page_title: Franco-Prussian War
section_title: Government of National Defence
hierarchical_section_title: Franco-Prussian War / War of the Government of National Defence / Government of National Defence
caption_attribution_description: English: "Discussing the War in a Paris Café" - a scene from the brief interim between the Battle of Sedan and Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War Français&#160;: "Discussions sur la guerre dans un café parisien" - Guerre franco-allemande de 1870, après le désastre de Sedan et avant le siège de Paris. Tiếng Việt: “Thảo luận về chiến tranh trong một quán cà phê Paris”. Một minh họa cho thời kỳ chiến tranh Pháp-Phổ, khoảng thời gian sau trận Sedan và trước khi Paris bị vây hãm.
context_page_description: The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the German states of the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871, the conflict was caused primarily by France's determination to restore its dominant position in continental Europe, which it had lost following Prussia's crushing victory over Austria in 1866. According to some historians, Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck deliberately provoked the French into declaring war on Prussia in order to draw four independent southern German states—Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse-Darmstadt—into an alliance with the North German Confederation dominated by Prussia. Some historians contend that Bismarck exploited the circumstances as they unfolded. None, however, dispute the fact that Bismarck must have recognized the potential for new German alliances, given the situation as a whole.
  France mobilised its army on 15 July 1870, leading the North German Confederation to respond with its own mobilisation later that day.
context_section_description: When the news arrived at Paris of the surrender at Sedan of Napoleon III and 80,000 men, the Second Empire was overthrown by a popular uprising in Paris, which forced the proclamation of a Provisional Government and a Third Republic by general Trochu, Favre and Gambetta at Paris on 4 September, the new government calling itself the Government of National Defence. After the German victory at Sedan, most of the French standing army was either besieged in Metz or prisoner of the Germans, who hoped for an armistice and an end to the war. Bismarck wanted an early peace but had difficulty in finding a legitimate French authority with which to negotiate. The Government of National Defence had no electoral mandate, the Emperor was a captive and the Empress in exile but there had been no abdication de jure and the army was still bound by an oath of allegiance to the defunct imperial régime.
  The Germans expected to negotiate an end to the war but while the republican government was amenable to war reparations or ceding colonial territories in Africa or in South East Asia to Prussia, Favre on behalf of the Government of National Defense, declared on 6 September that France would not "yield an inch of its territory nor a stone of its fortresses". The republic then renewed the declaration of war, called for recruits in all parts of the country and pledged to drive the German troops out of France by a guerre à outrance. Under these circumstances, the Germans had to continue the war, yet could not pin down any proper military opposition in their vicinity. As the bulk of the remaining French armies were digging-in near Paris, the German leaders decided to put pressure upon the enemy by attacking Paris. By September 15, German troops reached the outskirts of Paris and Moltke issued the orders for an investment of the city. On September 19, the Germans surrounded it and erected a blockade, as already established at Metz, completing the encirclement on 20 September. Bismarck met Favre on 18 September at the Château de Ferrières and demanded a frontier immune to a French war of revenge, which included Strasbourg, Alsace and most of the Moselle department in Lorraine of which Metz was the capital. In return for an armistice for the French to elect a National Assembly, Bismarck demanded the surrender of Strasbourg and the fortress city of Toul. To allow supplies into Paris, one of the perimeter forts had to be handed over. Favre was unaware that the real aim of Bismarck in making such extortionate demands was to establish a durable peace on the new western frontier of Germany, preferably by a peace with a friendly government, on terms acceptable to French public opinion. An impregnable military frontier was an inferior alternative to him, favoured only by the militant nationalists on the German side.
  When the war had begun, European public opinion heavily favoured the Germans; many Italians attempted to sign up as volunteers at the Prussian embassy in Florence and a Prussian diplomat visited Giuseppe Garibaldi in Caprera. Bismarck's demand that France surrender sovereignty over Alsace caused a dramatic shift in that sentiment in Italy, which was best exemplified by the reaction of Garibaldi soon after the revolution in Paris, who told the Movimento of Genoa on 7 September 1870 that "Yesterday I said to you: war to the death to Bonaparte. Today I say to you: rescue the French Republic by every means." Garibaldi went to France and assumed command of the Army of the Vosges, with which he operated around Dijon till the end of the war.
caption: "Discussing the War in a Paris Café"—a scene published in the Illustrated London News of 17 September 1870
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