Franco-Prussian War

Conflict of 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871 between France and the Prussian-led North German Confederation, triggered by France's determination to reassert continental dominance and Bismarck's edited publication of the Ems Dispatch. German victories culminated in the Siege of Metz and the Battle of Sedan, where Emperor Napoleon III was captured; after a four-month siege Paris fell on 28 January 1871. The war proclaimed the German Empire under Wilhelm I, ceded Alsace-Lorraine to Germany under the Treaty of Frankfurt, and established the French Third Republic, soon shaken by the Paris Commune.