[[quoteright:265:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/FrancoPrussianWar.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:265:UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck and a captive Napoleon III the day after the French defeat of Sedan (September 2, 1870).]]

-> ''Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés.'' [[labelnote: Translation]] ''We are in a chamber pot, and are about to be shat upon.''[[/labelnote]]
-->--French General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot

The Franco-Prussian War - known in UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} as the German-French War (''Deutsch-Französischer Krieg'') or War of 1870/71, and in UsefulNotes/{{France}} as the Franco-German War (''Guerre franco-allemande'') or "Guerre franco-prussienne" - was the last of three wars that led to the unification of [[UsefulNotes/AllTheLittleGermanies a plethora of Germanic states]] into [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany one single empire]] (the first since the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire had any political power).

There were multiple causes of the war, including but not limited to, a potential sale of UsefulNotes/{{Luxembourg}} to France, the vacancy of the Spanish throne, and UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck, the Prime Minister of UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}, modifying and publishing [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ems_Dispatch an insulting telegram]] about a meeting of the French Ambassador. For whatever cause, a dangerously underprepared France declared war on Prussia (and thus the North German Confederation) in July of 1870. These circumstances led the South German states (Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg) to join the side of the North German Confederation, thanks to a secret mutual defense treaty arranged by Bismarck.

The result was a 10-month disaster for France as the Prussians and their allies decimated the French in all but three battles (where the French won one at Broney-Colombey and fought to a draw in two others), captured the French Emperor, Napoleon III, and unified Germany.

Another result of the war was Germany's annexation of Elsaß-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine - which actually amounted to Alsace-'''Moselle''' [[note]]Three out of four departments of Lorraine remained French, only Moselle was annexed, but German liked calling it "Lothrigen" still. The territory of Belfort was part of Alsace, but remained French, in part because Germans besieged but didn't manage to take the Belfort citadel before the war ended.[[/note]]), which they held until 1918. This would prove a major problem, as the Alsace-Moselle issue made France implacably hostile to Germany, as well as changing the international perception of Germany from victim to aggressor[[note]]The main reason for the annexation was quite interestingly dull. The Prussian leadership realized that the direct border between Germany and France would need fortification, but it was outside the crown lands of Prussia. The rulers of the other German states retained substantial autonomy under the empire and did not want Imperial forts on their land. Alsace-Moselle was annexed as Imperial territory, ruled directly by the Kaiser, which got around the problem, though the territory would start gaining substantial autonomy in the 1910s just before the Great War broke out. In other words, they had to move the border in order to have one they could fortify. Note that the way France annexed Alsace from the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire in the 17th century during the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar was ''way'' more violent, so violent that the area had to be repopulated with people coming from UsefulNotes/{{Switzerland}}.[[/note]]. Moreover, the French had to leave UsefulNotes/{{Rome}}, indirectly finishing the Unification of UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}.

The defeat of Napoleon III led to his fall and the proclamation of the Third French Republic, which continued the war longer than the Germans expected by continually raising new armies even as Paris was besieged. In a bloody epilogue after the signing of the definitive peace treaty French fought French as the forces of the conservative central government put down the Paris Commune, a short-lived revolutionary government which was in control by revolutionary members of the French working class. While short-lived and petty by that time, it would inspire a book by Creator/KarlMarx (''The Civil War in France'') and later UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin to start the [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober October Revolution]] and create the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]], thus being responsible for communism's first steps as a major power through the 20th century.

Another consequence of the end of the war is that [[UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration Meiji Japan]], which was looking to modernize its armies by taking example on France, felt unimpressed by their defeat and decided to emulate the Germans instead. The shift was not total, and French military advisors were still sought after, and had an especially profound impact on the Imperial Japanese Navy (though still not as profound as the impact of the British Royal Navy, to whom the Japanese were mainly looking to because, you know, they were the 19th-century Royal Navy). Despite the humiliating defeat, the Japanese foreign minister in a visit in France in 1873 said that he had profound respect for their courage in the face of overwhelming odds.

By the end of the war, the balance of power in Europe had been completely upended, as France's centuries-long superiority over the rest of Europe was abruptly terminated. What had once been a chain of small and mid-size German states had, within a year, become the single most powerful nation on the continent. Even worse (from the French perspective), Germany was growing stronger, rapidly increasing its population and industry.

This in turn started a chain of events that led to World War I. France, desperate and humiliated, formed a series of alliances in case they ever went to war with Germany again, and Germany did the same. With one exception, all of these alliances became the Allied Powers (France, Great Britain, and Russia, as well as the other countries they gathered after the war began) and the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the countries they gathered). The newly-united Italy was the exception - Italy was in an alliance with Germany, but didn't enter World War I until the Allied Powers offered them parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The conflict is seldom seen in the media nowadays, having been superseded by the two UsefulNotes/{{World|War I}} [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Wars]] in Europe's collective memory.
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!!Depictions

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[[folder: Art ]]


* ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Cartridges_(painting) Les Dernières Cartouches]]'' (literally ''The Last Cartridges'') depicts "Troupes de Marine" making a LastStand against Bavarians in an inn during the Battle of Bazeilles near Sedan by pooling together their [[TitleDrop last cartridges]]. Of the 50 ''Marsouins'' [[note]]Literally "Porpoises", the nickname for "Troupes de Marine"[[/note]] only 15 survived and were captured.

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[[folder: Film ]]

* ''[[https://youtu.be/H0YPnhSQYB4 Bombardement d'une maison]]'' (''Bombing of a house'', 1897), most probably the very first film to depict it (and probably the very first war film). It was directed by Creator/GeorgesMelies. Also released under the title Les Dernières Cartouches (The Last Cartridges).
* ''Bismarck'', 1940 German {{biopic}}.
* ''Champ d'honneur'', 1987 French film.
* ''Film/EastLynne'': Part of the unfortunate TraumaCongaLine of protagonist Lady Isabella has her trapped in Paris, starving, during the siege.
* ''La Forteresse assiégée'' (''The Besieged Fortress''), 2006 French MadeForTVMovie about the siege of the French citadel of Bitche.

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[[folder: Literature ]]

* Several Creator/GuyDeMaupassant short stories use the war as setting, such as ''Boule de Suif'' and ''Mademoiselle Fifi''.
* Creator/EmileZola's ''La Débâcle'' is set during the war, specifically at the Battle of Sedan and the French civil war in spring 1871.
* The short story ''The Street of The First Shell'' from ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'' is set during the Siege of Paris.
* Creator/HenrikIbsen was in Munich at the time, and wrote a long "rhyming letter" to a friend (included in his collected poems). The poem tells quite bluntly that he has had it with merry Prussians belching out ''Wacht am Rhein'' at every opportunity, and is quite pessimistic about the future of German militarism. Spot on.

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[[folder: Video Games ]]

* A sizable chunk of VideoGame/VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun playthroughs will be about pouring vast amounts of time and resources into either bringing about the war or stopping[=/=]postponing it. The outcome of the war is rather random in vanilla versions of both the first and second game, but gets brutally historical in expansion packs and mods.

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[[folder: Theatre ]]

* Norwegian author Nordahl Grieg wrote a full dramatic play: ''The Defeat'', concerning the fate of the Paris commune. Grieg, being a communist, actually used the contemporary writings of Marx as source material. The BigBad of the story is, of course, Thiers (while some of the communards are depicted as downright assholes as well). DownerEnding of historical accuracy: kill them all (including a number of children shot on stage).

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[[folder: Web Original ]]

* In the alternate history ''Literature/TheLegacyOfTheGlorious'', this war is known as the ''Hohenzollerns' War'', after the reigning dynasty in Prussia (although in [=TTL=]'s Spain it is called ''King Leopold's War''). Like it happened in RealLife, the most direct cause of the war was the Ems dispatch, but there is a difference: since Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was confirmed as King of Spain before the French caught wind of it, France declares war on Prussia and Spain. War ends even more disastrously for the French, because, apart from Alsace-Lorraine, they also lose the southern department of Rousillon and the Oranesado in north Africa to Spain, as well as paying a greater war indemnization.
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