Prussia’s annexations in 1866

THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN FRANCE AND PRUSSIA

1867 Luxemburg Crisis (February-May)

1868 Bismarck creates parliament for Zollverein

1869 Napoleon III signs treaties with Austria & Italy

Feb 1870Spanish provisional government offers throne to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen

July 14, 1870

Publication of the Ems Dispatch; France declares war the next day

August 6, 1870

Prussians lose heavily at Spicheren and Froeschweiler but continue to advance

August 16-18, 1870

Battles of Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte close the ring around Metz

Sep. 1/2, 1870

Battle of Sedan, surrender by Napoleon III and Marshal MacMahon

“Germany’s Future:

Will they all be able to were one

hat?I fear it will be a spiked helmet!” (German cartoon

from the late summer of 1866)

French cartoon of King William as a cannibal, devouring the

princes of northern

Germany (early 1867)

“The German Pasture” Kladderadatsch, 31 March 1867:

A liberal commentary on the Luxemburg Crisis

“The Black Ghost,” Kladderadatsch, 20 June 1869

Anti-Prussian sentiment: Election Day in the Bavarian Alps, February 1870, when the clericalist “Patriot

Party” won big

Count Benedetti presents French demands to King William I at Bad Ems, July 13, 1870

“Departure of King William for the Army, July 31, 1870” (the king joins the “nation in arms”)

Napoleon III relied on the most experienced army of professional soldiers in Europe

Field Marshal Bazaine, conqueror of Puebla

Field Marshal Mac-Mahon, conqueror of Algeria,

Sebastopol, & Lombardy

“France [to Britannia]: ‘Pray

stand back, Madam. You mean well, but this is an old family

quarrel, and we must fight it out!”

(Punch, July 23, 1870)

“The whole gang: This is what

wanted to overrun Germany!”

Kladderadatsch, 21 August 1870:Napoleon III, his

son Lulu, his whores, African

soldiers, monks, & henchmen gather under the Papal

crown….

Prussian troops in the field ate “pea sausage” –this Berlin factory employed 1,700 workers to produce 65 tons a day

P.-L.-N. Grolleron,

“The Charge”(1870):

“L’audace, toujours

l’audace!”

THE GERMAN INVASION OF FRANCE, AUGUST-OCTOBER 1870

TURNING POINTS IN THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR

August 6, 1870: Steinmetz bungles the attack at Spicheren, but the French are routed anyway; at Froeschwiller MacMahon is overwhelmed by numbersAugust 16, Mars-la-Tour: Alvensleben launches foolhardy attack with four divisions against four French corps, but Bazaine is so cautious that he allows the Prussians to seize the highway between Metz and VerdunAugust 18, Gravelotte-St. Privat: 200,000 Germans drive Bazaine’s 160,000 French back into Metz, despite losing 16,000 men.September 2, Sedan: Napoleon III surrenders with 80,000 troopsSeptember 18, 1870—January 28, 1871: Siege of Paris leads to Armistice

The German envelopment of Metz, August 14-15, 1870

The different types of French troops: National Guards, Mobile Guards, Pompiers, and volunteers (cf. Wawro, pp. 42-6, 75-6)

Battle of Mars-la-Tour, August 16, 1870

General Bredow’s successful cavalry charge at Mars-la-Tour

BATTLE OF GRAVELOTTE, Morning of August 18:Moltke orders the Saxon XII Corps to wheel to the

north

Battle of Gravelotte: The Climax

“The Cemetery of Saint-Privat, 18 August 1870” (1881)

“King William at the Battlefield at Metz”(i.e., Gravelotte, August 18, 1870)

THE GERMAN INVASION OF FRANCE, AUGUST-OCTOBER 1870

German artillery park at Sedan, September 1870:The new Krupp breech-loading steel cannon

THE ENCIRCLEMENT OF THE FRENCH ARMY AT SEDAN,

SEPTEMBER 1, 1870 (German units in black)

“The Last Bullets” (a French view of snipers holding off the Bavarians at Bazeilles, outside

Sedan)

Bismarck accompanies Napoleon III to meetKing William I on the morning of September 2, 1870

The Provisional Government of the Third Republic, led by Jules Ferry, Jules Favre, & Leon Gambetta, 4 September 1870

Anton von Werner, “A Billet Outside Paris, October 1870”

(he is singing Schumann)

Anton von Werner,

“Helmuth von Moltke in his

Office at Versailles” (November

1870)

Anton von Werner, “The German Headquarters in Versailles”

(December 1870)

Ernest Meissonier, “The Siege of Paris” (1870-1884)

“His Holiness, William the Butcher”

(Autumn 1870), who stands for “the law of the

sword”

Alphonse Neuville, “Le Bourget” (a failed sortie from Paris on December 21, 1870)