Franco-Prussian War Timeline

German forces fought and defeated new French armies raised in northern France during the latter part of the war, clearing the way for the siege of Paris.

On 19 July 1870, the French sent a declaration of war to the Prussian government. The conflict between France and the North German Confederation led by Prussia lasted until 28 January 1871 and was caused primarily by France's determination to reassert its dominant position in continental Europe.

On 28 July 1870 Napoleon III left Paris for Metz and assumed command of the newly titled Army of the Rhine, some 202,448 strong and expected to grow as the French mobilization progressed.

Image source: Army of the Rhine (1870)

France invaded German territory on 2 August 1870, opening hostilities on the ground after the declaration of war.

The first action of the Franco-Prussian War took place on 4 August 1870, as German forces crossed into France and engaged French troops.

Image source: Battle of Wissembourg (1870)

On 1 September 1870, the battle opened with the Army of Châlons, with 202 infantry battalions, 80 cavalry squadrons and 564 guns, attacking the surrounding Prussian Third and Meuse Armies totaling 222 infantry battalions, 186 cavalry squadrons and 774 guns. The battle ended in disaster for France and the capture of Napoleon III.

Image source: Battle of Sedan

As autumn storms of the North Sea forced the return of more of the French ships, the blockade of the north German ports diminished and in September 1870 the French navy abandoned the blockade for the winter.

Image source: Blockade of Germany (1914–1919)

Bismarck's demand that France surrender sovereignty over Alsace caused a dramatic shift in sentiment in Italy, exemplified by Garibaldi telling the Movimento of Genoa on 7 September 1870: 'Yesterday I said to you: war to the death to Bonaparte.'

Image source: Giuseppe Garibaldi

Outside Europe, the French corvette Dupleix blockaded the German corvette SMS Hertha in Nagasaki, and the Battle of Havana took place between the Prussian gunboat SMS Meteor and the French aviso Bouvet off Havana, Cuba, in November 1870.

Image source: Battle of Havana (1870)

This disparity in forces created a crisis for the Germans at the front in November 1870, which only the release of the large forces besieging the fortress of Metz allowed them to overcome.

Image source: Siege of Metz (1870)

A second French army which operated north of Paris was turned back at the Battle of Amiens on 27 November 1870, part of a series of failed attempts to relieve the capital.

Image source: Battle of Amiens (1870)

In January 1871, Gambetta forced Faidherbe to march his army beyond the fortresses and engage the Prussians in open battle, despite the risks involved.

Image source: Louis Faidherbe

A second French army operating north of Paris was also turned back at the Battle of Bapaume on 3 January 1871, further frustrating French efforts to break the German encirclement of Paris.

Image source: Second Battle of Bapaume

The French offensive took the Germans by surprise and by mid-January 1871, the French had reached the Lisaine River, just a few kilometers from the besieged fortress of Belfort.

Image source: Battle of the Lisaine

Prussian forces commenced the siege of Paris on 19 September 1870, surrounding the capital and cutting it off from the rest of France for over four months before it fell.

National guard units tried to seize power in Paris on 31 October 1870, one of several internal uprisings during the siege that foreshadowed the later Paris Commune.

National guard units made another attempt to seize power in Paris on 22 January 1871, reflecting growing unrest within the besieged city.

Image source: Paris Commune

On 26 January 1871, the Government of National Defence based in Paris negotiated an armistice with the Prussians, paving the way for the end of hostilities.

Image source: Armistice of Versailles

After being besieged for over four months, Paris fell on 28 January 1871, effectively ending the war between France and the North German Confederation led by Prussia.

Image source: Siege of Paris (1870–1871)

Seizing upon the distraction of the Franco-Prussian War, Russia in November 1870 had begun rebuilding its naval bases in the Black Sea, a clear violation of the treaty that had ended the Crimean War fourteen years earlier.

Image source: Black Sea Fleet

The war showed that breech-loading cannons were superior to muzzle-loaded cannons. The Prussian tactics and designs were adopted by European armies by 1914, exemplified in the French 75, optimised for direct fire support to advancing infantry.

After the peace of Frankfurt in 1871, a rapprochement between France and Russia was born, culminating in the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, which explicitly referred to the perceived threat of Germany.

Image source: Franco-Russian Alliance

Twenty-six courts were established to try more than 40,000 people who had been arrested, which took until 1875 and imposed 95 death sentences, of which 23 were inflicted.

About 20,000 Communards were held in prison hulks until released in 1872, and a great many Communards fled abroad to the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Belgium or the United States.

Despite opposition to Prussia among their ruling circles, the southern German states of Saxony, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt became part of the newly proclaimed German Empire in January 1871.

Image source: Unification of Germany

The most serious native insurrection since the time of Emir Abdelkader was the 1871 Mokrani Revolt in the Kabylia, which spread through much of Algeria amid France's post-war weakness.

Image source: Mokrani Revolt

On 18 March 1871, when the regular army tried to remove cannons from an artillery park on Montmartre, National Guard units resisted and killed two army generals, sparking the Paris Commune uprising.

By April 1871, 250 tribes had risen, or nearly a third of Algeria's population, taking advantage of France's preoccupation with the aftermath of defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.

Following an armistice with France, the Treaty of Frankfurt was signed on 10 May 1871, giving Germany billions of francs in war indemnity, as well as most of Alsace and parts of Lorraine, which became the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine.

Image source: Treaty of Frankfurt (1871)

The indemnity imposed on France was proportioned, according to population, to be the exact equivalent to the indemnity imposed by Napoleon on Prussia in 1807, a deliberate symbolic reversal.

The surviving Communards were amnestied by a bill introduced by Gambetta in 1880 and allowed to return to France.