French (Civ6)/War Machine/Civilopedia

France had been preparing for war with Germany since the disaster of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, when the Prussian army had mauled the French field army, captured the Emperor, and extracted humiliating concessions in the peace that had followed, including the cessation of the territories of Alsace and Lorraine in the east of France. An entire generation of French politicians and officers had grown up in the shadow of this defeat, and were determined to seek vindication, if not outright vengeance for the loss. 
France’s main military allies were Russia and Great Britain, and it was the Russian declaration of war against The Austro-Hungarian Empire that precipitated France’s entry into the war on behalf of the allies. France, however, was focused primarily on their own fight against Germany than that against Austro-Hungary. To that end, the primary French effort at the outbreak of the war was an attack into Alsace and Lorraine to recapture that territory quickly, leaving the northern border with Belgium and Luxembourg only lightly defended. The French war plans critically underestimated the number of German forces who would be attacking along that axis (it presumed the Germans would come through the Ardennes), forcing the armies to abruptly shift plans at the very outbreak of the war.