By secret defensive alliances (-):
Bavaria
Baden
Württemberg
Hesse-Darmstadt
Francois Achille Bazin
Patrice de MacMahon
Helmut Karl Bernhard von Moltke (the Elder)
139,000 dead and 143,000 injured
52,313 dead and 89,732 injured
Franco-Prussian War- - a military conflict between the empire of Napoleon III and Prussia seeking European hegemony. The war, provoked by the Prussian Chancellor O. Bismarck and formally started by Napoleon III, ended in the defeat and collapse of the French Empire, as a result of which Prussia managed to transform the North German Confederation into a single German Empire.
Background to the conflict
Main article: Luxembourg question
The most important thing in this passage is the instruction to "limit the size of hostilities." It refers to Austria kept her from intervening in the war on the side of France.
Italy and the Franco-Prussian War
During the Franco-Prussian War, France, Austria-Hungary and Prussia tried to persuade Italy to their side. But none of the countries has been successful. France still held Rome, her garrison was stationed in this city. The Italians wanted to unite their country, including Rome in it, but France did not allow this. France was not going to withdraw its garrison from Rome, thus she lost a possible ally. Prussia was afraid that Italy might start a war with France, and tried in every possible way to achieve Italian neutrality in the outbreak of the war. Fearing the strengthening of Italy, Bismarck himself personally wrote to the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, asking him not to interfere in the war with France. On the part of Austria, although there were proposals for an alliance against Prussia, they did not have the same effect as Bismarck's words. The Prussian chancellor managed to achieve neutrality from Italy in this war.
Austria-Hungary and the Franco-Prussian War
German gunners near Paris.
Comparative characteristics of the Prussian rifle Dreyse and the French Chasseau
| Weapon | The country | Year of issue | Years of operation | Length | The weight | Weight (charged) | Caliber | rifling | Magazine capacity | rate of fire | muzzle velocity | Sighting range | muzzle energy of a bullet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dreyse rifle, model 1849 | Prussia | - | 1422 mm | 4.1 kg | 4.7 kg | 15.43 mm | 4 right | manual feeding of the cartridge | 10 shots per minute | 295 m/s | 600 m | 850-950 joules | |
| Chasseau rifle, model 66 | France | - | 1314 mm | 3.7 kg | 4.6 kg | 11.43 mm | 4 right | manual feeding of the cartridge | N/A | 405 m/s | 1200 m | 1100-1200 joules |
In 1869, Bismarck, preoccupied with the unification of German lands into one empire, proposed that Bavaria and Württemberg, the two most important independent states of South Germany, join the North German alliance and proclaim its president - the Prussian king - German emperor. Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, as a result of the defeat they suffered jointly with Austria in 1866, and the tendency of Napoleon III to seize the left bank of the Rhine, were forced to enter into a defensive alliance with Prussia as early as the autumn of 1866. However, South Germany, remembering long centuries of independent economic and cultural development, isolated from North Germany by political and religious interests, did not express readiness to voluntarily merge with the Protestant Junker Prussia. Particularly in Bavaria, separatist tendencies were strong; the ruling dynasties sought to preserve their independence; Bismarck failed to seduce the South German bourgeoisie even by offering a guarantee of Prussian aid against any outbreak of the revolutionary movement. The separatist leaders who were in power gave Bismarck a negative answer and entered into secret negotiations with French politicians to provide them with support in the event that Prussia switched to the path of violence.
Bismarck did not smile at the idea of forcing the South German states to unite with Prussia through war: the unity of the victors and the vanquished created by violence could not be lasting, and the war would have developed under difficult conditions: Prussia had no legal basis, a coalition from France, Austria-Hungary and probably Italy. Wars with France, in any case, could not be avoided in order to achieve the goal set by Bismarck. In this war, Prussia was much better off having the South German states on her side than on the side of France. A successful war with France must undoubtedly have caused a rise in national and chauvinistic feelings in Germany. In this atmosphere of war, the leaders of the South German separatists were bound to lose ground; Indeed, with the help of documents that fell into Bismarck's hands on their relations with France and preparations for a joint rebuff, Bismarck had the opportunity by the end of 1870 to shut his opponents' mouths. Bismarck needed a war, but a war that France would declare and that would put Prussia in a position of seeming political defense; Bavarians and Württembergers under these conditions should have come out against France - the main pillar of their political independence.
The goal put forward by Bismarck for his diplomacy turned out to be quite achievable due to the presence among the Bonapartists in power in France of a strong current in favor of war as a means of "derivational" (deviating); for Napoleon III's France, success in a foreign war should also have been a means to overcome internal difficulties, to break down opposition, to allow the dynasty to take firm roots in the country. The aspirations of the military party in France were all the more dangerous because they did not rely on military training that would meet the requirements of a European war. From the beginning of the sixties, Napoleon III began to build the colonial power of France. The conquest of Indochina, the support of England in her second war with China (1857-1860), the attempt to unite the Latin states of America under French hegemony, the Mexican expedition, which cost a lot of money - all these were attempts to establish a lasting influence of France in the Pacific.
In the interests of his world politics, Napoleon III sought to maintain good relations with Bismarck. So far, in the United States North America walked Civil War, the fantasy of Napoleon III met with no rebuff. But after the successes of the Northern states, France had to retire in 1865 in disgrace from Mexico. A lot of time, money and energy were spent on "Pacific" and "Latin" politics to no avail. A few decades later, the French bourgeoisie was skeptical of colonial policy; and even now France is not yet disposed to repeat its experience of 1860 in China - military aid England. Napoleon III began his active policy in 1854 by intervening in favor of England in her age-old litigation with Russia. The second empire in foreign policy grew at the siege of Sevastopol. Russia temporarily faded into the background. In the 1960s, only England and France pursued a global policy. England, despite the powerful help received from France, looked with envy at her commercial and overseas successes, and was not averse to betraying her rival to the Germans.
The victory of the Prussians at Königgrätz signaled to Napoleon III of the growing danger of Prussian militarism at his side. Napoleon III failed to compensate France in any way for the strengthening of Prussia. Sluggish work began to strengthen the French army and the secret work of Napoleon himself to prepare an alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy. The Austrian emperor and the king of Italy promised their support to Napoleon III in writing, but the conclusion of formal union treaties did not go well. Austria, beginning in 1867, pursued a policy in Galicia directed against Russia and designed to educate a Polish and Ukrainian irredenta hostile to Russia. Austria, opposing Prussia, would probably clash with Russia.
Napoleon III could have achieved a favorable attitude towards Russia only by agreeing to revise the Paris Treaty of 1856, which included an insulting for Russia prohibition to maintain a navy in the Black Sea; Russian diplomacy made this clear, but Napoleon III refused to give his consent, fearing to irritate England. Austria-Hungary needed at least to secure its rear from Italy. And the latter demanded, as a prerequisite for her signing union treaty, the liquidation of the remnants of the church area, the withdrawal of the French garrison and the occupation of Rome; not having completed the unification of Italy with this, the Italian king was powerless to help Napoleon III - he himself would be threatened by the Italian national revolutionary movement. And Napoleon III could not give up the secular power of the pope as a sacrifice to the Italians, since a strong Catholic party in France was a valuable support for him. Considering that Austria-Hungary and Italy, under the pressure of financial difficulties, reduced the available strength of their armies, that the masses of their populations were indifferent to the Franco-Prussian clash, that the Germans and Hungarians of Austria were even hostile to any active action against the German cause as a whole, - it will become obvious that France could only entertain her imagination by counting on alliances.
While there was a strong undercurrent in France in favor of war, it was officially led by the weak parliamentary government of Émile Olivier, ignorant of dynastic alliance negotiations and eager for peace. Émile Olivier looked upon the creation of German unity as an inevitability which France could recognize without losing her dignity and without falling into a disastrous position because of it; everything that is done against Prussia will make it easier for her, and not block her way. The moment to stop the rise of Prussia has already passed. A few months before the war, Olivier cut the French military budget by 13 million francs and reduced the regular conscription by 10,000 recruits.
The situation was extremely favorable for Prussia. It was necessary only to provoke, to give freedom of action to the French military party, to put big trump cards into its hands. The latter was done artistically by Bismarck: he secretly nominated one of the Hohenzollern princes for the vacant Spanish throne, which infuriated the French. The weak Emile Olivier failed to keep the peace under these conditions: the Prussian king was demanded not only to forbid the Hohenzollern prince to accept election to the Spanish throne, but also to guarantee that such a candidate would be rejected by him in the future. The Prussian king, a feudal lord, dissatisfied with Bismarck, preparing to resign him, not interested in the unification of Germany, considering the hereditary royal crown of Prussia higher than the crown of the German emperor, received demands from France that were very close to an apology. He politely refused the French ambassador Benedeti, who came to him at the resort in Ems, and informed Bismarck about this. The latter remade the king's dispatch for printing in such a way that the French could understand that the king had expelled their ambassador, and the Germans that the French ambassador had offended the Prussian king. This Ems dispatch produced all the effect that Bismarck had hoped for. The French government failed in its duty, failing to evade the Prussian military attack, nor to meet it with a proper rebuff. On July 16, France declared war on Prussia.
Bismarck's diplomacy was so successful in presenting France as the attacking side that even the General Council of the International was deceived into admitting that on the German side the war was defensive. The vast majority of the young German Social-Democracy took a defensive standpoint and did not approve of the behavior of Liebknecht and Bebel, who courageously abstained from voting on credits for the war. However, the vote of the Social Democratic deputies in 1870 was only of modest importance, since Germany in 1870 was still an agrarian country exporting grain, with a relatively poorly developed metallurgy (38.8 kg cast iron per person, and in 1900 - 139.1 kg per person) and poor capital development; the labor movement in Germany was still insignificant compared to the French.
Bismarck could count on his provocation for sure, since in fact the power in France belonged to the military party, whose desire for war coincided with his own. Napoleon III was powerless to avert the impending clash. Bonapartism was a military seizure of power at a time when the bourgeoisie and the working class, in a tense struggle, had weakened and balanced each other, were politically tired and power was lying on the street. But during the two decades of the existence of the Second Empire, both the bourgeoisie and the working class rested and again appeared on the political arena. Napoleon III, in order to counteract the revolution from the left, by the beginning of 1870 decided to rely on the bourgeoisie and established a parliamentary regime. The military party saw the growth of the revolutionary opposition and blamed all the troubles on failures foreign policy, on the forced passivity of France in 1866.
The war party, which was essentially Bonapartism, could only hold its position inside France by victories on the external front. Not preparing for war, they went to war. The unpreparedness was especially great in the region domestic policy. On the eve of the declaration of war, Minister Plishon told Napoleon III: “The struggle between Your Majesty and the King of Prussia is not equal. The king can be defeated in several battles. And for your majesty, defeat is a revolution. With the opposition currents in the French bourgeoisie and the revolutionary upsurge of the working class, the conduct of the war was politically extremely constrained, and the strategy was deprived of any possibility of retreat.
After the Austro-Prussian War, only the Second Empire stood in the way of creating a unified Germany. Outside the North German Confederation remained the German states lying south of the Main - Bavaria, Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Baden. Although in August-September 1866 they concluded defensive and offensive alliances with Prussia, separatist and anti-Prussian sentiments continued to sound in them. The South German lands historically gravitated towards France and Austria, connected with them by the community of the Catholic religion. Napoleon III's vision of southern Germany was no secret to anyone, and the French ruling circles made far-reaching plans for the liquidation of the North German Confederation, the restoration of the former German confederation, and the return of Prussia to the borders of the Duchy of Brandenburg.
European diplomacy on the eve of the war.
The change in the situation in Central Europe created a serious threat to the dominant influence of France on the continent. Her passive behavior during the Austro-Prussian war and the uncompensated strengthening of Germany caused sharp criticism of the French public.
To top it off, in 1867 the French colonial expedition to Mexico ended in failure. Her capture, planned by the Tuileries and called by the court flatterers "the greatest idea" of the regime, in fact turned into a disgrace. After the evacuation of the French troops, the Mexican rebels captured and shot the "emperor" of Mexico - the protege of Napoleon III Maximilian Habsburg (brother of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph). The Mexican expedition dealt a huge blow to the prestige of the Second Empire; the French emperor appeared before the world as an adventurer who abandoned his ally to the mercy of fate. To war, as a means to improve internal affairs, Napoleon was also pushed by the political crisis experienced by the empire.
O. Bismarck, all the more, was not going to retreat. He did not hide his intention to eliminate the "Main Line" and complete the national unification of Germany under the auspices of the Hohenzollerns. O. Bismarck conducted excellent diplomatic preparations for the war with France, as, indeed, for the campaigns of 1864 and 1866.
France found itself in international isolation. Her alliance with England of the period Crimean War lay by 1870 in ruins. During this time, a large number of disagreements accumulated between them on issues of European and colonial policy. London began to see in powerful Prussia a counterbalance to France on the continent. Back in September 1865, Prime Minister G. Palmerston wrote to the head of the Foreign Office, D. Russell: warlike powers - France and Russia.
Like Palmerston, both factions of Parliament - the Liberal and the Conservative - began to bind the provision of British political interests in Europe with the strengthening of Prussia, and were ready to replace Austria with a stronger Prussian-Germany.
The attitude to what is happening in Germany and in Buckingham Palace has changed. Queen Victoria, who was very worried about the fate of her beloved reigning nieces and nephews, uncles and aunts, stopped publicly calling Bismarck an aggressor, an instigator of conflicts in German courts. When, in August 1866, the creation of a new organization of German countries began in Berlin, Victoria, who had never particularly sympathized with the Hohenzollerns, expressed the opinion that Germany "strong, united ... would be the most useful ally of England." That's why, the Prussian successes in 1870, as in 1866, did not bring the British cabinet out of a state of "observant" neutrality.
The position of neutrality was also taken on the banks of the Neva. As noted above, Russian government, represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs A.M. Gorchakova, relying on the planned alliance with France, hoped to achieve the abolition of the neutralization of the Black Sea and offered the Tuileries Palace friendship and cooperation in exchange. However, the support of the French diplomacy of the St. Petersburg cabinet in the Eastern question in the first years after the Crimean War was very limited. Napoleon III stubbornly did not want to revise the articles of the Paris Peace Treaty and contribute to the restoration of Russian positions in the Middle East. The weakening of the rapprochement between Russia and France was outlined after Napoleon's intervention in the Polish uprising of 1863. Nevertheless, Gorchakov, until the very crisis of 1870, took steps to develop a coordinated political line with Paris. In conversations between the Russian minister and the French ambassador, the idea of the importance of establishing agreement between the two courts in the Balkans and Istanbul was emphasized. However, on Cad'Ors they pretended not to understand Petersburg's hints. The ambassador was instructed to act in such a way as to prevent any formal Russian proposals regarding the treaty of 1856, which, according to Napoleon, was the "political capital" of France, "one of the largest and happiest acts" of her policy, and also regulated "the situation on East in a spirit most consistent with our traditional interests and the common interests of Europe.” The rejection of an alliance with Russia and even the unwillingness to improve relations with her was a serious miscalculation, if not fatal mistake, Napoleonic diplomacy.
The state that could help Russia free itself from the fetters that bind it on the Black Sea turned out to be Prussia. In St. Petersburg, they carefully followed the actions of the Berlin court, aimed at subjugating the whole of Germany and completely destroying the European balance, but they were inclined to underestimate this threat. The sympathy of influential circles of the dignitary nobility and Alexander II himself for the Hohenzollern dynasty affected. Gorchakov considered it necessary to oppose Bismarck's pan-German plans through diplomatic channels and approached rapprochement with Berlin with great caution. Only France's stubborn unwillingness to come to an agreement with Russia led the Russian minister to the idea that an agreement with Prussia was "a less unfavorable policy." Bismarck, having learned about Alexander's dissatisfaction with violations of the legitimate rights of the German princes as a result of the annexation of their possessions by Prussia and Gorchakov's proposal to convene a congress to consider German affairs, immediately expressed his readiness to pay the price desired by the tsarist government.
In the summer and autumn of 1866, visits to St. Petersburg took place adjutant general E. Manteuffel and the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich. An agreement was reached: Prussia would support Russia in the abolition of the articles of the Paris Treaty on the neutralization of the Black Sea, and Russia would not interfere with the creation of the North German Union led by Prussia.
These visits had far-reaching consequences. AT 1868 as a result of Russian-Prussian negotiations on concerted action in the event of a Franco-German war Alexander II and William/ came to oral agreement actually valid contract.
Russia pledged not only to remain neutral, but also to send large forces to the border of Austria-Hungary and thereby force her to refrain from supporting France; in the event of Austria-Hungary entering the war, Russia did not exclude the possibility of occupying Galicia; Prussia confirmed its intention to assist Russia in revising the Paris Treaty.
In the early days of the Franco-German war, Alexander, faithful to his obligations, specifically warned the Austrian emperor against wanting to intervene in the war, assuring him in his own name and that of the Prussian king that the security of the borders of Austria-Hungary was guaranteed if she remained neutral.
Bonapartist diplomacy made great efforts to make the Habsburg monarchy an ally of France. Napoleon III offered Franz Joseph South Germany or Prussian Silesia to choose from. In August 1867, a meeting of the monarchs took place in Salzburg, and in the spring of the following year, Austro-French negotiations began on a military-political alliance. They dragged on until the beginning of the Franco-German war, but did not lead to positive results.
Military and aristocratic circles, the highest Catholic clergy of Austria did not reconcile themselves to the defeat of 1866 and longed for revenge. Bismarck's mortal enemy was F. Beust, who, after the surrender of Saxony (an ally of Austria), at the request of the Berlin cabinet, left the post of head of the Saxon government. He soon entered the service of Franz Joseph, first as Minister of Foreign Affairs and then Chancellor of Austria-Hungary.
The Austrian monarchy needed time to recover from the blow received at Sadovaya and complete the reorganization of the army. Franz Joseph could not have much confidence in Napoleon, and Beust was constantly tormented by the idea that the French emperor was able to lure the Vienna court into a trap, for example, by pushing him against Prussia, and himself agreeing with Bismarck.
The position of Hungary and its Prime Minister D. Andrássy played an almost decisive role in frustrating Vienna's aspirations to continue the traditional anti-Prussian policy. In Pest, they did not want the annexation of German territories to Austria, which was inevitable with the defeat of Prussia, since this would upset the existing balance in the dualistic state in favor of Austria. In Salzburg, Andrássy bluntly told Napoleon that in the event of war with Prussia, France should not count on Pest to come out in her support against Vienna.
The Austrian Germans also opposed Austrian participation in the war and through their press tried to activate feelings of German kinship and old grievances against France. For all their hostility towards the Hohenzollerns and the Prussian Junkers, the Austro-German liberals understood that revenge was least of all achieved through participation in the anti-German war as a French ally. Fearing acute internal political complications, the Austrian Chancellor Beust did not dare to give the Tuileries military obligations.
Convinced of the impossibility of concluding an alliance with France on the basis of German affairs, Beust tried to use the Eastern question. In his opinion, for the sake of this issue, Vienna could agree to an anti-Prussian agreement with France, focusing on a war with Russia. However, Napoleon sought help from the Austrians in the West, not in the East.
In addition, Eastern problems sharply affected the interests of England, and a bilateral Austro-French agreement in this area could cause her ill will. Beust sought to interest London in the idea of reviving the 1853-1856 combination. - an alliance of Austria with the Western powers against Russia and to isolate Prussia. The British showed no interest in her. In the current situation, it was more profitable for the St. James cabinet not to stimulate complications in the East, but to play on the contradictions between France and Prussia in Europe, because here
England could count on the role of arbitrator, while in the East she would act as a participant in the conflict.
During the Austro-French negotiations, it was decided to involve the Italian kingdom in them. The government of Victor Emmanuel II was disappointed with the outcome of the Italo-Austrian war, continuing to make plans for South Tyrol and Trieste.
In December 1866, French troops left the Papal States, but several thousand French soldiers and officers remained in the service of Pius IX as volunteers. The Florentine cabinet naturally protested. In the autumn of 1867, Napoleon again sent to papal state expeditionary corps in connection with the second campaign of D. Garibaldi against Rome to abolish the secular power of the pope and reunite the Roman region with the rest of Italy. At Mentan, the combined forces of the French and papal troops defeated the Garibaldians (November 3). The French corps remained to guard Pius. Napoleon continued to oppose the inclusion of the pope's secular possessions in the Italian state, which caused the hatred of Italian patriots and extreme irritation at the Florentine court. The repeated attempts of the French emperor to solve the "Roman question" that was painful for him by referring it to an international conference were not successful. The powers showed no desire to help the Tuileries get out of this situation, the fate of the pope's possessions did not particularly bother them either. Having received an invitation to take part in the Austro-French negotiations, Victor Emmanuel showed his readiness to conclude Triple Alliance, but demanded the withdrawal of the French corps from the Papal States. Napoleon refused.
Italo-Austrian contacts developed more successfully. In Austria, when developing plans for possible military operations against Prussia, much attention was paid to the security of their southwestern borders on the border with Italy. From this point of view, the conclusion of the Austro-Franco-Italian alliance seemed very expedient. Chancellor Beust promised Victor Emmanuel assistance in capturing Rome and even in the possible transfer of South Tyrol to Italy. However, the "Roman question" was a stumbling block in Franco-Italian relations. Ultimately Vienna and Florence decided to remain neutral in the conflict between France and Prussia and wait for the development of hostilities.
Franco-German War 1870-1 is a military conflict between France, on the one hand, and the North German Confederation and the South German states associated with them, on the other hand.
As you know, the war was declared by France, but it was directly planned by Prussia. France for Prussia is a hereditary enemy, led by Napoleon III, who claimed Hegemony in Europe after her active participation in the Crimean War.
Prussia, being one of the initiators of the unification of German lands according to the small German plan, actually reached the finish line for the unification of its lands by 1870. The war with France was supposed to be the trigger for the end of the unification process.
Regarding France, internal troubles within the empire of Napoleon III served as a pretext for war. France needed a small victorious war. At the same time, the French ruling circles hoped, as a result of the war with Prussia, to prevent the unification of Germany, in which they saw a direct threat to the predominant position of France on the European continent, and, moreover, to seize the left bank of the Rhine.
The highest tension between the relations of the two states was the diplomatic crisis associated with the question of a candidate for the vacant royal throne of Spain.
The impetus for the war was dynastic disputes over the Spanish throne. In 1868, a revolution took place in Spain, as a result of which Queen Isabella II was deprived of the throne. The people demanded a republic, while the ruling circles of Spain, meanwhile, were looking for a new monarch. In 1870, the throne was offered to a relative of the Prussian king, Prince Leopold from the side line of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Fearing to be between two fires, France began to insist that Leopold's candidacy as a contender for the throne should not be considered.
Thus, when the candidacy of Leopold became official, and the French ambassador to Prussia, Benedetti, appeared in Ems. In a conversation with him, the Prussian king limited himself to saying that he personally never wanted to win the Spanish throne for any of his relatives. At the end of this meeting, Wilhelm I immediately tried to bring to the attention of both Leopold himself and his father, Prince Anton of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, that it would be desirable to renounce the Spanish throne. Which was done. King Wilhelm, in a dispatch sent by him on July 13 from Ems to Berlin to inform Prussian diplomatic agents abroad and representatives of the press, agreed with the first demand, but refused to satisfy the second. Prior to the publication of the dispatch, Bismarck deliberately changed its text in such a way that it acquired a tone and meaning offensive to the French government. He expected that in France they would believe her for at least one day, and that this would be quite enough to get the desired result - aggression from France.
The French government took this as a refusal and on July 19, 1870 declared war on Prussia. Masterfully played out by Bismarck, the provocation was a success. Prussia in the eyes of the public acted as a victimaggression.
The attitude of the European powers towards the Franco-Prussian conflict from the very beginning remained quite neutral. So, without stocking up on a single ally, with an unprepared, much smaller and worse armed army, not having decent military maps of his own country, Napoleon III began this fatal war for his dynasty and for France. (250 thousand against (France) - 400 thousand soldiers (Germany))
The French emperor Napoleon III Bonaparte sought to prevent the unification of Germany under the scepter of the Prussian king Wilhelm I of Hohenzollern. The Prussian king and his chancellor, Prince Otto Bismarck, set as their goal not only to complete the process of unification of Germany, but also to take away from the Fraction the border provinces with the German-speaking population.
The reason for the start of the war was the dispute about the candidacy for the Spanish throne. A distant relative of Wilhelm, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was invited to this throne. Napoleon was sharply against this candidacy, fearing that Spain would eventually become an ally of Prussia. He made sure that Prince Leopold refused the tempting offer, and demanded that this refusal be confirmed by the Prussian king.
The Prussian army was better prepared than the French for war and outnumbered the potential enemy. Therefore, Bismarck sought to provoke the outbreak of war as soon as possible. Wilhelm's telegram, where he confirmed Leopold's refusal, was changed by the Prussian Chancellor during publication in such a way that it acquired an offensive and French meaning. Indignant Napoleon on July 14, 1870 declared war on Prussia.
On the side of Prussia, the armies of the North German Confederation, led by it, fought, as well as the troops of the South German states - Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg. The French troops were one and a half times inferior to the enemy in numbers and even more - in the level of combat training.
The army of the French Marshal Bazin was blocked in the fortress of Metz. On August 23, the newly formed 120,000-strong army of another marshal, P. McMahon, moved to her aid. At Beaumont, on August 30, MacMahon's troops clashed with Mass and the 3rd German armies of the enemy and were defeated. The French retreated behind the Meuse to the fortress of Sedan.
On September 1, the battle of Sedan began, like Cannes, which became a symbol of the successful encirclement of the troops of one of the parties - MacMahon had 120 thousand people and 419 guns. The Prussian troops opposing him, commanded by General G. von Moltke, numbered 245 thousand people with 813 guns. The French were deprived of escape routes. The path to Carignan was blocked by the Meuse army, and to Mezieres by the 3rd German army. A retreat to Belgium across the Illy would have led to MacMahon's surrender to the Belgian army, which had taken up positions on the frontier on August 31st.
On September 1, the Bavarian corps attacked French division, defending the village of Basey on the left bank of the Meuse. On the right bank, the Prussians managed to occupy the village of La Monéelle. Here, at 6 o'clock in the morning, McMahon was wounded. He handed over command to General Ducrot. He, seeing the threat of encirclement, ordered the main forces to retreat to Mezieres, not knowing that it was there that the Prussian army was waiting for them. This retreat was stopped by the commander of the 5th Corps, General Wimpfen, who demanded that he be given command as a senior commander. Ducrot complied.
Wimpfen decided that a breakthrough to Carignan would give a better chance of success. To do this, it was necessary to push the Bavarians away from Basey, and then break the right wing of the enemy. However, the French offensive was stopped by superior German forces. At noon, the 12th Saxon and Guards Corps occupied the valley of the Zhivoy stream and, having installed artillery on the left slope of the Zhivona ravine, began to fire on the French troops on the eastern slope and in the Garen forest. The road to Carignan was finally cut, but it was too late to break through to Mézières.
The 5th and 11th Prussian Corps outflanked the left flank of the French and entered the vicinity of Sedan, closing the encirclement. MacMahon's army was subjected to fierce cross-fire and suffered heavy losses. After several unsuccessful attempts to break through, undertaken by infantry and cavalry. French troops in the Garen Forest laid down their arms. The fortress of Sedan, where Napoleon was located, also surrendered. The next day, September 2, the French emperor signed the capitulation.
Source - B. V. Sokolov, "100 Great Wars", M., Veche, 2001.
From the book "History of military art"
The opponent of the unification of Germany under the leadership of Prussia was not only Austria, but also France, who sought to preserve a fragmented Germany in order to dominate the European continent itself.
The state of the armed forces of France and Prussia. Side plans.
The Prussian troops were divided into field (active or permanent army and reserve), reserve and garrison, recruited from the landwehr (militia). In total, there were more than 944 thousand people in the wartime states. By the beginning of the war with France, all Prussian infantry was armed with needle guns, and artillery with steel guns. However, the Prussian troops started the war with France, trained according to the outdated charter of 1847. The new charter was approved in August 1870, when hostilities had already begun and it was too late to retrain the troops.After the start of the war, an instruction was sent out that ordered the line infantry to use company columns as the main formation during the attack. Such a battle formation still led to large losses.
The ground forces of France consisted of active (permanent) troops, a reserve and a national guard. According to the states of wartime, these troops numbered approx. and 770 thousand people. The French infantry was armed with a Chassepo needle gun, loaded from the breech. This gun exceeded the Dreyse gun in terms of firing range by 2.5 times (1500 m). But the Germans had a significant superiority in artillery. The French bronze guns of the La Gitta system were loaded from the muzzle and fired at a distance of only about 2.8 km. Linear reluctance was trained to act when attacked by company columns.
The active French troops were merged into one Army of the Rhine.
The main idea of the Prussian plan was to defeat the main grouping of French troops with superior forces, push their remnants north to the Belgian border, and move on Paris.
Mobilization Prussian army started July 16th. In 18 days, more than a million people were put under arms (including the South German states), during the same time almost half a million people were transported across railways to the French border.
The active troops were divided into three armies: the 1st and 2nd armies were to invade Lorraine, and the 3rd armenia - into Alsace.
periods of war. The first period lasted from the beginning of the war until the surrender of the French troops led by Napoleon III near Sedan. During this period, “the war of 1870-1871,” wrote V. I. Lenin, was historically progressive on the part of Germany, until Napoleon III was defeated, because he, together with the tsar, oppressed Germany for many years, supporting feudal fragmentation in it . And as soon as the war turned into a robbery of France (the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine), Marx and Engels strongly condemned the Germans. ,
In the second period (from Sedan to the capitulation of Paris), the war on the part of Germany became aggressive, unjust.
First period. In the first battles with the German army, in the battle on August 6 of the 3rd Prussian army with the French Alsatian army, the advantage of the French Chasspo gun over the Prussian Dreyse gun was revealed. However, the fire of the Prussian steel cannons was more destructive to the French infantry. A strong defensive tool in the hands of the French turned out to be 25-barreled mitrailleuses (shotguns) - the forerunners of machine guns. Mitraleuses had a rate of fire of up to 250 rounds per minute, fired at a distance of up to 1500 m, were mounted on gun carriages and moved by horse-drawn carts. Shortcomings in the tactics of the belligerents were also revealed. The German attacks "blank through" were carried out in close formations, which, due to the enormous increase in fire, led to heavy losses. The Prussian command piled up large masses of troops in front of the enemy front, strove for attacks in the forehead instead of an enveloping maneuver. The French violated the principle of mutual support, which led to defeat in parts.
Until August 13, the Germans lost contact with the enemy. August 9 Prussian command puts the task of the cavalry in a new way. In the Austro-Prussian war, the cavalry followed behind the infantry, now it moved forward for raids and reconnaissance, supported by the vanguards advanced from the infantry.
Under the fortress of Metz, three battles took place: August 14 - on the eastern bank of the river. Mosel. August 16 - on the western bank of the river. Moselle and August 18 - at Saint-Privat - Gravelot.
The Sedan disaster ended the first period of the war.
The second period is fundamentally different from the first period of the war. On September 4, a revolution broke out in Paris, a republic was proclaimed and a bourgeois government was formed. A popular movement developed in defense of the country. In an incredibly short time, three new armies were formed.
On September 19, the blockade of Paris began, lasting more than four months. Spread wide partisan movement French people. On October 27, after 72 days of blockade, Marshal Bazin surrendered Metz with a 150,000-strong army to the enemy. It was a strong blow to republican France. The bourgeois government, fearing the armed people, hurried on January 28, 1871, to sign a heavy and humiliating truce. In response to the betrayal, the proletariat of Paris launched an uprising on March 18, 1871, which led to the formation of the Paris Commune.
For the development of military art“The Franco-Prussian war,” wrote Engels, “marks a turning point that has a completely different meaning than the weight of the previous ones.” Enormous forces participated in hostilities on both sides - about 2 million people. The defeat of the field armies of the enemy did not yet mean winning the war. During the war, France created even larger armies to replace those lost. The change in the nature of warfare (the people are increasingly involved in waging war), the ability of the country to recover the losses of entire armies rejected the strategy of "blitzkrieg" through a general battle.
The war showed the great importance of the advanced military equipment, more advanced weapons - the French Chasspo gun and German artillery.
The deployment of millions of armies in the theater of war led to the fact that it became possible to operate on a wide front. A wider front made it possible to maneuver to envelop the enemy. The strategy was faced with the task of bringing troops to the enemy occupying defensive positions in such a way that both of his flanks would be attacked. Under the Sedan, the entry of two German armies towards each other led to the complete encirclement of the French army.
There was a radical change in the formation of infantry combat formations. Closed battle formations (even company columns) could not overcome the increased effectiveness of rifle fire from long distances. The close formations of the combat formations of the infantry were replaced by a rifle chain.