Imperial Conflict from 1850 to 1870

Nations and Empire

The German Confederation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Puk_jLli5s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hOXFUVXVyU&feature=related

For more details on this topic, see Constitution of the German Empire

The Franco-Prussian War

Oil and the First World War

The single major cause of the First World War was the implosion of the Ottoman Empire. Although

this collapse began before the dawn of the twentieth century, it was accelerated by the interests that the

western powers had in gaining access to the oil resources of the Middle East in a context dominated by

skyrocketing demand for black gold and the fact that this resource could not be obtained in Europe. The

United States and Russia - by contrast - had access to oil on their own soil if Russia -- due to the

incompetence of its ruling elites, both Tsarists and Communist.

However, this is not to say that there were not other, contributory causes. Most notably, the

attempted encirclement of Germany by Russia, Britain and France acting in concert, effectively added to the

tensions to the point that they were able to explode into war. Whilst this might seem that Germany was the

victim of the process -- a Germany that was later to pursue its military goals in conjunction with a genocidal

racism -- the different imperial nations at the turn of the twentieth century were all in the grip of an

exacerbated nationalsim, often tinged with anti-semitism.

The Breaking Down of the Vienna Balance of Power

The peace would only last

until the Ottoman Empire had declined enough to become a target for the others.

(See History of the Balkans.)

This instigated the Crimean War in 1854 and began a tenser period of minor clashes among the globe-

spanning empires of Europe that set the stage for a series of wars leading up to the the First World War.

the Crimean War (1854–56),

the Italian War of Independence (1859),

the Austro-Prussian War (1866)

and the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71).

the end of the various wars turned

the Kingdom of Sardinia

and the Kingdom of Prussia

into the Italian and German nation-states,

significantly changing the balance of power in Europe.

a) The Crimean War. French history and policy at the end of the nineteenth century is often seen in

direct relation to the Secdond Reich. However, the position of the French should also be placed in the

context of the rise of the Empire-states (as this also engendered the nation-states as elements in the conflict).

The Crimean War represented the rise of Russia and Russia's drive to take control of a crumbling Ottoman

Empire.

This was a process that brought its interests, temporarily, into alliance with Germany.

b) The Prusso-Austrian War. The causes of the Franco-Prussian War are deeply rooted in the

events surrounding balance of power after the Napoleonic Wars. France and Prussia had been combatants

against each other, with France on the losing side and Napoleon I exiled to Elba. Upon the ascension of

Napoleon III, which occurred as a result of a coup in France and Otto von Bismarck's becoming minister in

Prussia, events soon brought them to war after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866.

~ 1865. In October 1865, Napoleon III, ruler of France,

met with Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck in Biarritz, France.

It was there that the two men struck a deal-

France would not get involved in any future actions between Prussia and Austria

or ally herself with Austria if Prussia did not allow Austria to claim Venetia.

When

Austria and Prussia met in May 1866,

Bismarck honored the agreement made in Biarritz the previous year

and refused to allow Austria to have Venetia.

Austria

then attempted to guarantee Italy Venetia if they remained neutral,

but the two nations were unable to agree on a suitable arrangement

as an alliance formed earlier in the year bound Italy to Prussia.

Napoleon III then committed a serious blunder

by agreeing with Austria in a treaty to accept Venetia

by allowing Austria to go to war with Prussia,

a move which violated the agreement Napoleon had made with Bismarck.[1]

After Prussia emerged victorious over the Austrian army at the Battle of Königgrätz

(also known as Sadowa or Sadová) in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866,

negotiations were being held between Austria and Prussia in July and August of that year.[2]

Unfortunately for Napoleon III, it was during this period

that he first discovered that a bladder stone was causing him great pains,

created from gonorrheal infection.[3]

His condition was so bad during these precious negotiations

that he was forced to retire to Vichy to recuperate,

removing himself from Paris.

Although the emperor favored neutrality as to not to upset events, certain members of his circle thought it

was an unwise move, considering the opportunity to prevent Prussia from becoming too strong. One of these

men,

foreign minister Édouard Drouyn de Lhuys,

convinced the emperor to plant 80,000 men on the eastern border to convince Wilhelm I

to maintain the balance of power in Europe.

Despite this important victory, de Lhuys was subverted by several other ministers, and Napoleon III changed

his mind, reverting back to a position of neutrality. This change of heart would end up causing de Lhuys to

ultimately lose his position.[4] Napoleon III's wife Empress Eugénie, who took an active part throughout his

rule, referred to this time much later as "the critical date, the Empire's fatal date; it was during these months

of July and August that our fate was sealed! Of all that period, there is not a single fact, not a single detail

that has not remained in my mind."[5]

Franz Joseph of Austria accepted Bismarck's terms under the Peace of Prague. Using this to his

advantage,

Bismarck declared the German Confederation of 1815 null and void,

and created a new network of states under Prussian control.

Frankfurt-am-Main, Hannover, Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), Holstein, Nassau, and Schleswig were

annexed outright

while Hesse-Darmstadt, Mecklenburg, Saxony, the Thuringian duchies, as well as the cities of Bremen,

Hamburg, and Lübeck were combined into a new North German Confederation that governed nominally and

was actually controlled by Prussia herself.[6]

Napoleon III had tried to secure territorial compensation from both sides

before and after the Austro-Prussian War,

but despite his role as mediator during the peace negotiations

ended up with nothing.

He then hoped that Austria would join in a war of revenge,

and that her former allies,

particularly the south German states of Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria,

would join in the cause,

but the 1866 treaty came into effect:

all German states united militarily,

if not necessarily happily, to fight France.

Instead of a war of revenge against Prussia,

supported by various German allies, France

was now confronted with a unified German bloc.

Victory in the Franco-Prussian War proved the capstone of the nationalist issue.

In the first half of the 1860s,

Austria and Prussia both contended to speak for the German states;

both maintained they could support German interests abroad,

and protect German interests at home.

After the victory over Austria in 1866,

Prussia could assert her authority to speak for the German states

and defend German interests, at least internally;

Austria, on the other hand, directed more and more of her attention

to possessions in the Balkans.

c) The Turko-Russian War of 1870

Other Causes of the Franco-Prussian War

If the Franco-Prussian war is to be set in the context of the general breaking down of the Vienna

system – as this engendered centripetal and centrifugal forces – it was remarkable in that it illustrated the

growing power of Germany.

a) The Railways and Social History

~ Industrial revolution. In 30 years, Germany had fought with Britain for Europe's leading industrial

power, though it fell behind the United States. Representative of its industrial

was the steel giant Krupp,

whose first factory was built in Essen.

By 1902, the factory alone had become "A great city with its own streets, its own police force, fire

department and traffic laws. There are 150 kilometres of rail, 60 different factory buildings, 8,500 machine

tools, seven electrical stations, 140 kilometres of underground cable and 46 overhead."[6]

Under Bismarck, Germany was a world innovator in building the welfare state.

German workers enjoyed sickness, accident and maternity benefits,

canteens, changing rooms and a national pension scheme.[7]

A crucial factor,

representing something of a juncture between social history

based in an analysis of class tension

and a diplomatic history

represented by warring empires,

is provided by the development of the railways.

The railways are not only a factor in the development of industrialised, urban society, they are also of

prime importance in restructuring the relations between the empires and opening

up the possibility of land-based as opposed to sea-based empires.

Russia and Germany (by comparison with Britain, France, the Nertherlands, Spain and Portugal) came to the

fore in the twentieth century in direct relation to the revolution that this changed mode of transportation

represents. Consequently, a whole chapter is devoted to this phenomenon at a later point.

In this process, France is not taken in isolation but is understood in relation to the other major

empires of the period – and in particular in relation to Britain, Germany and Russia – as this involves a

complex pattern of alliance and counter-alliance that will determine the fate of the French state during the

period. The war with Prussia in 1870 – in which France was soundly and humiliatingly beaten – has a

profound influence on French mentalities and forms much of the backdrop to the First World War and the

alliance with the British and the Russians that this entailed.

To understand this aspect of the history, however, is also to understand to what extent Republican

ideals and imperial expansion were enmeshed during the period. These ideals were also created in the

cauldron of Franco-German conflict, a conflict that was to resurface, after the spectacular German defeat of

the French in 1870, with the First World War. This is also to understand the history of the period as being,

not simply that of the nation-state but of the empire-state as this supposes an understanding of the forces

leading to the creation of empire, its role in the French economy (and other European economies) and the

reasons why it was so ardently defended.

b) War as a principle of national unity

~ France. 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, French 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 ever more virulent demands for democratic reform

from leading republicans such as Jules Favre [9] ,

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 Maximilian I of Mexico in 1867.[10]

The French imperial government now looked to a diplomatic success

to stifle demands for a return to either a republic or a Bourbon monarchy.

A war with Prussia and resulting territorial gains in the Rhineland and later Luxembourg and Belgium

seemed the best hope

to unite the French nation behind the Bonapartist dynasty.

With the resulting prestige from a successful war,

Napoleon III could then safely suppress any lingering republican or revolutionary sentiment

behind reactionary nationalism and return France to the center of European politics.[11]

~ German expansion In 1866, most of the mid-sized German states had opposed Prussia;

by 1870, these states had been coerced and coaxed into mutually protective alliances with Prussia.

In the event that a European state declared war on one of their members, they all would come to the defense

of the attacked state. With skillful manipulation of European affairs,

Bismarck created a situation

in which France played the role of aggressor in German affairs,

and Prussia, that of protector of German rights and liberties.[85]

By 1870 three of the important lessons of the Austro-Prussian war became apparent:

through force of arms, a powerful state

could challenge the old alliances and spheres of influence established in 1815.

Through diplomatic maneuvering, a skillful leader could create

an environment in which a state would have to declare war first,

thus forcing states in protective alliances to come to the aid

of the so-called victim of external aggression.

Finally, Prussian military capacity far exceeded that of Austria, and Prussia was clearly

the only state within the Confederation specifically, and among the German states generally,

capable of protecting all of them from potential interference or aggression.

Prussia in turn was also beset with problems. While revolutionary fervour was far more muted than in

France, Prussia had in 1866 acquired millions of new citizens as a result of the Austro-Prussian War,[12]

which was also a civil war among German states.

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 failed to secure revanchist alliances from these states.

Denmark had twice fought Prussia during the First and Second Wars of Schleswig (a stalemate in the

1848–50, and a defeat in 1864 against a confederation of North German states and Austria under the

leadership of Prussia), and was unwilling to confront Prussia again.

As part of the settlement of the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, secret treaties of mutual defence were

signed between Prussia and Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg. What made them especially significant was

that not only were they secret, giving Napoleon III a false sense of security, but Bismarck had used Napoleon

III's earlier demand of territory along the Rhine to drive the southern German states into his arms.

By these treaties,

Prussia would defend all of the southern German states with its military power

as long as their states joined the Northern Confederation in defense of Prussia.

It was a bargain that would gravely threaten the French empereur and his designs on restoring French pride.

[17]

Bismarck was approached soon after the end of the war

by Napoleon III's ambassador to Prussia, Vincent Benedetti.

Benedetti brought with him a secret proposal by Napoleon III that France would approve of Bismarck's

acquisition of the northern German states and their control over the southern German states if Prussia

remained neutral while France annexed Belgium and Luxembourg.

France had earlier guaranteed the independence of Belgium in the Treaty of London in 1839 as an

"independent and perpetually neutral state", making the proposal a tacit agreement to break their promise.

Bismarck was very surprised since he had already gained a powerful position in Europe by the armistice, and

called Napoleon III's request among others later "like 'an innkeeper's bill' or a waiter asking for 'a tip'." He

asked Benedetti to provide the proposal in writing, and the ambassador obliged his request. This document

was to be important to Bismarck later on, to great effect.[7]

The remaining German kingdoms and principalities had maintained a steadfastly parochial attitude

towards Prussia and German unification. The German princes insisted

upon their independence and balked at any attempt

to create a federal state that would be dominated by Berlin.

Their suspicions were heightened by Prussia's quick victory and subsequent annexations.[13] Before the war,

only some Germans,

inspired by the recent unification of Italy,

accepted and supported what the princes began to realise,

that Germany must unite .[14]

Bismarck had an entirely different view after the war in 1866-

he was interested only in strengthening Prussia and pursuing this goal in terms of effective military

and diplomatic action.

Uniting Germany appeared immaterial to him

unless it improved Prussia's position.[15]

Bismarck had mentioned before the war the possibility of ceding territory along the Rhine to France, and

Napoleon III, urged by his representatives in France, used these casual references by Bismarck to press for

more of the territory that Prussia had received from Austria. These discussions, leaked by Bismarck to the

German states in the south,

turned former enemies into allies almost overnight,

receiving not only written guarantees but armies that would be under the control of Prussia.[16]

c) Diplomatic Structures

~ Austria. The Austrian Chancellor Count Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust was "impatient to take his

revenge on Bismarck for Sadowa." As a preliminary step, the Ausgleich with Hungary was "rapidly

concluded." Beust "persuaded Francis Joseph to accept Magyar demands which he had till then rejected."

[18]. However, Austria

~ Italy. would not support France unless Italy was part of the alliance.

Victor Emmanuel II and the Italian government wanted to support France,

but Italian public opinion was bitterly opposed so long as Napoleon III kept

a French garrison in Rome protecting Pope Pius IX,

thereby denying Italy the possession of its capital

(Rome had been declared capital of Italy in March 1861,

when the first Italian Parliament had met in Turin).

Napoleon III made various proposals for resolving the Roman Question, but Pius IX rejected them all.

Despite his previous support for Italian unification,

Napoleon did not wish to press the issue for fear of angering Catholics in France.

Raffaele De Cesare, an Italian journalist, political scientist, and author, noted that:

The alliance, proposed two years before 1870, between France, Italy, and Austria, was never concluded

because Napoleon III [...] would never consent to the occupation of Rome by Italy. [...]

He wished Austria to avenge Sadowa, either by taking part in a military action,

or by preventing South Germany from making common cause with Prussia. [...]

If he could insure, through Austrian aid,

the neutrality of the South German States in a war against Prussia,

he considered himself sure of defeating the Prussian army,

and thus would remain arbiter of the European situation.

But when the war suddenly broke out, before anything was concluded, the first unexpected French defeats

overthrew all previsions, and

raised difficulties for Austria and Italy

which prevented them from making common cause with France.

Wörth and Sedan followed each other too closely.

The Roman question was the stone tied to Napoleon's feet — that dragged him into the abyss. He

never forgot,

even in August 1870, a month before Sedan,

that he was a sovereign of a Catholic country,

that he had been made Emperor,

and was supported by the votes of the conservatives and the influence of the clergy;

and that it was his supreme duty not to abandon the Pontiff. [...]

For twenty years Napoleon III had been the true sovereign of Rome, where he had many friends and relations

[...] Without him the temporal power would never have been reconstituted, nor, being reconstituted, would

have endured.[19]

Another reason why Beusts's desired revanche against Prussia did not materialize was the fact that,

in 1870, the Hungarian Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy was "vigorously opposed." [20]

~ Russia. In addition to the problems facing Napoleon III in obtaining potential allies, Bismarck

worked feverishly to isolate France from the other European powers.

Since 1863, Bismarck had made efforts to cultivate Russia, co-operating, amongst other things,

in dealing with Polish insurgents.

This important move gained for Bismarck

the neutrality of Russia if Prussia went to war,

and it also prevented Austria from taking sides with France

as Austria fully supported the Poles.[21]

When Alexander II came to France on an official visit in 1867,

he was at the receiving end of an unsuccessful assassination attempt

by Polish-born Anton Berezovski while riding with Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie.

Tsar Alexander was very offended that not only had the French courts given Berezovski imprisonment

instead of death, but

the French press had sided with the Pole rather than Alexander.

This experience forever shattered his views of France,

and saw in the reaction his visit had received why his father had despised the French.[22]

In 1868 he held discussions with the Prussians,

intending to counter a possible Austrian alliance with Napoleon III by Franz Joseph.

If German forces were, for any reason, bogged down in the west,

then Prussia's eastern and southern flanks would have been highly vulnerable.

With his usual skill, Bismarck moved carefully to sidestep the nightmare.

The Russian government even went so far as to promise to send an army of 100,000 men

against the Austrians if Austria joined France in a war against Prussia.

Whilst at Ems in the crucial summer of 1870 Wilhelm I and Bismarck had meetings with Tsar Alexander,

also present in the spa town. Alexander, though not naturally pro-German, became very comfortable with

Prussian suggestions.[23] Bismarck also had talks at Ems with Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, the

Russian Foreign Minister, and was assured in mid July, days before the French declaration of war, that the

agreement of 1868 still held: in the event of Austrian mobilisation, the Russians confirmed that they would

send 300,000 troops into Galicia.[24] Bismarck now had all he wanted: a counter to Austria and the

assurance of a one-front war.

~ United Kingdom. Bismarck then made Benedetti's earlier draft public to The Times in London

that demanded Belgium and Luxembourg

as the price for remaining neutral during the Austro-Prussian War.

Sensitive to the threat of

a major power controlling

the strategically significant Low Countries and the English Channel coastline,

the United Kingdom government in particular took

a decidedly cool attitude to these French demands,

and the British people were disturbed by this subversive attempt

at going back on Napoleon III's word.

Therefore, Britain as a nation did nothing to aid France.

The Prime Minister, William Gladstone, expressed his thoughts on the matter to Queen Victoria by

writing to her that "Your majesty will, in common with the world, have been shocked and startled."[25]

Though it had enjoyed some time as the leading power of continental Europe, the French Empire found itself

dangerously isolated.

~ Benelux. The king of the Netherlands, William III, was under a personal union with Luxembourg

that guaranteed its sovereignty. Napoleon III had taken note that the king had amassed certain personal debts

that would make a sale of Luxembourg to France possible.

He had estimated that there would be little trouble acquiring such a territory

as the people were not of German stock, and the Prussian army defending its southern border

would have to be removed at some point.

However, Luxembourg lies astride one of the principal invasion routes an army would use

to invade either France or Germany from the other.

The city of Luxembourg's fortifications were considered "the Gibraltar of the North",

and neither side could tolerate the other controlling such a strategic location.

The pressure on Bismarck

to object not only came from his monarch William I,

but from Chief of Staff of the Prussian army Helmuth von Moltke.

Moltke had additional reason to object- he desired war with France, stating flatly that "Nothing could be

more welcome to us than to have now the war that we must have."[26]

Bismarck balked at such talk about war.

He refused to actually engage France on the basis that he firmly believed that Prussia

would gain a far more decisive advantage by merely opposing the sale,

and that Napoleon III could be thwarted due to his fear of war with Prussia.[27]

Assuming that Bismarck would not object,

the French government was shocked to learn that instead

Bismarck, Prussia and the North German Confederation were threatening war

should the sale be completed.

Napoleon III had let precious months peel away in trying to complete the transaction, allowing Bismarck

time

to rally support to Prussia's objection.[28]

To mediate the dispute, the United Kingdom 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 desires.[29]

d) The Ostensible Cause: German and Spanish Alliance

Traditional history – of the sort that is still taught in schools – derives the causes of war from

personal or dynastic fallings out between kings and queens. This is carried over into popular media

representations of the same forces. A substantial part of the population, as a result, will attribute the main

cause of the First World War to the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

The conflict was a culmination of years of tension between the two powers,

which finally came to a head over the issue of

a Hohenzollern candidate for the vacant Spanish throne,

following the deposition of Isabella II in 1868.

The public release of

the Ems Dispatch, which played up alleged insults

between the Prussian king and the French ambassador, inflamed public opinion on both sides.

Differences between

France and Prussia

over the possible accession to the Spanish throne of a German candidate

— whom France opposed — was the French pretext

to declare the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71).

The next chink in the armor created in 1815 at Vienna—

and protected and nurtured by Metternich and his conservative allies

over the following forty years—appeared in Spain.

In 1868,

a revolution there had overthrown Queen Isabella II,

and the throne had remained empty while Isabella lived in sumptuous exile in Paris.

The Spanish, looking for a suitable Catholic successor,

had offered this post to three other European princes,

each rejected by Napoleon III (as regional power-broker).

Finally, in 1870

the Regency offered the crown to Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen,

a prince of the Catholic cadet Hohenzollern line.

The ensuing furor has been dubbed by historians as the Hohenzollern candidature.[86]

Over the next few weeks, the Spanish offer turned into the talk of Europe.

Bismarck encouraged Leopold to accept the offer.[87]

A successful installment of a Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen king in Spain

would mean that two countries on either side of France both

had German kings of Hohenzollern descent,

The Spanish throne had been vacant since the revolution of September 1868, and the Spanish offered the

throne to the German prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a Catholic as well as a distant cousin of

King Wilhelm of Prussia. Leopold and Wilhelm I were both uninterested, but the wily Bismarck was acutely

interested as it was an opportunity to once again best Napoleon III. Bismarck persuaded Leopold's father to

accept the offer for his nation, and it was accepted instead by Leopold himself in June 1870.[30]

which may have been a pleasing prospect for Bismarck,

but was unacceptable to either Napoleon III

or to Agenor, duc de Gramont, his minister of foreign affairs.

Gramont wrote a sharply formulated ultimatum to Wilhelm, as head of the Hohenzollern family, stating that

if any Hohenzollern prince should accept the crown of Spain, the French government would respond,

although he left ambiguous the nature of such response.

The prince withdrew as a candidate, thus defusing the crisis,

but the French ambassador to Berlin would not let the issue lie.[88]

He approached the Prussian king directly

while Wilhelm vacationed in Ems Spa,

demanding the King release a statement saying

he would never countenance the installment of a Hohenzollern on the throne of Spain.

Wilhelm refused to give such an encompassing statement, and he sent Bismarck a dispatch by telegram

describing the French demands. Bismarck used the king's telegram,

called the Ems Dispatch, as a template for a short statement to the press.

With its wording shortened and sharpened by Bismarck, and further alterations made in the course of

translation by the French agency Havas, the so-called Ems Dispatch raised an angry furor in France. The

French public, still aggravated over the defeat at Sadová, demanded war

On 2 July 1870, "Marshall Prim [who held power in Spain] announced in Madrid that the Spanish

government had offered the crown of Spain to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern." [31]

Fearing that a

Hohenzollern king in Prussia and another one in Spain

would put France into a two-front situation,

France this time was determined to stand up to the expansion of Prussian influence.

Napoleon III at this time was suffering the most unbearable pain from his stones,[32] and the Empress

Eugénie essentially

was charged with countering the designs of Prussia.

She had

a vital interest in the crisis as she was of Spanish blood and a member of the royal line.

The secretary of foreign affairs, Duc Antoine de Gramont,

was directed by the Empress to be the principal instrument by which France

would press for war should Leopold ascend the throne.

Gramont delivered a speech in front of the Chambre législative, proclaiming that "We shall know how to

fulfill our duty without hesitation and without weakness." The fatal mistake would soon come as a result of

Gramont's inexperience, for he counted on alliances that only existed in his mind.[33]

The French press immediately protested the prospect of a Hohenzollern on the Spanish throne,

and on 6 July the new Foreign Minister, the Duc de Gramont [...]

told the Chamber that France would not permit Prince Leopold to become King of Spain.

[The French Premier Emile] Ollivier added that he had no doubt that

Prussia would yield in the face of French firmness,

but that 'if war be necessary, the government will not enter upon it

without the consent of the Legislative Body.'

Gramont's statement and Ollivier's mention of war were greeted with great enthusiasm by the deputies, and

in the public galleries the ladies rose to their feet and waved their handkerchiefs as they joined in the wild

applause. Next day the

Paris press called for war with Prussia,

and on 8 July their language was even more violent.

The government instructed [Comte Vincente] Benedetti,

the French ambassador to Prussia, to demand that King William

should publicly refuse his consent to Prince Leopold's acceptance of the throne of Spain.[31]

On 11 July, Benedetti spoke to King William at the watering spa at Ems, and

asked him to refuse his consent to Prince Leopold's candidature;

Bismarck was on holiday at his estates in East Prussia.

King William agreed to order Prince Leopold to withdraw. Ollivier announced the Prussian surrender in the

Chamber on 12 July and hailed it as

a French triumph and a Prussian humiliation.

Bismarck thought the same and considered resigning as Prime Minister.

Gramont and Ollivier did not conceal their regret that the Prussians had given in;

and the deputies and most of the press were disappointed that that there was to be no war. [...]

Louis Napoleon sensed the public regret that there would be no war. 'The country will be disappointed,' he

cabled to Ollivier on 12 July; 'but what can we do?' He was in complete agreement with the decision which

was taken by the Cabinet on the same day to ask for further guarantees from Prussia and to require King

William to give an undertaking that he would never in the future allow Prince Leopold to accept the crown of

Spain. When Benedetti confronted King William on the promenade at Ems on the afternoon of 13 July and

asked him to give this undertaking, the King was annoyed, refused to do so, and walked away a little

abruptly.[34]

Following this direct confrontation, which had bypassed diplomatic protocols, King Wilhelm then

sent a message to Berlin reporting this event with the French ambassador, and Bismarck shrewdly edited it to

make it "like a red tag to the bull" for the French government.[35] The dispatch was edited as follows (with

the words sent in bold):

Count Benedetti spoke to me on the promenade, in order to demand from me,

finally in a very importunate manner, that I should authorize him to telegraph

at once that I bound myself for all future time never again to give my consent

if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. I refused at last somewhat sternly, as it is neither right

nor possible to undertake engagements of this kind à tout jamais.

Naturally I told him that I had as yet received no news, and as he was earlier informed about Paris

and Madrid than myself, he could clearly see that my government once more had no hand in the matter. His

Majesty has since received a letter from the Prince. His Majesty having told Count Benedetti that he was

awaiting news from the Prince, has decided with reference to the above demand, upon the representation of

Count Eulenburg and myself, not to receive Count Benedetti again, but only to let him be informed through

an aide-de-camp that his Majesty had now received from the Prince confirmation of the news which

Benedetti had already received from Paris, and had nothing further to say to the ambassador. His Majesty

leaves it to your Excellency whether Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection should not be at once

communicated both to our ambassadors and to the press.[36]

This dispatch made the encounter more heated than it really was. Known as the Ems Dispatch, it was

released to the press.

It was designed to give the French the impression that King Wilhelm I

had insulted the French Count Benedetti,

and to give the Prussian people the impression that the Count had insulted the King.

It succeeded in both of its aims- Gramont called it "a blow in the face of France", and the members of the

French legislative body spoke of

taking "immediate steps to safeguard the interests, the security, and the honor of France."[37]

On 19 July 1870 "Le Sourd, the French Chargé d'Affaires, delivered Napoleon's declaration of war at the

Foreign Office" in Berlin.[38] 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.[39]

At the outbreak of the war, European

public opinion heavily favored the Germans.

For example, many Italians attempted to sign up as volunteers at the Prussian embassy in Florence, and a

Prussian diplomat visited Giuseppe Garibaldi in Caprera.

The Dramatic Course of the War

France mobilized, and on 19 July

declared war on Prussia only, but the other German states quickly joined on Prussia's side.

The superiority of the Prussian and German forces was soon evident,

due in part to efficient

a) use of railways Prussia had

the fourth most dense rail network in the world,

France came fifth[8].

b) and impressively superior Krupp steel artillery.

The reorganization of

the military by Roon

and the operational strategy of Moltke

combined against France to successful effect.

The speed of

Prussian mobilization astonished the French,

and the Prussian ability to concentrate power at specific points,

reminiscent of Napoleon I's strategies seventy years earlier,

overwhelmed French mobilization.

Utilizing the efficiently laid rail grid, Prussian troops were delivered to battle areas rested and prepared to

fight. French troops had to march for miles to reach combat zones. After several battles, notably Spicheren,

Wörth, Mars la Tour, and Gravelotte, the Germans defeated the main French armies and advanced on the

primary city of Metz, and the French capital, Paris.

They captured the French emperor,

and took an entire army as prisoners at Sedan on 1 September 1870.[91]

Because of their defensive treaties, joint southern-German and Prussian troops,

under the command of Moltke,

repelled French troops which had occupied Saarbrücken

and proceeded to invade France in August 1870.

After a few weeks, the French army was finally forced to capitulate in the fortress of Sedan.

Napoleon III was captured

with his whole army on 2 September.

The humiliating capture of the French Emperor, and the loss of the French army itself, which marched into

captivity at a makeshift camp in the Saarland ("Camp Misery", the French called it), threw the French

government into turmoil; Napoleon's energetic opponents overthrew his government and proclaimed the

Third Republic.[92]

September 1870 and the Seige of Paris

This first Government of the Third Republic, headed by the

President, General Louis Jules Trochu, ruled during the Siege of Paris

(19 September 1870 – 28 January 1871).

September 1870: following the collapse of the Empire of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War

the Third Republic was created and the Government of National Defence ruled during the Siege of

Paris (19 September 1870 – 28 January 1871).

French Emperor Napoleon III was taken prisoner and the Second French Empire collapsed, yet the

new republic decided to prolong the war for several months.

the Third Republic was declared in Paris on 4 September 1870,

and French resistance continued under the Government of National Defence

and later Adolphe Thiers.

, Léon Gambetta, governed the provinces from the city of Tours.

Gambetta's stance has been explained by reference to his status as a republican lawyer,

who fought from the bar instead of the barricade[2]

and also to his father having been a grocer in Marseille.

As a small-scale producer during the decades of the Second Industrial Revolution in France, Joseph

Gambetta had chain groceries taking business away from his establishment. This added a measure of

resentment to the "petit bourgeois" identity. This resentment was not only directed at bourgeois industrial

capitalism, but also at the worker, who was now proclaimed as the backbone of the French economy,

stripping the title from the small, independent shopkeeper.[3] This resentment may have been passed down

from father to son, and manifested itself in an unwillingness to support the lower-class Communards

usurpation of what rightfully belonged to the "petit bourgeoisie."

Early in his political career, Gambetta was influenced by Le Programme de Belleville, the seventeen

statutes that defined the radical program in French politics throughout the Third Republic. This made him the

leading defender of the lower classes in the Corps Législatif.

At first

opposed to the war with Germany,

he did not, like some of his colleagues, refuse to vote for funds for the army,

but took a patriotic line and accepted that the war had been forced on France.

When the news of the disaster at Sedan reached Paris, Gambetta called for strong measures. He

proclaimed the deposition of the emperor at the corps législatif,

and the establishment of a republic at the Hôtel de Ville.

He was one of the

first members of the new Government of National Defense, becoming Minister of the Interior.

He advised his colleagues to leave Paris and run the government from some provincial city.

This advice was rejected because of fear of another revolution in Paris, and

a delegation to organize resistance in the provinces was despatched to Tours,

but when this was seen to be ineffective, Gambetta himself (7 October) left Paris

in a hot air balloon – the "Armand-Barbès" – and upon arriving at Tours

took control as minister of the interior and of war.

Aided by Freycinet, a young officer of engineers, as his assistant secretary of war, he displayed prodigious

energy and intelligence. He quickly organized an army, which might have relieved Paris if Metz had held

out,

but Bazaine's surrender brought the army of the Prussian crown prince into the field,

and success was impossible.

After the French defeat near Orléans early in December

the seat of government was transferred to Bordeaux.

Effects of the War

The Prussian and German victory brought about

the final unification of the German Empire under King William I of Prussia.

It also marked the downfall of Napoleon III

and the end of the Second French Empire, which was replaced by

the Third Republic.

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871

resulted in the defeat of France,

and the overthrow of Emperor Napoleon III and his Second French Empire.

After the fall of Napoleon III following the Battle of Sedan, Bismarck's demand for the return of Alsace

caused a dramatic shift in that sentiment,

which was best exemplified by the reaction of Garibaldi soon after the revolution in Paris,

who told the Movimento of Genoa on 7 September 1870 that

"Yesterday I said to you: war to the death to Bonaparte.

Today I say to you: rescue the French Republic by every means."[40]

France's experience was somewhat unique. Having been defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, the

country was required to pay £200 million in reparations to the Germans and was already reeling when the

1873 crash occurred.[9] The French adopted a policy of

deliberate deflation while paying off the reparations.[9]