The Thirty Years' War involved most of the major European continental powers. Although it was from its outset a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics, the rivalry between the Habsburg dynasty and other powers was also a central motive. This was demonstrated by the fact that Catholic France supported the Protestant side and extended the France-Habsburg rivalry.

The impact of the Thirty Years' War and related episodes of famine and disease was devastating. The war may have lasted for 30 years, but conflicts continued for 300 more years. In the decades after the war, while Austria and its German allies were defending against the Ottoman Empire in the Great Turkish War, France under King Louis XIV used the occasion for aggressive expansion on both sides of the Rhine. The memories of these events that define the history of most cities in the area, along with lasting French annexions of the Alsace and the repetition of the occupation in the Napoleonic Wars, led to the so-called French-German enmity and ultimately played a part in the origin of two World Wars.

The war ended with the Treaty of Westphalia. An agreement in 1648 which marked the end of the supremacy of the Holy Roman Empire and the emergence of France as a dominant power. It recognized the sovereignty of the German states, Switzerland, and the Netherlands; Lutherans, Calvinists, and Roman Catholics were given equal rights.

The War of the Austrian Succession became inevitable after Maria Theresa of Austria had succeeded her father Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor in his Habsburg dominions in 1740, namely becoming Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, and Duchess of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. For a woman to inherit such vast territories involved many complications, which were perceived long before, and Emperor Charles VI had long anticipated them, getting all the other powers to agree to the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713. The plan was for her to succeed to the hereditary Habsburg domains, and her husband, Francis I, Duke of Lorraine, to be elected Holy Roman Emperor.

Hostilities began when King Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia, using some unsettled dynastic claims as a pretext. Maria Theresa was perceived as weak, and some other princes, such as Charles Albert of Bavaria, alleged rights to the crown. After 1741 nearly all the powers of Europe were involved in the struggle, but the most enduring military interest of the war lies in the struggle of Prussia and Austria for Silesia. Southwest Germany, the Low Countries and Italy were the battle-grounds of France and Austria. The constant allies of France and Prussia were Spain and Bavaria. Various other powers joined them at intervals. The cause of Austria was supported almost as a matter of course by Great Britain and by the Netherlands, the traditional enemies of France. Of Austria's allies from time to time, Sardinia and Saxony were the most important.

The War of Austrian Succession concluded with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748. Maria Theresa and Austria survived status quo ante bellum, sacrificing only the territory of Silesia, which Austria conceded to Prussia. The end of the war also sparked the beginning of German Dualism between Prussia and Austria, which would ultimately bring about German Nationalism and the drive to unify Germany as a single entity.

The Seven Years' War was a war in the mid-18th century that enveloped both European and colonial theatres. The war was described by Winston Churchill as the real first world war, as it was the first conflict in human history to be fought around the globe, though all of the combatants were either European nations or their overseas colonies.

The war involved all major powers of Europe. Prussia, Hanover and Great Britain, British Colonies in North America, the British East India Company, and Ireland were pitted against Austria, France with New France and the French East India Company, the Russian Empire, Sweden, and Saxony. Spain and Portugal were later drawn into the conflict, while a force from the neutral United Provinces of the Netherlands was attacked in India.

European boundaries were returned to their pre-war states, by the Treaty of Hubertusburg (February 1763). This meant that Prussia was confirmed in its possession of Silesia.

The most tangible outcome of the war was the end of France’s power in the Americas having only French Guiana, Saint-Domingue, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon left to them and the emergence of Great Britain as the dominant colonial power in the world. More importantly, France's navy would never again be at near equal terms with the British Royal Navy and the British East India Company acquired the strongest position within India, which was to become the "jewel in the imperial crown". The Seven Years' War was the last major military conflict in Europe before the outbreak of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars towards the end of the 18th century.

The War of the Bavarian Succession was a war that occurred in 1778 and 1779. The fight is known as the Potato War (Kartoffelkrieg) because of the extended time the Prussian and Austrian troops spent in manoeuvres in Bohemia to obtain or deny food-supplies to the enemy.

When Elector Maximilian III of the house of Wittelsbach died in 1777, the Sulzbach line stood as heir to the Duchy of Bavaria. The Elector Palatine Charles IV Theodore was the actual heir who inherited the throne and he proceeded to cede Lower Bavaria to Austria by secret treaty with Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, in exchange for which he was to receive the Austrian Netherlands.

Frederick the Great of Prussia believed that Austria's acquisitions in Bavaria would rebalance the loss of Silesia to him three decades earlier, thus reestablishing Austria's hegemony in German-speaking lands and undermining his own position. He therefore constructed an alliance with Saxony and declared war on Austria, ostensibly to defend the rights of Charles II, Duke of Zweibrücken, Charles Theodore's heir.

Frederick's invasion of Bohemia was largely bloodless and ended in the Congress of Teschen (1779), mediated by Russia and France. According to the peace settlement, Maria Theresa of Austria, much to her son's and co-ruler's displeasure, gave all but the Innviertel back to Bavaria. Saxony received financial reward for their role in the intervention. It is notable largely as Frederick the Great's last war.

The Napoleonic Wars, a series of global conflicts fought during Napoleon Bonaparte's rule over France, formed to some extent an extension of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789 and continued during the régime of the Second French Empire. These wars revolutionized European armies and artillery, as well as military systems, and took place on a scale never before seen, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription. French power rose quickly, conquering most of Europe; the fall also took place rapidly, beginning with the disastrous invasion of Russia (1812), and Napoleon's empire ultimately suffered complete military defeat, resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France in 1814 and 1815.

No consensus exists as to when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and when the Napoleonic Wars began; one possible watershed date occurred when Bonaparte seized power in France, in November 1799. Other versions put the period of warfare between 1799 and 1802 in the context of the French Revolutionary Wars, and set the Napoleonic Wars' beginning at the outbreak of war between the United Kingdom and France in 1803, following the brief peace concluded at Amiens in 1802. The Napoleonic Wars ended on 20 November 1815, following Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo and the Second Treaty of Paris. Collectively, the nearly continuous period of warfare from April 20, 1792, until November 20, 1815, sometimes (though rarely these days) bears the name of the "Great French War".

The German "March Revolution" began as the immediate consequence of the Parisian February revolution. Due to the fragmentation of the country into German states and lacking a national center, the revolution had the character of isolated uprisings in the individual German lands. The revolution was largely non-violent and was primarily borne by the urban population. The actions of the peasants, which in several states were instrumental in bringing down the pre-March regimes, were above all aimed at the still existing feudal charges and occurred mainly among the estates of the former immediate nobility that still enjoyed state sovereign rights and had prevented the completion of defeudalization. The most important regions of peasants' uprisings were northern Baden and northern Wurttemberg as well as parts of Bavaria and Hesse-Darmstadt.

The prelude to the March Revolution was provided by a popular assembly organized in Mannheim in on February 27, 1848, by Democrats from Baden. Mannheim is in the Duchy of Baden and situated at the confluence of the Rhine and Neckar rivers. It was here that the March demands of fundamental claims of the people were formulated that included arming of the people, freedom of the press, trial by jury and creation of a German parliament. These demands were raised everywhere in the March days, usually supplemented by local or regional wishes for reform, and ultimately enacted. Petitions, the agitation of the press, street demonstrations, meetings and turmoil together with the emergence of oppositional deputies in parliaments were mostly the instruments used to pressure the princes and their cabinets and to force them to give in. The princely power holders, deeply frightened over the continued existence of their thrones by the proclamation of a republic in France, usually complied quickly with the demands of the people. In those regions where armies normally dealt counter-revolutionary blows, as in Bavaria, Hesse, and Saxony they had to give in due to the unreliability of troops, radical popular actions, or even the threat of their use.

The leading forces of the revolutionary March movement were mostly representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie. They attempted to carry out reforms and to participate in state power within the limits of their interests. They wanted a strictly peaceful course of change and fearing workers, social unrest and republican tendencies, they were anxious to compromise with the former powers in order to prevent a radical break-up of the political order. As a rule, the desired results were not achieved until the working people had been mobilized and, by their actions, had unmistakably demanded the inevitability of liberal refo rms.

From Baden, where already on March 1 the compliance with the March demands was initiated by a mass rally in front of the parliament and by the activities of democratic parliamentarians, the movement spread to all southern Germany and the larger part of the central-German states. Everywhere new governments were established, dominated by moderately liberal representatives of the bourgeoisie and proclaiming programs of liberal reform. In Bavaria the events resulted in the abdication of the monarch, King Ludwig I. Due to the political-moral support given by Prussia to several princes, the revolution was not victorious in several countries of central and northern Germany until the second half of March.

The uprising in Austria and Prussia was the highlight of the March revolution. In their armed riots the people forced the regimes to surrender.

In Vienna, with its population pressing for political change, a student-organized demonstration on March 13, 1848 escalated into a storm on the Ständehaus (house of the estates). The people put up armed resistance to the troops. After the uprising of the workers in the suburbs and the ultimatum by the liberal bourgeoisie pressurizing the Hofburg, the state leadership of the Habsburg regime decided to give in. In the evening of March 13 Prince Metternich was overthrown and the students were given permission to arm themselves. On the following days repeated actions by the people led to additional concessions such as the establishment of a National Guard, freedom of the press, vague promises to begin constitutional development in Austria and to install a new government consisting of less tainted representatives of the feudal bureaucracy.

The uprising in Berlin on March 18 was preceded by powerful oppositional governments in almost all Prussian provinces, especially in the Rhineland. Since March 6 the insubordinate spirit had spread to the capital. Due to the brutal deployment of soldiers, the instrument in the hands of the reactionary agitators around Prince Wilhelm against demonstrators, the inhabitants' wrath and indignation grew to demand more and more emphatically the withdrawal of all troops from Berlin. When on March 18 King Frederick William IV, under the pressure of a reform wing at the court signalled a compromising approach on several questions, yet was still unwilling to comply with the demand on a pullout of troops. He even deployed soldiers against a demonstration in front of the castle, sparking an hour-long street battle that was fought with great embitterment on both sides. Some 4,000 insurgents, mostly young workers, craftsmen, and students, were opposed by 14,000 soldiers with 34 cannons. 230 revolutionaries lost their lives in the fighting. A lthough the troops were able to conquer almost all barricades erected in the town center, their power was not sufficient to defeat the uprising militarily. Therefore, in the morning of March 19, the king ordered the military to pull out from the town and to acquiesce in the formation of a civic guard. Humiliatingly, he was forced to bow his head to the dead lying in state in the courtyard. After a transitional government installed on March 19, Prussia received a new ministry ten days later, whose leading personalities were Ludolf Camphausen and David Hansemann, representatives of the Rhinish upper classes. At the same time the way was paved to the transition of the country into a constitutions state.

The March Revolution was the first stage in the German Revolution of 1848-49. It shook the semi-feudal bureaucratic system of rule, led to a division of power between the princes and the bourgeoisie, but left the power of government largely in the hands of reactionary forces, since the old structures in bureaucracy and army remained almost untouched.

In Heidelberg, in the state of Baden, on March 5 1848, a group of German liberals began to make plans for an election to a German national assembly. This prototype Parliament met on March 31, in Frankfurt's St. Paul's Church. Its members called for free elections to an assembly for all of Germany and the German states agreed.

On May 18, 1848 the National Assembly opened its session in Frankfurt's St. Paul's Church with 550 delegates of the first freely elected German parliament. The assembly created a modern constitution as the foundation for a unified Germany. Although the achievements of the March Revolution were rolled back in many German states, the discussions in Frankfurt continued. In December 1848 the "Basic Rights for the German People" proclaimed equal rights for all citizens before the law.

On March 28, 1849, the draft of the constitution was finally passed. The new Germany was to be a constitutional monarchy, and the office of head of state, the "Emperor of the Germans", was to be hereditary and held by the respective King of Prussia. The latter proposal was carried by a mere 290 votes in favour, with 248 abstentions. The constitution was recognized by 29 smaller states but not by Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover and Saxony.

On April 2, 1849, a delegation of the National Assembly met with King Frederick William IV in Berlin and offered him the crown of the Emperor under this new constitution. Frederick William told the delegation that he could only accept the crown with the consent of his peers, the other sovereign monarchs and free cities.

Austria and Prussia withdrew their delegates from the Assembly, and the Assembly itself slowly disintegrated afterwards. Its most radical members went to Stuttgart in the state of Wurttemberg where they sat from June 6 to June18, 1849 as a parliament until it too was dispersed by Württemberg troops.

Armed uprisings in support of the constitution, especially in Saxony, the Palatinate and Baden were short-lived, as the local military, aided by Prussian troops, crushed them quickly. Leaders and participants, if caught, were executed or sentenced to long prison terms.

The achievements of the revolutionaries of March 1848 were repealed in all of the German states and by 1851, the Basic Rights had also been abolished nearly everywhere. In the end, the revolution fizzled because of the overwhelming number of tasks it faced and because of lack of mass support and actual power. Many disappointed German patriots went to the United States. Such emigrants became known as the Forty-Eighters.

The Austro–Prussian War, also called the Seven Weeks' War, the Unification War or the German Civil War was a war fought between the Austrian Empire and its German allies and Prussia with its German and Italian allies in 1866 that resulted in Prussian dominance in Germany. In Germany and Austria it is called Deutscher Krieg (German war) or Bruderkrieg (war of brothers).

For centuries, the Holy Roman Emperors who mostly came from the Habsburg family had nominally ruled all of Germany, but the powerful nobles maintained de facto independence with the assistance of outside powers, particularly France. Prussia had become the most powerful of these states, and by the nineteenth century was considered one of the great powers of Europe. After the Napoleonic Wars had ended in 1815 the German states were reorganised in a loose confederation, the Deutscher Bund under Austrian leadership. French influence in Germany was weak and nationalist ideals spread across Europe. Many observers saw that conditions were developing for the unification of Germany, and two different ideas of unification developed. One was a Grossdeutschland that would include the multi-national empire of Austria, and the other (preferred by Prussia) was a Kleindeutschland that would exclude Austria and be dominated by Prussia.

Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck became prime minister of Prussia in 1862, and immediately began a policy focused on uniting Germany as a Kleindeutschland under Prussian rule. Having raised German national consciousness by convincing Austria to join him in the Second War of Schleswig, he then provoked a conflict over the administration of the conquered provinces of Schleswig-Holstein (as formulated by the Gastein Convention). Prussian troops occupied parts of the Duchy of Holstein, which was administrated by the Habsburg Empire (9 June 1866). Austria did not immediately defend this territory, but Prussia had already decided to attack the opponent with secure Italian help. At the federal diet in Frankfurt, the Austrian presidency called for the armies of the minor German states to join them. Formally the war was an action of the confederation against Prussia to restore its obedience to the confederation ("Bundesexekution").

Most of the German states sided with Austria against Prussia, perceived as the aggressor. These included Saxony, Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau.

Some of the northern German states joined Prussia, in particular Oldenburg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and Brunswick. Also, Italy joined with Prussia, because Austria still ruled the territory of Venetia that the Kingdom of Italy wanted in order to complete Italian unification. Before the beginning of the war, the Habsburg Monarchy offered Italy to hand the region over, wishing to keep the powerful new national state neutral. According to the principle pacta sunt servanda, the kingdom fulfilled its duty based on the offensive alliance.

Notably, the other foreign powers abstained from this war. French Emperor Napoleon III, who expected a Prussian defeat, chose to remain out of the war to strengthen his negotiating position for territory along the Rhine, while Russia still bore a grudge against Austria from the Crimean War.

The first major war between two continental powers in many years, this war used many of the same technologies as the American Civil War, including railroads to concentrate troops during mobilization and telegraphs to enhance long distance communication. The Prussian Army used breech-loading rifles that could be loaded while the soldier was seeking cover on the ground, whereas the Austrian muzzle-loading rifles could be loaded only while standing (thus being a good target).

The main campaign of the war occurred in Bohemia. Prussian Chief of the General Staff Helmuth von Moltke had planned meticulously for the war. He rapidly mobilized the Prussian army and advanced across the border into Saxony and Bohemia, where the Austrian army was concentrating for an invasion of Silesia. There, the Prussian armies led personally by King Wilhelm converged, and the two sides met at the Battle of Königgrätz (Sadová) on July 3. Superior Prussian organization and élan decided the battle against Austrian numerical superiority, and the victory was near total, with Austrian battle deaths nearly seven times the Prussian figure. It is worth noting that Prussia was equipped with von Dreyse's breech-loading needle-gun, which was vastly superior to Austria's muzzle-loaders. Austria rapidly sought peace after this battle.

Except for Saxony, the other German states allied to Austria played little role in the main campaign. Hanover's army defeated Prussia at Langensalza on June 27, but within a few days they were forced to surrender by superior numbers. Prussian armies fought against Bavaria on the Main River, reaching Nuremberg and Frankfurt. The Bavarian fortress of Würzburg was shelled by Prussian artillery, but the garrison defended its position until armistice day.

The Austrians were more successful in their war with Italy, defeating the Italians on land at the Battle of Custoza (June 24) and on sea at the Battle of Lissa (July 20). Garibaldi's "Hunters of the Alps" defeated the Austrians at Battle of Bezzecca, on 21 July, conquered the lower part of Trentino, and moved towards Trento. Prussian peace with Austria–Hungary forced the Italian government to seek an armistice with Austria, on 12 August. According to Treaty of Vienna, signed on October 12, Austria ceded Venetia to France, which in turn ceded it to Italy.

In order to forestall intervention by France or Russia, Bismarck pushed the king to make peace with the Austrians rapidly, rather than continue the war in hopes of further gains. The Austrians accepted mediation from France's Napoleon III. The Treaty of Prague on August 23, 1866 resulted in the dissolution of the German Confederation, Prussian annexation of Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, and Frankfurt, and the permanent exclusion of Austria from German affairs. This left Prussia free to form the North German Confederation the next year, incorporated all the German states north of the Main river. Prussia chose not to seek Austrian territory for itself, and this made it possible for Prussia and Austria to ally in the future, since Austria was threatened more by Italian and Pan-Slavic irredentism than by Prussia.

The war left Prussia dominant in Germany, and German nationalism would compel the remaining independent states to ally with Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and then to accede to the titulation of King Wilhelm as German Emperor. United Germany would become one of the most powerful of the European countries.

The Franco-Prussian War was declared by France on Prussia, which was backed by the North German Confederation and the south German states of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria. The conflict marked the culmination of tension between the two powers following Prussia's rise to dominance in Germany, which before 1866 was still a loose federation of quasi-independent territories.

The war began over the possible ascension of a candidate from the Catholic branch of the Hohenzollern royal family to the vacant Spanish throne as Isabella II had abdicated in 1868. This was strongly opposed by France who issued an ultimatum to King Wilhelm I of Prussia to have the candidacy withdrawn, which was done. Aiming to humiliate Prussia, Emperor Napoleon III of France then required Wilhelm to apologize and renounce any possible further Hohenzollern candidature to the Spanish throne. King Wilhelm, surprised at his holiday resort by the French ambassador, declined as he was not informed yet. Prussia's Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, edited the King's account of his meeting with the French ambassador to make the encounter more heated than it really was. Known as the Ems Dispatch, it was released to the press and had the intended effect on the German public.

The French people and their parliament reacted with outrage, Napoleon III mobilized and declared war, on Prussia only, but effectively also on the states of southern Germany. The German armies quickly mobilized and within a few weeks controlled large amounts of land in Eastern France. Their success was due in part to rapid mobilization by train, to Prussian General staff leadership and to modern Krupp artillery made of steel. Napoleon III was captured with his whole army at the Battle of Sedan, yet this did not end the war, as a republic was declared in Paris on September 4, 1870, marking the creation of the Third Republic of France under the Government of National Defense and later the "Versaillais government" of Adolphe Thiers. The immediate result was an extension to the war as the Republic proclaimed a continuation of the fight.

Over a five-month campaign, the German armies defeated the newly recruited French armies in a series of battles fought across northern France. Following a prolonged siege, the French capital Paris fell on January 28, 1871. Ten days earlier, the German states had proclaimed their union under the Prussian King, uniting Germany as a nation-state, the German Empire. The final peace Treaty of Frankfurt was signed May 10, 1871, during the time of the bloody Paris Commune of 1871.

In France and Germany the war is known as the Franco-German War (French: Guerre franco-allemande de 1870 German: Deutsch-Französischer Krieg), which perhaps more accurately describes the combatants rather than simply France and Prussia alone.

Tensions had long been running high between Prussia and France following the Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War and its subsequent annexation of almost all Northern Germany. The humbling of Austria and Prussia's new territorial gains had shattered the European balance of power that had existed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Prussian Prime Minister Otto Von Bismarck, after proving Prussia to be the most powerful of German States in the Austro-Prussian War, wanted to once again unite the German States under the Prussian banner. This would allow a Prussian Emperor to rule all of the German States in a united German Empire. It would also lead to a more prosperous age in which the might of the German Empire would be unparalleled in Europe.

Following the end of the Austro-Prussian War, Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck and the French emperor Napoleon III had attempted to reach a private agreement regarding the balance of power in Europe. Napoleon III wished to realise French aspirations for "natural borders," a long term goal of French foreign policy since the Middle Ages — to annex all land west of the Rhine river and the Alps including the German state of Palatinate-on-Rhine, Belgium, the southern Netherlands, Luxembourg, Savoy, and parts of Hesse and Rhenish Prussia. A solid defensible border was also insurance against the possibility of a united Germany unfriendly to France. However in 1840 the French politician Adolphe Thiers had sparked a Franco-German diplomatic crisis (the Rhine crisis, 1840) over a mention of "natural borders" on the west bank of the Rhine, reminding many Germans of Napoleonic efforts to establish a border on the Rhine.

Savoy had been obtained from Italy following French support for Italian independence from Austria. Now Napoleon III sought Prussian neutrality when attempting to acquire Luxembourg and Wallonia (the French-speaking part of Belgium), while expecting Prussian neutrality as "compensation" for French neutrality during the Austro-Prussian War and for Prussian territorial gains. Bismarck was non-committal at best, but to the French government, Bismarck appeared to agree to or at least agreed not to obstruct any French moves against the Low Countries.

Thus in 1867, France began by negotiating the purchase of Luxembourg from the Dutch government, as Luxembourg was then in personal union with the Netherlands. Assuming that Bismarck would honour his part of the agreement, the French government was shocked to learn that instead Bismarck, Prussia and the North German Confederation were threatening war should the sale be completed. Luxembourg lay astride one of the principal invasion routes an army would use to invade either France or Germany. The city of Luxembourg's formidable fortifications, constructed by the famous military engineer Marshal Vauban, were considered "the Gibraltar of the North", and neither side could tolerate the other controlling such a strategic location. To mediate the dispute, the United Kingdom hosted the London Conference (1867) attended by all European great powers. It confirmed Luxembourg's independence from the Netherlands and guaranteed its independence from all other powers. War appeared to have been averted, at the cost of thwarting French desires.

France's position in Europe was now in danger of being overshadowed by the emergence of a powerful Prussia, and France looked increasingly flat-footed following Bismarck's successes. In addition, French ruler Napoleon III was on increasingly shaky ground in domestic politics. Having successfully overthrown the Second Republic and established the Bonapartist Second Empire, Napoleon III was confronted with ever more virulent demands for democratic reform from leading republicans such as Jules Favre, along with constant rumours of impending revolution. In addition, French aspirations in Mexico had suffered a final defeat with the execution of the Austrian-born, French puppet Emperor of Mexico Maximilian in 1867.

The French imperial government now looked to a diplomatic success to stifle demands for a return to either a republic or a Bourbon monarchy — the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, was quoted as saying, "If there is no war, my son will never be emperor." A war with Prussia and resulting territorial gains in the Rhineland and later Luxembourg and Belgium seemed the best hope to unite the French nation behind the Bonapartist dynasty. With the resulting prestige from a successful war, Napoleon III could then safely suppress any lingering republican or revolutionary sentiment behind reactionary nationalism and return France to the center of European politics.

Prussia in turn was also beset with problems. While revolutionary fervour was far more muted than in France, Prussia had in 1866 acquired millions of new, suspect citizens as a result of the Austro-Prussian War which was also a civil war among German states. The remaining German kingdoms and principalities maintained a steadfastly parochial attitude towards Prussia and German unification. The German princes insisted upon their independence and balked at any attempt to create a federal state that would be dominated by Berlin. Their suspicions were heightened by Prussia's quick victory and her subsequent annexations. Before the war, only some Germans, inspired by the recent unification of Italy, accepted and supported what the princes began to realise: That Germany must unite in order to preserve the fruit of an eventual victory.

The Prussian premier Otto von Bismarck had an entirely different view. He was interested only in strengthening Prussia and the power of her king. Uniting Germany appeared immaterial to him unless it improved Prussia's position. Bismarck considered the conflict with France inevitable, knowing that France would not quietly tolerate a powerful state to its east. He also viewed the war as a means to end the influence which France had long since exercised over Germany. The defeated South German states had to sign mutual defense treaties with the North German Confederation, but only a clear aggression from outside could make sure they would ally with Prussia, rather than against her once more.

Napoleon III and Bismarck independently sought a suitable crisis to forment, and in 1870 one arose. The Spanish throne had been vacant since the revolution of September 1868. The Spanish offered the throne to the German prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a Catholic as well as a distant cousin of King Wilhelm of Prussia. Fearing that a Hohenzollern king in Prussia and another one in Spain would put France into a two-front situation, Napoleon III was determined this time to stand up to the expansion of Prussian influence. He successfully forced King Wilhelm to urge the prince's withdrawal from his Spanish candidacy. Disappointed that the Prussians had backed down so easily, the French government tried to prolong the crisis. In a newspaper interview, Napoleon III announced that a renewal of the Hohenzollern candidature would result in France going to war, and the secretary of foreign affairs, Duc de Gramont, did the same in a speech in front of the Chambre législative. The French ambassador in Prussia Vincent Benedetti was then ordered to require Wilhelm I to guarantee that no Hohenzollern would ever again be a candidate for the Spanish throne. When the French ambassador bypassed diplomatic channels and directly confronted the king at his holiday resort, King Wilhelm was "very polite but cooly categorical." His message to Berlin (the Ems Dispatch) reporting this event with the French ambassador reached the desk of Bismarck. Bismarck edited the telegram in such a way as to arouse French indignation, and then released it for publication. France officially declared war on July 19, 1870.

Diplomatically and militarily, Napoleon III looked for support from Austria, Denmark, Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg, as all had recently lost wars against Prussia. However, Napoleon III inexplicably failed to conduct any diplomacy to secure revanchist alliances from these states. Denmark had twice fought Prussia (a stalemate victory in 1846, and a defeat 1864 against a confederation of north German states and Austria under the leadership of Prussia) during the First and Second Wars of Schleswig and was unwilling to confront Prussia again.

Austria wanted to avenge the defeat of 1866, but would not support France unless Italy was part of the alliance. Victor Emmanuel II wanted to support France, but Italian public opinion was bitterly opposed so long as Napoleon III kept a French garrison in Rome protecting Pope Pius IX, thereby denying Italy the possession of its Capital (Rome had been declared Capital of Italy in March 1861, when the first Italian Parliament had met in Turin). Napoleon III made various proposals for resolving the Roman Question, but Pius IX rejected them all. Thus the attempt to form an alliance with Austria and Italy failed.

Bismarck had also worked assiduously to diplomatically isolate France from the other European powers. As part of the settlement of the Austro-Prussian War, secret treaties of mutual defense were signed between Prussia and Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg. Bismarck also added the threat that should the south German monarchs refuse to honour their treaty commitments, he would personally appeal to pan-German nationalists in southern Germany to overthrow their royal houses. Bismarck then made public French correspondence demanding Belgium and Luxembourg as the price for remaining neutral during the Austro-Prussian War. The United Kingdom in particular took a decidedly cool attitude to these French demands — which they called 'tipping policy' — and showed no inclination to aid France. Though it had enjoyed some time as the leading power of continental Europe, the French Empire found itself dangerously isolated in the face of the allied German states.

According to the secret treaties signed with Prussia and in response to popular opinion, Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg mobilised their armies and joined the war against France. While not prepared to join a united Germany, the south German monarchs could not ignore public opinion which would not stand for another Bonapartist invasion of Germany.

The French Army comprised approximately 400,000 regular soldiers, some veterans of previous French campaigns in the Crimean War, Algeria, Franco-Austrian War in Italy, and in Mexico supporting the Second Mexican Empire. The infantry were equipped with the breech-loading Chassepot rifle, one of the most modern mass-produced firearms in the world at the time. With a rubber ring seal and a smaller bullet, the Chassepot had a maximum effective range of some 750 yards (685 meters) with a rapid reload time. [1] The artillery was equipped with rifled, muzzle-loaded Lahitte '4-pounder' (actual weight of shot: 4 kg / 8.4l lb) guns. In addition, the army was equipped with the precursor to the machine-gun — the mitrailleuse, which was mounted on an artillery gun carriage and grouped in batteries in a similar fashion to cannon. The army was nominally led by Napoleon III with Marshals François Achille Bazaine, Patrice MacMahon and Jules Trochu among others.

The Prussian Army was composed not of regulars but reserves. Service was compulsory for all men of military age, thus Prussia and its North and South German allies could mobilise and field some 1.2 million soldiers in time of war. The sheer number of soldiers available made mass-encirclement and destruction of enemy formations advantageous. The army was still equipped with the "needle-gun" Dreyse rifle of fame from the Battle of Königgrätz which was by this time showing the age of its 25 year old design. The deficiencies of the needle-gun were more than compensated for by the famous Krupp 6 pounder (3 kg) breech-loading cannons being issued to Prussian artillery batteries. Firing a contact-detonated shell filled with zinc balls and explosive, the Krupp gun had a range of 4,500 meters and blistering rate of fire compared to muzzle loading cannon. The Prussian army was commanded by Field-Marshal Helmuth von Moltke and the Prussian General Staff. The Prussian army was unique in Europe for having the only General Staff in existence, whose sole purpose was to direct operational movement, organise logistics and communications and develop the overall war strategy. In practice, a chief of staff was a much more important figure in the Prussian Army than in any other army, because he had the right to appeal against his superior to the commander of the next highest formation. Thus, for example, the Crown Prince was unable to contradict the advice of his Chief of Staff, General Leonhard, Count von Blumenthal, for fear of a direct appeal (in this case) to his father the King.

Given that France maintained a strong standing army, and that Prussia and the other German states would need weeks to mobilise their irregular armies, the French held the initial advantage of troop numbers and experience. French tactics emphasised the defensive use of the Chassepot rifle in trench-warfare style fighting; however, German tactics emphasised encirclement battles and using artillery offensively whenever possible.

on September 2, Napoleon III surrendered and was taken prisoner. It was an overwhelming victory for the Prussians, for they not only captured an entire French army, but the leader of France as well. The defeat of the French at Sedan had decided the war in Prussia's favor, yet the war would not end within the next five months to come.

When news hit Paris of Emperor Napoleon's III capture, the French Second Empire was overthrown in a bloodless and successful coup d'etat at Paris. They removed the second Bonapartist monarchy and proclaimed a republic led by a Government of National Defense, leading to the Third Republic. Napoleon III was taken to Germany, and released later. He went into exile in the United Kingdom, dying in 1873.

The Germans estimated that the new government of France could not be interested in continuing the war that had been declared by the monarch they had quickly deposed of. Hoping to pave the road to peace, Prussia's Prime Minister von Bismarck invited the new French Government to negotiations and submitted a list of moderate conditions, including limited territorial demands in Alsace. This area west of the Rhine, inhabited by Germans for over a thousand years had been annexed by Louis XIV in 1681.

The newly formed Third Republic of Francewas not willing to give up any French soil so they renewed the declaration of war and pledged to drive the enemy troops out of France.

Under these circumstances, the Germans had to continue the war. As the bulk of the remaining French armies were digging-in near Paris, the German leaders decided to put pressure upon the enemy by attacking the capital of France. In October 1870, German troops reached the outskirts of Paris, a heavily fortified city. The Germans surrounded it and erected a blockade. The Siege of Paris lasted until January 28, 1871 and brought about the final defeat of the French. The Prussians had secured their victory in the Franco-Prussian War.

On January 18, 1871 at Versailles Wilhelm I was proclaimed German Emperor. The kingdoms of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the states of Baden and Hessen, and the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen were unified to create the German Empire. The preliminary peace treaty was signed at Versailles and the final peace treaty was signed with the Treaty of Frankfurt on May 10, 1871. Otto von Bismarck was able to secure Alsace-Lorraine from France as part of the German Empire under the Treaty of Frankfurt.