Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/675

The Kingdom of Italy and the German Empire 517 unite under Prussia against a common enemy, they would later join the North German Federation. On the other hand, the hos- tility which the South German states had formerly shown toward Prussia encouraged Napoleon III to believe that as soon as the French troops should gain their first victory, Bavaria, Wiirtem- berg, and Baden would join him. 923. Victory of the Germans. That first victory was never won. War had no sooner been declared than the Germans laid all jealousy aside and ranged themselves as a nation against .France. The French army, moreover, was neither well equipped nor well commanded. The Germans hastened across the Rhine and within a few days were driving the French before them. In a series of bloody encounters about Metz one of the French armies was defeated and finally shut up within the fortifications of the town. Seven weeks had not elapsed after the beginning of the war before the Germans had captured a second French army and made a prisoner of the emperor himself in the great battle of Sedan, September i, 1870. The Germans then laid siege to Paris. Napoleon III had been completely discredited by the disasters about Metz and at Sedan, and consequently the Empire was abolished and France for the third time was declared a republic. In spite of the energy which the new government showed in arousing the French against the invaders, prolonged resistance was impossible. The French capi- tal surrendered January 28, 1871, an armistice was arranged, and the war was to all intents and purposes over. 924. Cession of Alsace and Lorraine and the Indemnity. Bismarck humiliated France, in arranging the treaty of peace, by requiring the cession of two French provinces Alsace and northeastern Lorraine. 1 The Germans wished for a visible sign that they had had their revenge on the French. Many of the Alsatians, it is true, spoke a German dialect, but the provinces had no desire to become a part of the German Empire. 1 Alsace had, with certain exceptions, especially as regarded Strassburg and the other free towns, been ceded to the French king by the Treaty of Westphalia ( 590). During the reign of Louis XIV all of Alsace had been annexed to France (1681). The duchy of Lorraine had upon the death of its last duke fallen to France in 1766.