The 1870–71 war between France and Germany was the first, but remains the least remembered, of the archrivals’ terrible modern wars. Even less attention has been paid to the Americans it drew across the Atlantic to fight, observe, mediate, run a field hospital and, before it was over, endure two grinding sieges and pounding bombardment in Paris. Not every American in the French capital stuck it out, but Elihu B. Washburne, minister of the American Legation, considered it his duty to look out for those of his countrymen and women trapped in “that circle of iron and fire.”
The Franco-Prussian War, as it was known, was prompted by the combatant nations’ deeper territorial and political ambitions. Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck needed a war to unite the German confederation of states into a nation; Napoléon III, leader of France’s shaky Second Empire, gave him one by mobilizing his country’s army on July 15, 1870, as a show of force intended to discourage any further consolidation of German power. It had the opposite effect. The North German Confederation mobilized its forces in response, and Bismarck was able to convince the independent southern German states to enter a mutually supportive military alliance. The French declared war on July 19 and on August 2 marched into German territory. Despite Napoléon III’s hopes for a quick victory, the stage was set for a disaster that would shake France to its foundations.
Just as French and German military officers had crossed the Atlantic to observe the latest tactics and technological advancements in action during the American Civil War, the new conflict in Europe prompted U.S. military officers to attach themselves to the warring armies as observers.
From the Prussian side Lt. Gen. Philip Sheridan, an advocate of total war, advised Bismarck to cause the French “so much suffering that they must
