Franco-Prussian War: From Sedan to Versailles

German guns fired the first shells on Strasbourg on 14 August 1870, and on 24 August the Museum of Fine Arts was destroyed by fire. The besiegers eventually expended 202,099 shells on the fortress. After the news of Sedan reached the city and no relief came, the garrison surrendered on 28 September. Strasbourg was then ceded to Germany in the Treaty of Frankfurt on 10 May 1871.

Location precision: The siege hit the whole city and its fortifications, so the pin marks central Strasbourg rather than one site.

The battle of Gravelotte on 18 August 1870 was the largest battle of the war. French troops dug in on high ground and met the advancing Germans with Chassepot rifles and mitrailleuses. In the evening the Prussian Guards took St. Privat, and the French Army of the Rhine withdrew into Metz, losing its last chance of retreating west to Verdun. In Gravelotte village there is a museum of the 1870 war and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine.

Location precision: The battlefield spreads over several villages; the pin marks Gravelotte village.

Visitor guidance: Gravelotte has a museum dedicated to the 1870 war and a military cemetery.

On 1 September 1870, Napoleon III hoisted a white flag on the fortress walls of Sedan. Next day General Wimpffen signed the surrender of the Army of Châlons and the fortress. In Paris, the Second French Empire collapsed in a bloodless revolution. Germans celebrated 2 September as Sedantag until 1919. The castle, begun in 1424, is claimed to be the largest fortified medieval castle in Europe.

Location precision: The fighting covered the fields around the town; the pin marks the castle area.

Visitor guidance: Sedan's medieval castle is the main surviving part of the town's fortifications.

With the French Army of the Rhine shut up in Metz, provisions lasted only 41 days. The soldiers ended up living on the flesh of 20,000 horses, and on 27 October Bazaine surrendered his entire army because of starvation. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche served on the Prussian side as a medical attendant. The city itself was largely unharmed by the siege.

Location precision: The siege ringed the whole fortress, so the pin marks central Metz.

On 18 January 1871 the Second German Empire was established in the Hall of Mirrors, in a ceremony led by Otto von Bismarck, where William I was declared German emperor. Versailles was the headquarters of the united German armies, and the hall's ceiling paintings glorified French conquests of German lands, which the French found deeply humiliating. The treaty ending the First World War was signed in the same hall on 28 June 1919. It remains reserved for official ceremonies of the French Republic.

Visitor guidance: Part of the Palace of Versailles.