In April, 1864, Louis Napoleon sent an army of twenty-five thousand to sustain the Austrian Archduke Maximilian on the throne of Mexico. At that time the United States was occupied with the Civil War. This ended, Napoleon was summarily required to withdraw his forces from the American continent, which he did. Maximilian was thus left to his fate, and, after being condemned by court martial, was shot at Querétaro, June 19, 1867.
The Franco-Prussian War.—Prince Leopold, of Hohenzollern, was offered the throne of Spain after Isabella had fled from Madrid. Leopold declined, but Napoleon demanded that the Emperor William should guarantee never to permit Leopold to accept. William refused to accede to the demand, and Napoleon, urged by the war party, declared war July 19, 1870. On the same day the Confederation placed its forces in the hands of William, as did the South Germans. This spontaneous uprising of all Germany was unlooked for. Napoleon’s army numbered three hundred and ten thousand men. In ten days William had nearly half a million soldiers ready to march against the enemy. August 2, the first fight took place at Saarbrücken, a little town over the German frontier. Napoleon and the young Prince Imperial were present, and the force of Uhlans was driven back. August 4, the Crown Prince of Prussia drove the right wing of MacMahon’s army back at Weissenburg, and on the 6th, again was MacMahon defeated at Wörth. The Germans, having separated MacMahon’s army, advanced into Alsace. In the meantime General Steinmetz carried Spicheren by storm, and the whole German army went forward. Together with the Crown Prince, Steinmetz, on the 14th of August, defeated Marshal Bazaine, at Courcelles, who retreated to Metz, and then endeavored to push on with his hundred thousand men to Chalons. Von Moltke hurried on the Crown Prince to intercept Bazaine, and at Mars la Tour was fought the fiercest battle, so far, of the war. On either side the losses amounted to seventeen thousand. Gravelotte was fought, on August 18, between the armies of Steinmetz and the Crown Prince, King William commanding in person. The battle lasted all day between two hundred thousand Germans and one hundred and eighty thousand French. The Germans lost twenty thousand men, and succeeded in forcing Bazaine into Metz. Although, in one sort, an undecisive battle, Gravelotte perhaps settled the fate of the Empire. MacMahon’s plan was, with his one hundred and twenty-five thousand men reorganized at Chalons, to prevent the German advance on Paris. He was overruled and sent to the relief of Bazaine. Defeated in several small fights, MacMahon was obliged to fall back on Sedan. The heights and ridges above Sedan once occupied by hostile troops, surrender or annihilation was the outcome. MacMahon was wounded, then Ducrot, and the command fell to Wimpffen. Sedan was forced to surrender, September 1, and Napoleon himself gave his sword to King William. Paris was maddened. The Empress escaped to England. Napoleon was taken to the castle of Wilhelmshöhe.
A month had hardly passed since the outbreak of the war, and one of the two great French armies with the Emperor had been captured; the other was besieged in Metz. Gambetta and other prominent men in Paris set up the government of the national defense. A republic was proclaimed. The defense of Paris was zealously undertaken. Large supplies of provisions were gathered. Fortifications were strengthened. The siege began September 19, 1870, and ended January 28, 1871. The direst famine attended it. Gambetta left Paris in a balloon, and at Tours succeeded in forming the army of the Loire and the army of the North. Both were defeated. Strasbourg was captured, and Metz surrendered with a hundred and seventy-three thousand men, among them three marshals of France. The entire German loss in this war was 129,700 men.
January 17, 1871, Thiers was elected President of the Third Republic. Knowing the impossibility of further resistance, with half a million German soldiers, flushed and inspired by constant success, on the soil of France, and Paris in their anaconda coils, he counseled that peace be asked. Thiers, Favre, and Picard negotiated with William and Bismarck. An armistice of twenty days was permitted, that the National Convention then at Bordeaux might ratify terms. In the meantime the house of Hohenzollern reached the summit of its gratified ambition, when, on March 18, William was crowned at Versailles, Emperor of Germany. The cession of Alsace and Lorraine, and $1,000,000,000 indemnity, was the price of peace.
No patriot name in all history deserves more reverence than that of Louis Adolphe Thiers. Upon him devolved the task of making peace with the German foe, of quelling the civil war, and of so managing the finances of France, that her people within two years were enabled, to the astonishment of the world, to pay the enormous indemnity extorted by the Germans, and, by September, 1873, the last franc was paid and the last German sentinel removed from the soil of France.
The civil war between the Republic and the Commune settled the question once for all, that Paris, accountable for all the errors and vicissitudes of the country, is not France, and there is every reason to hope that out of the unequaled horrors of those awful days of carnage the republican government of France arose to remain in perpetuity.
Garibaldi, taking advantage of the fall of Louis Napoleon, and caring not for the king’s promises, took possession with his troops of the city of Rome, September 20, 1870, and on July 2 of the next year Victor Emmanuel erected his throne in the Quirinal.
Turco-Russian War.—In 1875, the Bosnians, Turkish subjects, revolted. They maintained their struggle, and the enraged Turks sent Mohammedan troops among the defenseless Bulgarians, destroying unnumbered thousands of men, women, and children. Czar Alexander declared war April 1, 1877. His army crossed the Balkans and occupied Shipka Pass. Osman Pasha developed unexpected military genius and skill. For five months he checked the onward march of the Russians and won world-wide admiration by his defense of Plevna. By the first of December Plevna was invested completely by the Russians. Driven back whenever attempting to make a sortie, starvation compelled Osman to surrender with forty-four thousand troops. Adrianople was occupied. The Treaty of San Stefano was wrested in sight of Constantinople. It greatly reduced Turkish power in Europe, and constituted Russia heir to Turkey in Europe. Bulgaria was to be protected by fifty thousand Russian troops for two years and to have a Christian governor.
Three months later, England formed a secret treaty with Turkey, securing Cyprus and agreeing to protect Turkey in Asia. Austria, too, was dissatisfied, and the treaty of Berlin was made in 1878, to rectify the balances of the nations. Russia was by this treaty damaged in prestige and, shorn of triumphs, was given only Asiatic provinces. Turkey was stripped of all real power in Europe.
