The crushing victory by Prussia and her German allies in the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71, destroyed one empire and created another. It finally unified the German states into an empire under Prussian leadership – an empire proclaimed in the very halls of captured Versailles. In 1870 Prussia's reformed mobilization system put enormous armies into the field with unprecedented efficiency. The confidence which the victory encouraged among German militarists, and the intolerable humiliation it inflicted upon France, ensured that an even more destructive war was soon inevitable. This, the first of two titles, lists and illustrates the units of Prussia and her North German Confederation, the powerhouse of a formidable military machine.
At the time of the Second Empire, under Napoleon III, the French army, elevated from tactful obscurity, was re-modelled on Napoleonic lines. This army first fought in the Crimea, and then against Austria. Later, In Mexico, they had a disastrous adventure while in Europe Prussia was fast emerging as a challenge to France's military pre-eminence. Together with Austria, Bismarck first crushed Denmark before turning on Austria herself. The victory at Sadowa in 1866 stunned Europe, and in Paris Napoleon and his advisers set to thinking of a way to counter this new threat. In this first of two volumes looking at the French Army of the Franco-Prussian War, Stephen Shann and Louis Delperier examine the history, organisation and weapons of the French Imperial troops.
Although the war of 1870–71 has gone down in history as the 'Franco-Prussian War', nearly half of the German troops sent to the frontier were from other German states – both the willing members of the North German Confederation and the southern states who were in some cases more hesitant about accepting Prussian domination. Some contingents had only one or two regiments – though these might be of high quality, like the 'Black Brunswickers'; others provided whole army corps, like Bavaria and Saxony. This book lists and illustrates the organization and varied uniforms of all these allied contingents, most of which fought well when it came to the test of battle.
Illustrated with colour maps and images, this is an introduction to the Franco-Prussian War, a war that marked the beginning of the creation of modern Europe. The Franco-Prussian War started in 1870 when Otto von Bismarck engineered a war with the French Second Empire under Napoleon III, as part of his plan to unite Prussia with the southern German states as a new Germany. Stephen Badsey examines the build-up, battles, and impact of the war, which was an overwhelming Prussian victory with massive consequences. The French Second Empire collapsed, Napoleon III became an exile in Britain, and King Wilhelm I was proclaimed Emperor of the new united Germany. In the peace settlement that followed, Germany gained the eastern French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, areas that were to provide a bone of contention for years to come. Updated for the new edition with revisions from the author and new images throughout, this is an accessible introduction to the largest and most important war fought in Europe between the age of Napoleon and the First World War.
In 1870 Bismarck ordered the Prussian Army to invade France, inciting one of the most dramatic conflicts in European history. It transformed not only the states-system of the Continent but the whole climate of European moral and political thought. The overwhelming triumph of German military might, evoking general admiration and imitation, introduced an era of power politics, which was to reach its disastrous climax in 1914. First published in 1961 and now with a new introduction, The Franco-Prussian War is acknowledged as the definitive history of one of the most dramatic and decisive conflicts in the history of Europe.
Helmuth von Moltke's The Franco German War of 1870-1871 is a comprehensive history of one of the 19th century's most influential wars, and the one that helped lead to the establishment of the modern state of Germany. It is written by one of the most important participants in the war, because von Moltke was a field marshal for the Prussians and a Chief of the General Staff.
In a book that is at once a major contribution to modern European history and a cautionary tale for today, Isabel V. Hull argues that the routines and practices of the Imperial German Army, unchecked by effective civilian institutions, increasingly sought the absolute destruction of its enemies as the only guarantee of the nation's security. So deeply embedded were the assumptions and procedures of this distinctively German military culture that the Army, in its drive to annihilate the enemy military, did not shrink from the utter destruction of civilian property and lives. Carried to its extreme, the logic of "military necessity" found real security only in extremities of destruction, in the "silence of the graveyard."Hull begins with a dramatic account, based on fresh archival work, of the German Army's slide from administrative murder to genocide in German Southwest Africa (1904–7). The author then moves back to 1870 and the war that inaugurated the Imperial era in German history, and analyzes the genesis and nature of this specifically German military culture and its operations in colonial warfare. In the First World War the routines perfected in the colonies were visited upon European populations. Hull focuses on one set of cases (Belgium and northern France) in which the transition to total destruction was checked (if barely) and on another (Armenia) in which "military necessity" caused Germany to accept its ally's genocidal policies even after these became militarily counterproductive. She then turns to the Endkampf (1918), the German General Staff's plan to achieve victory in the Great War even if the homeland were destroyed in the process—a seemingly insane campaign that completes the logic of this deeply institutionalized set of military routines and practices. Hull concludes by speculating on the role of this distinctive military culture in National Socialism's military and racial policies.Absolute Destruction has serious implications for the nature of warmaking in any modern power. At its heart is a warning about the blindness of bureaucratic routines, especially when those bureaucracies command the instruments of mass death.
The capitulation of Napoleon and his army at Sedan in September 1870 shook Paris to its foundations. The Second Empire was swept from power, and a Government of National Defence hastily put in its place. To replace the weakened professional army the French called for a 'war of the people'. A companion volume to Men-at-Arms 233: The French Army 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War (1) Imperial Troops, this book covers the forces that participated in the second half of the campaign, including the regular army, l' Armeé d' Afrique, la Garde Mobile, la Garde Nationale and the naval forces. The text is accompanied by contemporary photographs and detailed colour plates.
The Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870 when Bismarck engineered a war with the French Second Empire under Napoleon III. This was part of his wider political strategy of uniting Prussia with the southern German states, excluding Austria. The war was an overwhelming Prussian victory, and King Wilhelm I was proclaimed Emperor of the new united Germany. The Second Empire collapsed and Napoleon III became an exile in Britain. In the peace settlement with the French Third Republic in 1871 Germany gained the eastern French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, areas that were to provide a bone of contention for years to come.
