at Wissembourg, the Third Army moved forward to engage this division. The Second Army moved forward towards the border and Forbach and Spicheren beyond. The First Army marched to Saarlouis, to catch in the flank and rear any French forces moving to reinforce Spicheren. Moltke planned for the First Army in concert later with the Third Army to envelope the entire French army against the Second Army and destroy the entire force.
Battle of Wissembourg
Main article: Battle of Wissembourg
On learning that the Second Army was just 30 miles from Saarbrücken and was moving towards the border, General Frossard hastily withdrew the elements of Army of the Rhine in Saarbrücken back to Spicheren and Forbach. Marshal MacMahon however was unaware of Prussian movements beyond vague rumours from newspapers, and left his four divisions spread 20 miles apart in depth to react to any Prussian invasion. At Wissembourg on August 4, MacMahon's 2nd Division commanded by General Abel Douay was the first to make contact with leading elements of the Prussian Third Army, beginning the Battle of Wissembourg.
The first action of the Franco-Prussian War (excluding the push into Saarbrucken by elements of Frossard's French II Corps on 2nd August) took place on 4th August 1870. This bloody little battle saw the unsupported division of General Douay of I Corps, with some attached cavalry, which was posted to watch the border, attacked in overwhelming but poorly coordinated strength by German 3rd Army. As the day wore on elements of one Bavarian and two Prussian Corps became embroiled in the fight which was notable for the complete lack of higher direction by the Prussians and blind offensive haste by their low level officers.
Douay held a very strong position but his force was too thinly stretched to hold it and his division was driven south by way of Riedseltz at dusk. Douay himself was killed in the early afternoon when a caisson of the divisional mitrailleuse battery exploded near him. General Pelle took up command and withdrew the remnants of the division.
Although Failly's V Corps was just a few miles away at Bitsche and the other three divisions of MacMahon's I Corps were a similar distance away to the south at Worth, neither moved to assist, despite the clear rumble of guns.
Battle of Woerth
Main article: Battle of Worth
The two armies clashed again only two days later (August 6, 1870) near Woerth, less than ten miles from Wissembourg.
The German 3rd army had drawn reinforcements which brought its strength up to 140,000 troops. The French had also been reinforced, but their recruitment was slow, and their force numbered only 35,000. Although badly outnumbered, the French bravely defended their position along a ridge at the western outskirts of Woerth. By afternoon, both sides had suffered about 10,000 casualties, and the French army was reduced to a size which did not permit it to maintain a battle order. Also, the Germans had taken the town of Froeschwiller which sat on a hilltop in the center of the French line. Having lost any outlook for victory and facing a massacre, the French army broke off the battle and retreated in a western direction, hoping to join other French forces on the other side of the Vosges mountains.
The German 3rd army did not pursue the withdrawing French. It remained in Alsace and moved slowly south, attacking and destroying the French garrisons remaining in Alsace.
The battle of Woerth was the first major one of the Franco-German war, with more than 100,000 troops in the battlefield. It was also one of the first clashes where troops from various German states (Prussians, Badonians, Bavarians, Saxons etc.) fought jointly. These facts have led some historians to call the battlefield of Woerth the 'cradle of Germany'.
Battle of Spicheren
Main article: Battle of Spicheren
The Battle of Spicheren, on August 5, was the second of three critical French defeats. The French were able to stall the German I Army until the German II Army under Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia came to the aid of their compatriots and routed the French. Together with the Battle of Worth, on the following day, the Prussians succeeded in separating the northern and southern flanks of the French army. The German victory compelled the French to withdraw to the defenses of Metz.
German invasion
Battle of Mars-La-Tour
Main article: Battle of Mars-La-Tour
130,000 French soldiers were bottled up in the Fortress of Metz after suffering several defeats at the front. Four days after their retreat, on the 16th, the ever-present Prussian forces, here a group of grossly outnumbered 30,000 men of the advanced III Corps (of the 2nd Army) under General Constantine von Alvensleben, found the French Army near Vionville, east of Mars-la-Tour. Despite odds of four to one, the III Corps routed the French and captured Vionville, blocking any further escape attempts to the West. Once blocked from retreat, the French in the fortress of Metz had no choice but to fight in a battle that would see the last major cavalry engagement in Western Europe. III corps was decimated by the incessant cavalry charges, losing over half its soldiers, while the French suffered equivalent numerical loses of 16,000 soldiers, but still held on to overwhelming numerical superiority.
On August 16, 1870 the French could have swept away the key Prussian defence and escaped. Two Prussian corps attacked the French advanced guard thinking that it was the rearguard of the retreat of the French Army of the Meuse. Despite this misjudgement the two Prussian corps held the entire French army for the whole day. Outnumbered 5:1 the extraordinary self-belief of the Prussians prevailed over gross indecision by the French.
Battle of Gravelotte
Main article: Battle of Gravelotte
The Battle of Gravelotte, or Gravelotte-St. Privat, was the largest battle during the Franco-Prussian War. It was fought about six miles west of Metz, Lorraine, France where on the previous day, having intercepted the French army's retreat to the west at the Battle of Mars-La-Tour, the Prussians were now closed in to complete the destruction of the French forces.
The combined German forces, under Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, were the Prussian First and Second Armies of the North German Confederation numbering about 210 infantry battalions, 133 cavalry squadrons, and 732 heavy cannons totalling 188,332 officers and men. The French Army of the Rhine, commanded by Marshal Francoise-Achille Bazaine, numbering about 183 infantry battalions, 104 cavalry squadrons, backed by 520 heavy cannons, totaling 112,800 officers and men, dug in along high ground with their southern left flank at the town of Rozerieulles, and their northern right flank at St. Privat.
On August 18, 1870, the battle began when at 08:00 Moltke ordered the First and Second Armies to advance against the French positions. By 12:00, General Manstein opened up the battle before the village of Amanvillers with artillery from the 25th Infantry Division. But the French had spent the night and early morning digging trenches and rifle pits while placing their artillery and their mitrailleuses, an early type of machine gun, in concealed positions. With them finally aware of the Prussian advance, the French opened up a massive return fire against the mass of advancing Germans. The battle at first appeared in the French favour for they had better armed rifles, the Chassepot, which was a early bolt-action rifle replacing the musket with a range of over 1,500 yards, far superior to the Prussian Dreyse bolt-action rifle, also called the needle-gun, which had a range of only 600 yards. However, the Prussian artillery was superior for they had the all-steel Krupps breech-loading gun.
By 14:30, General Steinmentz, the commander of the First Army, unilaterally launched his VIII Corps across the Mance Ravine in which the Prussian infantry were soon pinned down by murderous rifle and mitrailleuse fire from the French positions. At 15:00, the massed guns of the VII and VIII Corps opened fire to support the attack. But by 16:00, with the attack in danger of stalling, Steinmetz ordered the VII Corps forward, followed by the 1st Cavalry Division.
By 16:50, with the Prussian southern attacks in danger of breaking up, the 3rd Prussian Guards Brigade of the Second Army opened an attack against the French positions at St-Privat which were commanded by General Canrobert. At 17:15, the 4th Prussian Guards Brigade joined the advance followed at 17:45 by the 1st Prussian Guards Brigade. All of the Prussian Guard attacks were too pinned down by lethal French gunfire from the rifle pits and trenches. At 18:15 the 2nd Prussian Guards Brigade, the last of the Guards Division, was committed to the attack on St Privat while Steinmetz committed the last of the reserves of the First Army across the Mance Ravine. By 18:30, a considerable portion of the VII and VIII Corps disengaged from the fighting and withdrew towards the Prussian positions at Rezonville.
With the defeat of the First Army, Crown Prince Frederick Charles ordered a massed artillery attack against Canrobert's position at St. Privat to prevent the Guards attack from failing too. At 19:00 the 3rd Division of Fransecky's II Corps of the Second Army advanced across Ravine while the XII Corps cleared out the nearby town of Roncourt and with the survivors of the Guards Division launched a fresh attack against the ruins of St. Privat. At 20:00, the arrival of the Prussian 4th Division of the II Corps and with the Prussian right flank on Mance Ravine, the line stabilised. By then, the Prussians of the Guards Division and the XII and II Corps captured St. Privat forcing the decimated French forces to withdraw. But with the Prussians exhausted from the fighting, the French were now able to mount a counter-attack. But then General Bourbaki refused to commit the reserves of the French Old Guard to the battle because he considered it a 'defeat'.
By 22:00, firing largely died down across the battlefield for the night. The next morning, the French Army of the Rhine, rather than resume the battle with an attack of its own against the battle-weary German armies, retreated to Metz where they were besieged and forced to surrender two months later.
The casualties were horrible, especially for the attacking Prussian forces. A grand total of 20,163 German troops were killed, wounded or missing in action during the August 18 battle. The French losses were 7,855 killed and wounded along with 4,420 prisoners of war (half of them were wounded) for a total of 12,275. While most of the Prussians fell under the French Chassepot rifles, most French fell under the Prussian Krupp shells. In a breakdown of the casualties, Frossard's II Corps of the Army of the Rhine suffered 621 casualties while inflicting 4,300 casualties on the Prussian First Army under Steinmetz before the Pointe du Jour. The Prussian Guard Division losses were even more staggering with 8,000 casualties out of 18,000 men. The Special Guard Jäger lost 19 officers, a surgeon and 431 men out of a total of 700. The 2nd Guards Brigade lost 39 officers and 1,076 men. The 3rd Guards Brigade lost 36 officers and 1,060 men. On the French side, the units holding St Privat lost more than half their number in the village.
Siege of Metz
Main article: Siege of Metz
A further crushing French loss came at Metz, where Marshal Bazaine surrendered 180,000 soldiers on October 27.
Battle of Sedan
Main article: Battle of Sedan With the defeat of Marshal Bazaine's Army of the Rhine at Gravelotte, the French were forced to retire to Metz where they were besieged by over 150,000 Prussian troops of the First and Second Armies. Emperor Napoleon III, along with Field Marshal MacMahon, formed the new French Army of Chalons to march on to Metz to rescue Bazaine. With Napoleon III personally leading the army with Marshal MacMahon in attendance, they led the Army of Chalons in a left-flanking march northeast towards the Belgian border in an attempt to avoid the Prussians before striking south to link up with Bazaine.
The Prussians, under the command of Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, took advantage of this incompetent manoeuvre to catch the French in a pincer grip. Leaving the Prussian First and Second Armies besieging Metz, Moltke took the Prussian Third Army and the Army of the Meuse northward where they caught up with the French at Beaufort on August 30. After a hard-fought battle with the French losing 5,000 men and 40 cannons in a sharp fight, they withdrew toward Sedan. Having reformed in the town, the Army of Chalons was immediately isolated by the converging Prussian armies. Napoleon III ordered the army to break out of the encirclement immediately. With MacMahon wounded on the previous day, General Auguste Ducrot took command of the French troops in the field.
On September 1, 1870, the battle opened with the Army of Chalons, with 202 infantry battalions, 80 cavalry squadrons and 564 artillery guns, attacking the surrounding Prussian Third and Meuse Armies totalling 222 infantry battalions, 186 cavalry squadrons and 774 artillery guns. General De Wimpffen, the commander of the French V Corps in reserve, hoped to launch a combined infantry and cavalry attack against the Prussian XI Corps. But by 11:00, Prussian artillery took a toll on the French while more Prussian troops arrived on the battlefield. The French cavalry, commanded by General Marguerite, launched three desperate attacks on the nearby village of Floing where the Prussian XI Corps was concentrated. Marguerite was killed leading the very first charge and the two additional charges led to nothing but heavy losses.
By the end of the day, with no hope of breaking out, Napoleon III called off the attacks. The French lost over 17,000 men killed and wounded with 21,000 captured. The Prussians reported their losses at 2,320 killed, 5,980 wounded and 700 captured or missing.
By the next day, on September 2, Napoleon III surrendered and was taken prisoner with 104,000 of his soldiers. It was an overwhelming victory for the Prussians, for they not only captured an entire French army, but the leader of France as well. When news hit Paris of Emperor Napoleon's III capture, the French Second Empire was overthrown in a bloodless revolution leading to the creation of a new government of national defence and the Third Republic.
The defeat of the French at Sedan decided the war in Prussia's favour. With the Second Empire overthrown, Napoleon III went into exile in England, while within a fortnight, the Prussian armies were besieging Paris.
The War continues
After the German victory at Sedan, most of France's standing forces were out of combat. One army was immobilised and besieged in the city of Metz. Another army, led by Emperor Napoleon III himself, had surrendered to the Germans. Under these circumstances, the Germans hoped for an armistice which would put an end to the hostilities and lead to peace. Especially Prussia's prime minister von Bismarck entertained that hope for he wanted to end the war as soon as possible. To a nation with as many neighbours as Prussia, a prolonged war meant the growing risk of intervention by another power, and von Bismarck was determined to limit that risk. At first, the outlook for peace seemed fair. In Paris, a bloodless coup d'état led by general Trochu, Jules Favre, and Léon-Michel Gambetta removed monarchy and turned France into a republic. The Germans estimated that the new government of France could not be interested in continuing the war. Hoping to pave the road to peace, Prussia's prime minister von Bismarck submitted a list of moderate conditions. But the republican government refused to negotiate an armistice. It renewed the declaration of war, called for recruits, and pledged to drive the German troops out of France. Under these circumstances, the Germans felt compelled to continue the war. As they were not confronted by a sizable body of French troops, they decided to put pressure upon the enemy by attacking the capital of France. In October 1870, German troops reached the outskirts of Paris. Unable to penetrate the heavily fortified city, the Germans surrounded it and erected a blockade. Von Bismarck proposed to subject Paris to artillery shelling in order to ensure the city's quick surrender which, as he hoped, would bring the French to realize that they had lost the war. The German military command, headed by King Wilhelm of Prussia, turned down the proposal on the grounds that shelling civil living quarters would violate the rules of warfare. It was decided to starve Paris into surrender.
Shifting Opinion
The French republican government's decision to continue the war changed public opinion in Germany for most Germans did not understand why France would not accept the German peace offer. Germans generally agreed that the outcome of the war was certain and that France could not reverse the military situation in her favor. Continued warfare would only lead to more bloodshed. In the fall of 1870, many Germans accepted the opinion that France was an aggressive country which could not accept defeat. Germans began to view France as an 'enemy by heritage' (Erbfeind) whom their ancestors had been made to fight for 200 years and who would continue to assault Germany. Consequently, many Germans demanded that Germany should be strengthened and France should be weakened in order to rule out any future war. France should be occupied by German troops after the war. France should be made to pay a high sum in reparations. And most important, the German-speaking areas in eastern France should be annexed by a new German state which was to be founded in order to unite the Germans against France. Prussia's prime minister von Bismarck had little respect for such plans. He refused to consider France an Erbfeind and aimed to appease France by moderate conditions for peace which ruled out any annexations. He was also sceptical about incorporating Prussia into a united Germany for it might result in weakening Prussia's dominant position. But finally, when the German nobility began to accept the new popular opinion, von Bismarck reluctantly began to prepare to unite Germany.
Siege of Paris
Main article: Siege of Paris
The Siege of Paris lasting from September 19, 1870 – January 28, 1871 was the final defeat of the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War.
The Loire Campaign
While siege operations were taking place in and around Paris, the German armies attempted to destroy the last remaining French field armies in and around the Loire river south of Paris. The German armies eventually won the battles of Orleans and Le Mans, shattering the French Army of the Loire.
| Loire Campaign |
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| Coulmiers – Orleáns – Le Mans |
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Eastern Campaign
Following the destruction of the French Army of the Loire, remnants of the Loire army gathered in eastern France to form the Army of the East, commanded by General Charles Bourbaki. In a final attempt to cut the German supply lines in north-east France, Bourbaki's army marched north to attack the Prussian siege of Belfort in an attempt to relieve the beleaguered French defenders. In three days of bitter fighting at the battle of Belfort, the East army failed to relieve the siege and was in turn counter-attacked in the rear by a detachment of German troops recently arrived from the siege of Paris. Surrounded on all sides, the Army of the East retreated to neutral Switzerland to be disarmed and interned.
The naval war
At the outset of the war, elements of the 470-ship French Navy put to sea and attempted a blockade of the north German coast, which the relatively small north German navy (Norddeutsche Bundesmarine) could do little to oppose. Despite this, the blockade was only partially successful as the French navy suffered chronic shortages of coal and the lack of a forward base in the North Sea and Baltic Sea.
To take pressure from the expected German attack into Alsace-Lorraine, Napoleon III and others in the French high command planned at the outset of the war to launch a seaborne invasion of northern Germany. It was hoped that the invasion would not only divert German troops from the front, but also inspire Denmark to assist with its 50,000 strong army and the substantial Danish Navy. Prussian junkers in particular feared a French invasion of Pomerania which would incite the ethnic Poles there to rebellion. However it was discovered that Prussia had recently installed formidable coastal defenses around the major north German ports, including coastal artillery batteries consisting of Krupp heavy artillery tubes. The French Navy lacked the necessary heavy weaponry to deal with these coastal defences which made a seaborne invasion of northern Germany impossible.
As the autumn storms of the North Sea took their toll on the patrolling French ships, the blockade became less and less effective. By September 1870 the blockade was finally abandoned altogether for the winter, and the French Navy retired to ports along the English Channel.
The French Marines and naval infantry tasked with the invasion of northern Germany were subsequently dispatched to bolster the French Army of Châlons, where they were captured at the Battle of Sedan along with Napoleon III. Suffering a severe shortage of officers following the capture of most of the professional French army at the Siege of Metz and the battle of Sedan, naval officers were taken from their ships to officer the hastily assembled gardes mobiles or French reserve army units. As a result the French Navy remained in port for the rest of the war.
Isolated engagements took place between French and German ships in other theaters, such as the blockade by FS Dupleix of the German ship Hertha in Nagasaki, Japan.
Armistice
An armistice was signed on January 28, 1871, ten days after Wilhelm's proclamation as German emperor at Versailles. The preliminary Franco-German peace treaty was signed at Versailles on February 26, 1871.
The Treaty of Frankfurt signed on (May 10, 1871) stipulated that France was to pay Germany a war indemnity of 5 billion francs and to cede three eastern départements (Alsace and Lorraine) originally seized from the Holy Roman Empire by Louis XIV.
Aftermath
German troops continued to occupy parts of northern France and Parisian forts until the last payment of reparations was completed in September 1873, ahead of schedule. The French territories surrendered to Germany became the German imperial province of Elsass-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine).
Many in France found the humiliation of the defeat hard to bear, especially the National Guard and the workers of Paris. Refusing to accept defeat and blaming the conservative government for failing to organise an effective national resistance, Parisians seized control of the French capital on March 18 and established the Paris Commune. The French Army was permitted to pass through German lines outside the city, and proceeded to suppress the revolt. Tens of thousands of workers and revolutionaries were executed in the "Bloody Week" (May 21–May 28) as the new French government forcibly re-established control of the capital. Memories of the Commune continued to divide both the left and right of French politics. The unique social experiment of the Paris Commune would later serve as an inspiration for Karl Marx and the development of communism.
Italian unification
Italy was quick to use the power vacuum caused by the French defeats to complete the unification of Italian states. Due to wartime military commitments against Germany, France was no longer able to guarantee the independence of the Papal States from Italy.
The French garrison in Rome had already been withdrawn starting in July 1870, and following the surrender of the Napoleon III and the Army of Châlons at the battle of Sedan, the Papal States found itself deprived of its principal benefactor. Italy declared war on the Papal States on September 10, 1870, and on September 20 Italian forces occupied Rome which later became the Italian capital. Apart from irredenta in Austria-Hungary, the unification of Italy was complete.
Advances in military science and technology
In most industrialised countries universal conscription replaced professional standing armies for the next one hundred years, which (along with soaring birth rates) resulted in huge national armies. Those countries without a general staff soon established one with special emphasis on central planning. The study of logistics expanded to include new communication technologies such as rail transport and telegraphy. Moltkean operational strategy and tactics became the standard curriculum at most military academies throughout the world. The perceived overwhelming success of artillery and firepower in general over entrenched defenders came to dominate battlefield tactics. However, the lessons of the battles of Mars-La-Tour and Gravelotte were forgotten, in which thousands of Germans perished in frontal assaults against entrenched French positions, and would have to be painfully re-learned in subsequent conflicts such as the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 and the Boer War. Likewise, the collapse of French morale and the poor planning by the French commanders gave the false impression of the superiority of élan and offensive-spirit over defensive firepower, and the cult of the offensive was firmly established in military thinking.
New balance of power in Europe
France's defeat, the unification of Germany and the resulting final unification of Italy swept away the old balance of power that existed in European politics and completely redrew the political map. France became a republic (February 1875), and republicanism again became mainstream politics in France, while in Germany militarism moved to the forefront. The war embittered Franco-German relations for decades to come, contributing to French agitation for revanche — revenge for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine — which gave its name to the phenomenon of revanchism, the desire to punish a past enemy and regain former territories. Post-war, Bismarck worked hard to keep France diplomatically isolated but these efforts ceased with his dismissal by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890, allowing France to forge new relationships with the other European Great Powers. The unease with which the other Great Powers viewed the new militaristic Germany was the start of a chain of events which led directly to World War I and World War II.
