DR STEPHEN BADSEY is a Senior - cuttersguide.com

DR STEPHEN BADSEY is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is a specialist on the history of military ideas and the role of the media in warfare. He has written and published widely on military subjects ranging from the Crimean War to modern peacekeeping and the future of warfare. He has made frequent contributions as a historian for television and other media, and for numerous tours of battlefields including those of the Franco-Prussian War.

PROFESSOR ROBERT O'NEILL, AO D.PHIL. (Oxon), Hon D. Litt.(ANU), FASSA, Fr Hist S, is the Series Editor of Essential Histories. His wealth of knowledge and expertise shapes the series content and provides up-to-theminute research and theory. Born in 1936 an Australian citizen, he served in the Australian army (1955-68) and has held a number of eminent positions in history circles, including the Chichele Professorship of the History of War at All Souls College, University of Oxford, 1987-2001, and the Chairmanship of the Board of the Imperial War Museum and the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London. He is the author of many books including works on the German Army and the Nazi party, and the Korean and Vietnam wars. Now based in Australia on his retirement from Oxford he is the Chairman of the Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Essential Histories

The Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871

Essential Histories

The Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871

Stephen Badsey

OSPREY

PUBLISHING

Introduction

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 was the largest and most important war fought in Europe between the age of Napoleon and the First World War. Since it ended in the establishment of a new German Empire, contemporaries often called it the 'Franco-German War', although neither name fits it perfectly. In 1870-71, 'Prussian' forces included those from an alliance of other German states, but Prussia and its interests dominated, just as in the Second World War German armies often included forces from other Axis members. The creation and continued existence of this new united Germany set the agenda for European international politics and war for the next century. The war also marked the end of the French Second Empire under Napoleon III, and with it the end of France's dominant

position in Europe. This was something that was never recovered, although in the longer term the war also established France as the most important and enduring republic on the continent. In a wider sense, both sides were conscious of a rivalry for dominance in western Europe between the French and German peoples that went back for centuries, chiefly for control of the lands that lie on either side of the Rhine and its tributaries from the North Sea to the Alps.

Despite its apparently ancient origins, the Franco-Prussian War also marked the beginning of the creation of modern Europe in every sense. It featured a mixture of aristocratic and conservative behaviour based

'Prussian Infantry at the Charge'. Engraving from The Graphic of London, 3 September 1870. (Ann Ronan Picture Library)

8 Essential Histories ? The Franco-Prussian War

A DUEL TO THE DEATH.

France:'Pray stand back Madam. You mean well; but this is an old family quarrel, and we must fight it out!' A cartoon by JohnTenniel from the London magazine Punch, 23 July 1870.The figure of Britannia (representing Great Britain) attempts to restrain Napoleon III representing France and Wilhelm I representing Prussia. (Ann Ronan Picture Library)

on old ideas of personal rule and the Concert of Europe (see page 13), together with the new realities of power politics and national bureaucracies. It was the first experience of what the Prussians called Millionenkrieg, 'the war of the millions', but both sides argued the formalities of international law, and

Introduction 9

treated the frontiers of neutral countries as if the laws that protected them were unbreakable barriers. Both King Wilhelm I of Prussia and Emperor Napoleon III of France made critical distinctions between their behaviour in the private sphere and as public heads of state. In its conduct also, the war mixed the weapons, tactics and methods of an earlier era with new military science and new political attitudes. Personalities decided this war, but so did armaments factories, public opinion, military staffwork and mass revolution.

The events of the Franco-Prussian War fell into three main phases. Beginning in July 1870, it opened with a short campaign lasting until September, in which the major battles took place, after which it was largely considered to be over. The war continued until January 1871 because both sides could not agree peace terms. Finally, with peace declared and the war officially over, there was an attempted revolution and civil war in Paris known as the Commune. This was suppressed by the French in May, just as the Treaty of Frankfurt formally ending the war came into force.

War was declared by the French over a minor issue, although the circumstances were engineered by the minister-president of Prussia, Count Otto von Bismarck. Prussia was supported by the other members of the North German Confederation, and by the states of southern Germany. Contrary to expectations, it was the Prussians and their allies who invaded France, a move for which the French were unprepared. From this bad start, the French Army suffered a series of humiliating defeats which resulted in one of its two field armies being trapped in Metz, where it surrendered in October after a siege of two months, and the other army being forced to surrender together with Napoleon III himself in early September at Sedan after being defeated and unable to escape.

As a result of these defeats, in September the Second Empire was overthrown in

A French popular print depicting French troops firing on Communards in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery and the Chaumont Heights in Paris during the final suppression of the Commune in 'Bloody Week', 21-28 May 1871. (Ann Ronan Picture Library)

10 Essential Histories ? The Franco-Prussian War

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