The Franco-Prussian War, German unification and the Paris Commune
- Date
- 19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871; German Empire proclaimed 18 January 1871
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- France and Germany
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
The Franco-Prussian War (July 1870 – May 1871) completed the unification of Germany and reshaped the European order.
Bismarck manipulated a dispute over the Spanish succession — sharpening the famous Ems Dispatch — to provoke France's Napoleon III into declaring war, which rallied the southern German states to Prussia's side. Moltke's armies won a crushing victory at Sedan on 2 September 1870, capturing Napoleon III and 100,000 men; the Second French Empire collapsed and a Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris on 4 September. With Paris under a long siege, the southern states agreed to join a new German Empire, and on 18 January 1871 King Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles — a deliberately humiliating setting for France. The Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871 transferred Alsace and most of Lorraine to Germany and imposed a five-billion-franc indemnity, creating a grievance that poisoned Franco-German relations for decades. In the war's aftermath, radical Parisians rose against the new republican government, establishing the revolutionary Paris Commune from 18 March to 28 May 1871; it was crushed in the 'Bloody Week', when government troops killed thousands of Communards. Unified Germany now stood as the dominant land power on the Continent.
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Empires active in 19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871; German Empire proclaimed 18 January 1871
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- Empire of Japan1868 CE – 1947 CE
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
Related military & conflict events
- American Civil War and the abolition of slavery1861–1865 (Emancipation Proclamation 1 January 1863; 13th Amendment ratified 6 December 1865)
- The Taiping Rebellion1850–1864
- First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking1839–1842 (Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842)
- Russo-Japanese War and Japan's Rise as a Great Power1904–1905
- Assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the outbreak of World War I28 June – 4 August 1914
- Battle of Waterloo18 June 1815
Further reading
The wider story
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire
Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.
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