Franco-Prussian War

German invasion

Battle of Mars-La-Tour

Main article: Battle of Mars-La-Tour

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130,000 French soldiers were bottled up in the Fortress of Metz after suffering several defeats at the front. Four days after their retreat, on the 16th, the ever-present Prussian forces, here a group of grossly outnumbered 30,000 men of the advanced III Corps (of the 2nd Army) under General Constantine von Alvensleben, found the French Army near Vionville, east of Mars-la-Tour. Despite odds of four to one, the heroic III Corps routed the French and captured Vionville, blocking any further escape attempts to the West. Once blocked from retreat, the French in the fortress of Metz had no choice but to fight in a battle that would see the last major calvary engagement in Western Europe. III corps was decimated by the incessant calvary charges, losing over half its soldiers, while the French suffered equivalent numerical loses of 16,000 soldiers, but still held on to overwhelming numerical superiority.

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On August 16, 1870 the French could have swept away the key Prussian defence and escaped. Two Prussian corps attacked the French advanced guard thinking that it was the rearguard of the retreat of the French Army of the Meuse. Despite this misjudgement the two Prussian corps held the entire French army for the whole day. Outnumbered 5:1 the extraordinary self-belief of the Prussians prevailed over gross indecision by the French.

Related Topics:
August 16 - 1870

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Battle of Gravelotte

Main article: Battle of Gravelotte

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The Battle of Gravelotte, or Gravelotte-St. Privat, was the largest battle during the Franco-Prussian War. It was fought about six miles west of Metz, Lorraine, France where on the previous day, having intercepted the French army's retreat to the west at the Battle of Mars-La-Tour, the Prussians were now closed in to complete the destruction of the French forces.

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The combined German forces, under Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, were the Prussian First and Second Armies of the North German Confederation numbering about 210 infantry battalions, 133 cavalry squadrons, and 732 heavy cannons totalling 188,332 officers and men. The French Army of the Rhine, commanded by Marshal Francoise-Achille Bazaine, numbering about 183 infantry battalions, 104 cavalry squadrons, backed by 520 heavy cannons, totaling 112,800 officers and men, dug in along high ground with their southern left flank at the town of Rozerieulles, and their northern right flank at St. Privat.

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On August 18, 1870, the battle began when at 08:00 Moltke ordered the First and Second Armies to advance against the French positions. By 12:00, General Manstein opened up the battle before the village of Amanvillers with artillery from the 25th Infantry Division. But the French had spent the night and early morning digging trenches and rifle pits while placing their artillery and their mitrailleuses, an early type of machine gun, in concealed positions. With them finally aware of the Prussian advance, the French opened up a massive return fire against the mass of advancing Germans. The battle at first appeared in the French favour for they had better armed rifles, the Chassepot, which was a early bolt-action rifle replacing the musket with a range of over 1,500 yards, far superior to the Prussian Dreyse bolt-action rifle, also called the needle-gun, which had a range of only 600 yards. However, the Prussian artillery was superior for they had the all-steel Krupps breech-loading gun.

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By 14:30, General Steinmentz, the commander of the First Army, unilaterally launched his VIII Corps across the Mance Ravine in which the Prussian infantry were soon pinned down by murderous rifle and mitrailleuse fire from the French positions. At 15:00, the massed guns of the VII and VIII Corps opened fire to support the attack. But by 16:00, with the attack in danger of stalling, Steinmetz ordered the VII Corps forward, followed by the 1st Cavalry Division.

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By 16:50, with the Prussian southern attacks in danger of breaking up, the 3rd Prussian Guards Brigade of the Second Army opened an attack against the French positions at St-Privat which were commanded by General Canrobert. At 17:15, the 4th Prussian Guards Brigade joined the advance followed at 17:45 by the 1st Prussian Guards Brigade. All of the Prussian Guard attacks were too pinned down by lethal French gunfire from the rifle pits and trenches. At 18:15 the 2nd Prussian Guards Brigade, the last of the Guards Division, was committed to the attack on St Privat while Steinmetz committed the last of the reserves of the First Army across the Mance Ravine. By 18:30, a considerable portion of the VII and VIII Corps disengaged from the fighting and withdrew towards the Prussian positions at Rezonville.

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With the defeat of the First Army, Crown Prince Frederick Charles ordered a massed artillery attack against Canrobert's position at St. Privat to prevent the Guards attack from failing too. At 19:00 the 3rd Division of Fransecky's II Corps of the Second Army advanced across Ravine while the XII Corps cleared out the nearby town of Roncourt and with the survivors of the Guards Division launched a fresh attack against the ruins of St. Privat. At 20:00, the arrival of the Prussian 4th Division of the II Corps and with the Prussian right flank on Mance Ravine, the line stabilised. By then, the Prussians of the Guards Division and the XII and II Corps captured St. Privat forcing the decimated French forces to withdraw. But with the Prussians exhausted from the fighting, the French were now able to mount a counter-attack. But then General Bourbaki refused to commit the reserves of the French Old Guard to the battle because he considered it a 'defeat'.

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By 22:00, firing largely died down across the battlefield for the night. The next morning, the French Army of the Rhine, rather than resume the battle with an attack of its own against the battle-weary German armies, retreated to Metz where they were besieged and forced to surrender two months later.

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The casualties were horrible, especially for the attacking Prussian forces. A grand total of 20,163 German troops were killed, wounded or missing in action during the August 18 battle. The French losses were 7,855 killed and wounded along with 4,420 prisoners of war (half of them were wounded) for a total of 12,275. While most of the Prussians fell under the French Chassepot rifles, most French fell under the Prussian Krupp shells. In a breakdown of the casualties, Frossard's II Corps of the Army of the Rhine suffered 621 casualties while inflicting 4,300 casualties on the Prussian First Army under Steinmetz before the Pointe du Jour. The Prussian Guard Division losses were even more staggering with 8,000 casualties out of 18,000 men. The Special Guard Jäger lost 19 officers, a surgeon and 431 men out of a total of 700. The 2nd Guards Brigade lost 39 officers and 1,076 men. The 3rd Guards Brigade lost 36 officers and 1,060 men.

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On the French side, the units holding St Privat lost more than half their number in the village.

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Siege of Metz

Main article: Siege of Metz

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A further crushing French loss came at Metz, where Marshal Bazaine surrendered 180,000 soldiers on October 27.

Related Topics:
Metz - October 27

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Battle of Sedan

Main article: Battle of Sedan

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The French were soundly defeated in several battles owing to the military superiority of the Prussian forces and their commanders.

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With the defeat of Marshal Bazaine's Army of the Rhine at Gravelotte, they were forced to retire to Metz where they were besieged by over 150,000 Prussian troops of the First and Second Armies. Emperor Napoleon III, along with Field Marshal MacMahon, formed the new French Army of Chalons to march on to Metz to rescue Bazaine. With Napoleon III personally leading the army with Marshal MacMahon in attendance, they led the Army of Chalons in a left-flanking march northeast towards the Belgian border in an attempt to avoid the Prussians before striking south to link up with Bazaine.

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The Prussians, under the command of Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, took advantage of this incompetent manoeuvre to catch the French in a pincer grip. Leaving the Prussian First and Second Armies besieging Metz, Moltke took the Prussian Third Army and the Army of the Meuse northward where they caught up with the French at Beaufort on August 30. After a hard-fought battle with the French losing 5,000 men and 40 cannons in a sharp fight, they withdrew toward Sedan. Having reformed in the town, the Army of Chalons was immediately isolated by the converging Prussian armies. Napoleon III ordered the army to break out of the encirclement immediately. With MacMahon wounded on the previous day, General Auguste Ducrot took command of the French troops in the field.

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On September 1, 1870, the battle opened with the Army of Chalons, with 202 infantry battalions, 80 cavalry squadrons and 564 artillery guns, attacking the surrounding Prussian Third and Meuse Armies totalling 222 infantry battalions, 186 cavalry squadrons and 774 artillery guns. General De Wimpffen, the commander of the French V Corps in reserve, hoped to launch a combined infantry and cavalry attack against the Prussian XI Corps. But by 11:00, Prussian artillery took a toll on the French while more Prussian troops arrived on the battlefield. The French cavalry, commanded by General Marguerite, launched three desperate attacks on the nearby village of Floing where the Prussian XI Corps was concentrated. Marguerite was killed leading the very first charge and the two additional charges led to nothing but heavy losses.

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By the end of the day, with no hope of breaking out, Napoleon III called off the attacks. The French lost over 17,000 men killed and wounded with 21,000 captured. The Prussians reported their losses at 2,320 killed, 5,980 wounded and 700 captured or missing.

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By the next day, on September 2, Napoleon III surrendered and was taken prisoner with 104,000 of his soldiers. It was an overwhelming victory for the Prussians, for they not only captured an entire French army, but the leader of France as well. When news hit Paris of Emperor Napoleon's III capture, the French Second Empire was overthrown in a bloodless revolution leading to the creation of a new government of national defence and the Third Republic.

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The defeat of the French at Sedan decided the war in Prussia's favour. With the Second Empire overthrown, Napoleon III went into exile in England, while within a fortnight, the Prussian armies were besieging Paris.

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The War continues

After the German victory at Sedan, most of France's standing forces were out of combat. One army was immobilised and besieged in the city of Metz. Another army, led by Emperor Napoleon III himself, had surrendered to the Germans.

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Under these circumstances, the Germans hoped for an armistice which would put an end to the hostilities and lead to peace. Especially Prussia's prime minister von Bismarck entertained that hope for he wanted to end the war as soon as possible. To a nation with as many neighbours as Prussia, a prolonged war meant the growing risk of intervention by another power, and von Bismarck was determined to limit that risk.

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At first, the outlook for peace seemed fair. In Paris, a bloodless coup d'état led by general Trochu, Jules Favre, and Léon-Michel Gambetta removed monarchy and turned France into a republic. The Germans estimated that the new government of France could not be interested in continuing the war. Hoping to pave the road to peace, Prussia's prime minister von Bismarck submitted a list of moderate conditions.

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But the republican government refused to negotiate an armistice. It renewed the declaration of war, called for recruits, and pledged to drive the German troops out of France.

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Under these circumstances, the Germans felt compelled to continue the war. As they were not confronted by a sizable body of French troops, they decided to put pressure upon the enemy by attacking the capital of France. In October 1870, German troops reached the outskirts of Paris. Unable to penetrate the heavily fortified city, the Germans surrounded it and erected a blockade.

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Von Bismarck proposed to subject Paris to artillery shelling in order to ensure the city's quick surrender which, as he hoped, would bring the French to realize that they had lost the war. The German military command, headed by King Wilhelm of Prussia, turned down the proposal on the grounds that shelling civil living quarters would violate the rules of warfare. It was decided to starve Paris into surrender.

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Shifting Opinion

The French republican government's decision to continue the war changed public opinion in Germany for most Germans did not understand why France would not accept the German peace offer. Germans generally agreed that the outcome of the war was certain and that France could not reverse the military situation in her favor. Continued warfare would only lead to more bloodshed.

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In the fall of 1870, many Germans accepted the opinion that France was an aggressive country which could not accept defeat. Germans began to view France as an 'enemy by heritage' (Erbfeind) whom their ancestors had been made to fight for 200 years and who would continue to assault Germany.

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Consequently, many Germans demanded that Germany should be strengthened and France should be weakened in order to rule out any future war. France should be occupied by German troops after the war. France should be made to pay a high sum in reparations. And most important, the German-speaking areas in eastern France should be annexed by a new German state which was to be founded in order to unite the Germans against France.

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Prussia's prime minister von Bismarck had little respect for such plans. He refused to consider France an Erbfeind and aimed to appease France by moderate conditions for peace which ruled out any annexations. He was also sceptical about incorporating Prussia into a united Germany for it might result in weakening Prussia's dominant position. But finally, when the German nobility began to accept the new popular opinion, von Bismarck reluctantly began to prepare to unite Germany.

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Siege of Paris

Main article: Siege of Paris

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The Siege of Paris lasting from September 19, 1870 ? January 28, 1871 was the final defeat of the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War.

Related Topics:
Siege of Paris - September 19 - 1870 - January 28 - 1871

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