Collapse
Napoleon III eventually paid the price for his failure to help defend Austria from Prussia. In 1870, when, goaded by Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck, he began the Franco-Prussian War.
Napoleon and most French leaders were confident of an outright victory. However, in a key strategic misjudgement, Napoleon took personal command of the army, which was poorly organized. He had no skills at this level of military action, and was psychologically despondent most of the time. He ignored sound military advice, and his forces scored only a few local successes, as the better-armed and better-trained German army marched into France. Napoleon refused to return to Paris or turn command over to a more competent general. As a result, he was trapped and captured on 2 September 1870, following the Battle of Sedan. In Paris, two days later, he was deposed by the forces of the newly-formed Third Republic.
The war proved disastrous for France, but was advantageous in giving birth to the German Empire, which would supplant France's place as the major land power in Continental Western Europe to the end of World War I.
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Famous quotes containing the word collapse:
“At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are loaded down with curses.”
—Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919)
“The world was a huge ball then, the universe a might harmony of ellipses, everything moved mysteriously, incalculable distances through the ether.
We used to feel the awe of the distant stars upon us. All that led to was the eighty-eight naval guns, ersatz, and the night air-raids over cities. A magnificent spectacle.
After the collapse of the socialist dream, I came to America.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)