Der Deutsch-Franzoesischer Krieg

This is meant to be played as German player vs. French computer.

The German player must use the rail network. The capture of key locations opens rail segments.
The segments are as follows: Buchy to south of Verdun, Sedan to Rheims, Chalons to Soissons, Soissons to east of Meaux and to La Fere, Strasbourg to Luneville, Marsal to La Bourgonce, Epinal to Lure, Toul to Vitry, Vitry to Chalons, Corbeil to north of Etampes.

Also, the capture of a fort that is worth at least 1 point that sits on a rail will have a 33% chance of increasing the German supply stockpile 1 point and German rail capacity by 150. The French will decrease by the same amounts. This does not work in reverse should the French recapture the fort.

The Franco-Prussian War (July 19, 1870 - May 10, 1871) was waged between the Empire of France and the Prussian led North German Confederation allied with the south German states of Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg. The conflict marked the culmination of tension between the two powers following Prussia's rise to dominance in Germany, still a loose federation of quasi-independent territories.

Prussia's victory, the founding of the German Empire and the bitterness felt by many French following their defeat was the start of a chain of events which would later lead directly to World War I and World War II. The wartime establishment of the Paris Commune would later serve as an inspiration for the development of communism and a model for communist revolutionaries worldwide such as Lenin and Mao Zedong. The war also demonstrated the usefulness of an army general staff and central planning, combined with good communications such as rail transport and telegraphy.

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.

France's position in Europe was now in danger of being overshadowed by the emergence of a powerful German state led by Prussia. In addition, France's 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 increasingly virulent demands for democratic reform from leading republicans such as Jules Favre along with constant rumors of impending revolution. The only force uniting the French was the universal desire to punish Prussia for its "arrogance". A war with Prussia would unite the French nation behind Napoleon III, quash any republican or revolutionary sentiment behind reactionary nationalism, re-establish France as the paramount power in Europe, and gain France the Rhineland and later Luxembourg and Belgium.

Prussia in turn was also beset with problems. While revolutionary fervour was far more muted than in France, Prussia had recently aquired millions of new suspicious citizens as a result of the Austro-Prussian War. The remaining German kingdoms maintained a steadfastly parochial attitude towards Prussia and German unification, their suspicions only heightened following Austria's defeat. A complicated set of 3 national parliaments (the Reichtag, Landtag and Bundestag) made legislative reform into a nightmare. Nationalism was also at a fever pitch throughout Germany following the unification of Italy and the North German Confederation. The Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck was nonetheless determined to realise his dream of a united Germany, if necessary with "blood and iron". Given all Germany's recent experience of French aggression, pillage and subjugation at the hands of the first Napoleon, Bismarck viewed a war with France as a method to enlist the support of nationalists throughout Germany and unite all of the squabbling factions into one nation led by the Prussian king.

Napoleon III and Bismarck began at once to seek 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 (cousin of King Wilhelm of Prussia). Napoleon III was determined this time to stand up to the expansion of Prussian influence and successfully forced the prince's father to withdraw his son's candidacy. Disappointed that the Prussians had backed down so easily, the French government tried to prolong the crisis. The French ambassador in Prussia issued a further demand to the Prussian King Wilhelm I - to guarantee that no Hohenzollern would ever be a candidate for the Spanish throne. The king coldly listened to the demand, then left without giving a response and cancelling a later appointment with the French ambassador. His telegram (the Ems Dispatch) reporting this interview with the French ambassador was edited by chancellor Bismarck of Prussia in such a way as to provoke French indignation. France officially declared war on July 19, 1870.

Against French expectations, the south German states, independent from Prussia but connected to it by secret treaties, joined the war. While not prepared to join a German united state, the south German monarchs would not stand for yet another Bonapartist invasion of Germany and mobilized their armies.

The French Army comprised approximately 400,000 regular soldiers, some veterans of previous French campaigns in the Crimean War, Algeria and Mexico. The infantry were equipped with the breech-loading Chassepot rifle, one of the most modern 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 1,500 meters with a rapid reload time. The artillery was equipped with somewhat less modern muzzle-loading bronze 4-pounder cannons little changed from Napoleonic times. 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 a conscript army. Service was compulsory for all men of military age, but Prussia and its North and South German allies could mobilize 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. The army was still equipped with the "needle-gun" Dreyse rifle of fame from the Battle of Königgrätz but by this time was showing the age of it's 25-year old design. The deficiencies of the needle-gun were more than compensated for by the famous Krupp 6-pounder 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.

Given that France maintained a strong standing army, and that Prussia and the other German states would need weeks to mobilize their conscript 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.

The French were soundly defeated in several battles owing to the military superiority of the Prussian forces and their commanders. At Sedan on September 2, the French emperor Napoleon III was taken prisoner with 100,000 of his soldiers. This led two days later to a bloodless revolution in Paris, ending the Second French Empire, and leading to the creation of a new government of national defense.

An armistice was signed on January 28, 1871, ten days after Wilhelm's proclamation as German emperor at Versailles. The preliminary Franco-German peace treaty was signed at Versailles on February 26, 1871.

While the war united Germany under the Prussian crown, France became a republic (February 1875) in which memories of the Commune continued to divide left and right. Also as a result of the war, the Papal States, no longer under French protection, were seized (September 20, 1870) by Italy, completing the unification of that country.

The war embittered Franco-German relations for decades to come, contributing to the European rivalries which would erupt in World War I. French agitation for revanche - revenge for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine - gave its name to the phenomenon of revanchism, the desire to punish a past enemy and regain former territories.