Franco-Prussian War: A Prelude to Armageddon

The military effects of this short, decisive war at the tail end of the 19th century set the stage for the Great War and the horrors that followed

The horrors of World War One are well recounted and well documented. A horrible combination of outdated tactics and deadly new technology led to an unprecedented slaughter that no one had predicted. The familiarity of modern people with World War One is mirrored by the unfamiliarity with the events of the Franco-Prussian War. The latter, by all accounts, laid the groundwork for the slaughter to come by reforging war doctrine, tactics, and technology.

It is a strange twist of history that the dress rehearsal for the Great War would be so short and decisive when the following conflict would be precisely the opposite. Many of the factors that caused the Great War to be so horrific were direct results of things that happened during the war in 1870 between the North German Federation and the Second French Empire.

Quick Overview

The scope of this war was extremely large, with hundreds of thousands of men being mobilized on both sides of the conflict. Total deployment was around 1.5 million people on both sides with active armies in the field…