in the late 1800s the struggle for the upper hand and overarching power throughout the European continent became a direct battle between the second French Empire and the north German Confederation the latter which was def facto led by the Kingdom of Prussia was beginning to threaten the current superiority of the French Empire with its recent victory in the ostr Prussian war of 1866 whether ovon bis Mark the chancellor of Prussia intended to rope Francis Napoleon III into a war or not is still questioned by some historians but either way a war did come and speaking of
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power changes the Germans in particular were immensely focused on the goal of uniting the entirety of the German states under the Prussian leader OV Von bismar following the ostr Prussian War and the annexation of multiple German states that chose to oppose Prussia during the conflict the north German Confederation was formed prompting a very quick decline in opinion from the French Napoleon III and his administration feared that the unification and continued strengthening of the German states would tip the scales and leave France as a weaker power and influence throughout the region however Napoleon did seem to
already be overestimating his own Authority in response to the building Menace of the new German Confederation the French Emperor reached out to Chancellor ovon bismar and made a hefty demand insisting that the French borders of 1814 be restored by the prussians the demand was swiftly shot down by bismar who had absolutely no interest in giving up any of his own belongings or authority in any kind of stretch to to appease the French the chancellor did however take this opportunity to inform the southern German states such as venberg bden and Hessa darad of Napoleon's plea as
to strengthen his own relationship with his fellow Germans and solidify a defensive military alliance between them all this is also the point at which ovon bismar may have decided that provoking a conflict with the French would be a good thing for his Confederation and more importantly for his future endeavors to unify all of the German states the idea was that a war against France particularly with France as the aggressor would stir up enough German nationalism that ultimate unification of the remaining German states outside of the Confederation could be achieved bismar also knew that a war
with theen French was inevitable at one point or another and he was fully aware of the fact that his best chance at pulling in the southern states as allies was the first to declare war the demand from Napoleon concerning the borders was unintentionally a great gift for bismar as this played perfectly into his plan of pinning the French as the aggressors the strategy was actually quite smart for the Prussian side they knew knew that when this impending Clash occurred if the French could be undeniably blamed every German state would come together to fight off their
attacker at the same time bismar knew that France would have no allies against his German Union as he stated himself France the Victor would be a danger to everybody Prussia to nobody the situation became even easier for the prussians to manipulate when leopo of hen Zulan zigar became a candidate for the Spanish Throne Leopold was a Prussian Prince and this greatly worried the French who now feared a possible two- fronted alliance between the Germans and Spain Napoleon put immense pressure on Spain to withdraw Leopold's candidacy and their goal was eventually achieved nonetheless ovon bismar seems
to have been unrelenting with his push for war War when France necessitated that the Prussian leadership refrained from ever supporting a hoen Zoran candidacy in Spain at any point in the future the King of Prussia William I strongly rejected the demand bismar was predictably also against this idea and decided to release an altered summary of the M's dispatch which flatly refused the demand of the French this and the mistranslated context of the message greatly escalated tension between France and Prussia even further the French foreign minister as you know Duke dig ramont went as far as
to say that the telegram left him feeling as though he had received a slam Napoleon and his court were now forced to seriously consider the prospect of declaring war the emperor's wife Empress Eugene was strong strongly in favor of a war with Prussia one which she believed would easily be won by the French Empire and would help to resolve both domestic and other political challenges foreign minister gramont was also a firm supporter of war with the Germans especially after the M's dispatch this led to the final nail in what Napoleon thought would be prussia's coffin
as his prime minister Emil Olivier came to the conclusion that France had already exhausted all options to avoid a potential war and that military conflict was the only choice that they would have left the French people were in agreement as well and a crowd of around 20,000 citizens even gathered in Paris waving flags and patriotic banners through the streets of the capital demanding that the war be declared on the offensive prussians finally on July 15th 187 French mobilization began W quickly reached Prussia and the German Confederation responded with mobilization that same night Bavaria and Baden
followed suit the next day and on the 17th venberg joins the movement a declaration of war was not officially sent out by the French government until the 19th but when it arrived it was quickly met by a promise of an alliance to the German Confederation by the southern German states if this was what the prussians wanted then they had officially achieved their goal the war was about to begin the initial plan of the French was laid out by Marshall Neil who had since passed away but it decided that the ideal approach was for France to
take an offensive position starting from Theon Vil and extending into the Prussian Rin land while this plan was was at first agreed upon it was eventually thrown out and replaced by a more defensive stance the updated plan was formulated by General charlot fad and general but lemi Lu and took a very different approach than the Neil plan by instead putting the army of the Ry in a defensive position to Simply protect the French German border Napoleon himself left Paris to take command of the army of the Rine [Music] the French were also expecting both Austria
and the collective South German states to join the fight on their behalf but of course as for the Germans this was simply not an option the austrians did consider coming to the aid of the French eyeing the chance to avenge their previous humiliating defeat at the hands of the prussians But ultimately opted not to get involved without the additional Alliance of Bavaria venberg and Baden this left the French to face the German states on their own just as OV Von bismar had predicted despite having no foreign support Napoleon was determined to launch the opening attack
the Hope was to catch the Germans off guard by beating them to the punch and the first reasonable Target appeared to be the town of SAR bruken General frisard's second core had determined that the only resistance guarding this Border Town was the Prussian 16th Infantry Division which could be overpowered by a French incursion the second and third cores were subsequently led to the SAR River on July 31st with the goal of capturing SAR bruken the French troops crossed the border into SAR bruken on August second and quickly gains momentum against the 40th Regiment of the
Prussian 16th Infantry Division the Germans did fight back valiantly inflicting more casualties than their counterpart in fact but nonetheless the French were able to begin driving them out of the Town through a series of skirmishes while this appeared to be a positive start to the war Napoleon was not as confident as his troops on the battlefield may have been news had reached the emperor of the Germans successfully mobilizing the Prussian first Army Prussian second Army and Prussian third Army as two French cores were occupying SAR brooken France may have gained a short-lived upper hand but
the tide was quick to turn the prussians had now better mobilized their forces whilst the French were on the offensive but fairly unorganized and poorly mobilized Napoleon became aware of this situation and decided to withdraw his troops from SAR bruken before the Prussian armies could arrive the French shifted back into a defensive position and the Germans went on the offensive multiple battles would then take place throughout venberg sperin vert Mars Lor gravelot Mets and sedan the latter proved to be the most significant Clash thus far and resulted in the capture of Napoleon III himself on
September 1st leaving the French without an emperor France was now shaken both on the battlefield and back at home without an emperor the second French Empire completely collapsed the rest of the authority in Napoleon's Court was ousted and a provisional government then declared the formation of the third Republic on September 4th the government changed its name to the government of National Defense and had no plans of abandoning the war that the Fallen Empire had begun ovon bismar contrarily attempted to make peace with the new Republic but no reliable French Authority could even be reached the
prussians reacted by marching straight to Paris and launching a grueling siege that would last a draining 130 days the parisians were suffering immensely and the new government was beginning to recognize the odds stacked heavily against them the people of Paris were starving and the French troops were being worn down day after day leaving the new Republic to no alternative than peace on German [Music] terms Jules Claude Gabrielle favra the French foreign minister by this time went to Versailles on January 24th to finally open negotiations with the prussians bismar no longer had reason to maintain the
war and subsequently agreed to a simple deal The Siege would be lifted and food delivered to Paris immediately so long as the French gave up a handful of key fortresses outside of the capital that would render the city undefendable against strong opposition fava who took the position of president on the 25th after president TR resigned signs the Armistice and surrendered to the prussians on the 27th on his carriage ride back to Paris fa's exhaustion and shame from the recent events overwhelmed him and he broke down in tears falling into his daughter's arms as the silence
gifted by no more gunshots rang out at midnight for the first time in many days there was a short-lived challenge to faa's agreement with the prussians as one French Statesman in particular Leon gambetta initially refused to capitulate multiple French politicians including jul Simone arrived in Bordeaux shortly after and were able to convince gambetta to resign and hand over control of his troops to the government after only a few days the war was now over the unification of the German states had been completed just as bismar had hoped and France was no longer Europe's strongman peace
had come as had the fall of the French Empire and French superiority across the continent a big thank you again to World of Warships for sponsoring our video don't forget to click my link below and use the code Bravo for amazing in-game Rewards
