1870-1871: The Franco-Prussian War

The siege of Paris by Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons and Wurttembergers in 1870/​71 is not as devastating as the siege of Leningrad in 1941-1944. But in the five months between September 1870 and January 1871 almost two million Paris residents experience that a modern war makes little difference between civilians and soldiers. After the capitulation of Sedan, on September 2, 1870, the Emperor Napoleon III was deposed, and the Second Republic was proclaimed on September 4 by a government of national defense which Leon Gambetta formed. While France decides to continue the war, the Prussian armies and their allies march on Paris. For five months, they besieged the city, condemning the Parisians to starvation. In the episode "A Parisienne" in the series "The Franco-Prussian War 1870/​71" the 20-year-old Genevieve Breton uses her diary to report on events, the happiness and pain of love in times of war, glowing patriotism and the realization that not the enemy, but the war is the real evil.

When it broke out on 19 July 1870, the war between France and the coalition of kingdoms united under the banner of King William I of Prussia was one of the first conflicts in which the technical advances of the industrial era played a major role: the train, the telegraph, photography, but also the popular press, which was then booming. After having learned the ropes in Crimea and India, the British journalist William Howard Russell, 49, was dispatched by the Times of London to the Prussian general staff. From the Battle of Bazeilles in August 1870 to the birth of the German Empire, proclaimed at Versailles after the French defeat in January 1871, this astute observer provides an impartial account of the cruelty of the conflict, not only for the combatants, but also for the civilian population.

Since the declaration of war between France and Prussia in the summer of 1870, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Bronsart von Schellendorff, 38, had led one of the sections of the Prussian General Staff. Throughout the conflict, his brilliant battle plans contributed to the overwhelming successes of the army of Prussian King William I, and he also led the preliminary negotiations for the French surrender at Sedan. With his almost scientific precision, the account he gives of his daily life in his "secret war diary" reflects the cold, empathetic image that one could have of the high-ranking Prussian officer – and constitutes a first-rate testimony for historians.