The Wissembourg Gap was the route selected for the Prussian invasion of France in the Franco-Prussian War. Indeed, the resulting third Battle of Wissembourg (1870), which took place on 4 August 1870, was the first major engagement of the war. The Prussians and their Bavarian and Swabian allies were nominally commanded by Crown Prince Frederick, but their movements were in practice directed by his chief of staff, General Leonhard Graf von Blumenthal. The battle was a victory for the Prussians, enabling their forces to pour into France through the Wissembourg Gap, and the invasion of France culminated a month later with the decisive Battle of Sedan and the collapse of the Second French Empire. The Geisberg monument commemorates the Battle of Wissembourg, and the town cemetery in Wissembourg holds large numbers of soldiers, including the stately tomb of French general Abel Douay who was killed in combat.