The Franco-Prussian War was caused by Prussian ambitions to extend
German unification and French fears of the shift in the European balance
of power that would result if the Prussians succeeded.
A series of swift Prussian and German victories saw Napoleon III
captured and the army of the Second Empire decisively defeated.
Following the Siege of Paris, the capital fell on 28 January 1871, the
German states proclaimed their union as the German Empire under the
Prussian King Wilhelm I, finally uniting Germany as a nation-state. The
Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871 gave Germany most of Alsace and some
parts of Lorraine.
The events of the war had great influence on military thinking and
lessons drawn from the war included the need for a general staff system,
the scale and duration of future wars and the tactical use of artillery
and cavalry. The bold use of artillery by the Prussians, to silence
French guns at long range and then to directly support infantry attacks
at close range, proved to be superior to the defensive doctrine employed
by French gunners. The Prussian tactics were adopted by European armies
by 1914, exemplified in the French 75, an artillery piece optimised to
provide direct fire support to advancing infantry.
This is a detailed examination of the campaign which terminated with the
German reoccupation of Orleans. It took the Germans many years to
realise the real significance of the stout fight which, after the
capture or annihilation of practically the whole of the French Army, the
people of France were able to maintain during a severe winter. The
German conquest of France and the unification of Germany upset the
European balance of power that had existed since the Congress of Vienna
in 1815. French determination to regain Alsace-Lorraine and fear of
another Franco-German war, along with British apprehension about the
balance of power, became factors in the causes of World War I. This
study of the Franco-Prussian War formed part of the 'Pall Mall Military
Series' devised for British Army officers who wished to make a serious
study of their profession. Colonel Hale's argument as to the value of a
people's army as auxiliary and supplemental to a fully trained Regular
Army looks particularly interesting in the light of the Great War's
recruitment, conscription and Pals Battalions.
