Following a series of disastrous defeats of the French Army, on 19 September 1870, Prussian forces had taken control of the country around Paris, and put the capital under siege. With the surrender of the French Emperor Napoleon III, a provisional republican government had been established, and ushered in the Third Republic as successor to the Second Empire, in the most difficult of circumstances.

The new French government wasn’t yet ready to admit defeat. They called for guerilla warfare against the occupying Prussian forces to deprive them of supplies, and the formation of large armies from the unoccupied provinces to the west and south. Prussian opinion favoured the bombardment of Paris to try to bring the war to a more rapid conclusion, but thankfully Prussian High Command wouldn’t accept that on moral grounds.

As the Prussians sent small armies out to the provinces to disrupt French attempts at re-organisation, conditions in Paris steadily deteriorated.

Anton von Werner shows the contrasting life In the Troops’ Quarters Outside Paris (1894), here in the luxurious Château de Brunoy, which had been abandoned to or requisitioned by those occupying forces. Prussian soldiers were blamed for the almost complete destruction of Pissarro’s work prior to the war, when they occupied his house in 1870.

Édouard Detaille’s painting of action at Champigny, December 1870 (1879) took place only 12.5 km (under eight miles) from the centre of Paris.

There were French counter-attacks. On 29 October 1870, General Carey de Bellemare attacked the Prussian Guard at Le Bourget, despite having no orders to do so, and forced them to cede the town to his troops. Despite these positions being of little value to either side, the Prussians re-took them in the Battle of Le Bourget on 30 October. Although incorrectly dated, de Neuville shows French soldiers sheltering in a Bivouac after the Battle of Bourget, 21 December 1870 (1873). This was a major blow to the beleaguered citizens still in Paris.

As the winter grew colder, Parisians were starting to starve. A city which had long been proud of its restaurants and food was reduced to scavenging meals based on horse, dog, cat, and even the city’s rats.

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier’s romanticised view of The Siege of Paris from 1870 combines almost every symbol relevant to the city’s distress, dressing Marianne in a lionskin against a battle-worn flag. Meissonier had originally been attached to the staff of Napoleon III, and accompanied him in early phases of the war in Italy. During the siege of Paris, though, he was a Colonel commanding an improvised infantry unit, and knew well the realities of combat.

Another artist who was trapped inside Paris was the great illustrator and painter Gustave Doré, who made several works showing scenes such as this Sister of Charity Saving a Child. An Episode of the Siege of Paris (1870-71).

The greatest memorial to those who lost their lives in the siege, and those who survived it, is Louis-Ernest Barrias’ bronze The Defence of Paris of 1883. This has so dominated the part of the city where it’s situated that the area is known as La Défense.

Military action continued into 1871, although it was already clear that France was utterly defeated. Secret discussions about an armistice started on 23 January, but the French government feared that their capitulation could precipitate rebellion, even revolution.

Édouard Detaille’s depiction of The Armistice of 28th January 1871 (1873) shows the moment the symbolic white flag was raised over a bleak plain.

To the nearly 400,000 French dead from the war, the Prussians were determined to add profound insult: as shown in Anton von Werner’s painting of the Crowning of Wilhelm I as Emperor of Germany, in Versailles (1882). Prussia had celebrated victory in this ceremony held at the most famous of French royal palaces, on 18 January 1871.

Neither were participants afraid to spread ‘false news’: Emil Hünten’s undated Welcome of Empress Eugénie by Prussian Soldiers shows an event that never occurred. When the Empress was told of her husband’s surrender to the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, she’s reported to have said:
“No! An Emperor does not capitulate! He is dead!… They are trying to hide it from me. Why didn’t he kill himself! Doesn’t he know he has dishonored himself?!”

With hostile crowds forming outside her Tuileries Palace, she slipped out to find sanctuary in the company of her American dentist, then fled to England by yacht on 7 September 1870. She was later joined by the former emperor, and the couple lived at Chislehurst in Kent. She never fraternised with Prussian soldiers.

Gustave Doré had a deeply personal involvement, as he had been born in Strasbourg, a French city the Prussians had taken early in the war. He volunteered to serve in the National Guard, and produced several moving paintings of the suffering of Paris.

His The Enigma (souvenirs de 1870) and two other works were painted using grisaille, greys normally used to model tones in traditional layered technique. This shows the shattered and still-burning remains of the city in the background, bodies of some of the Prussian artillery in the foreground, and two mythical beasts silhouetted in an embrace. The winged creature is female, and probably represents France, who clasps the head of a sphinx, who personifies the forces that determine victory or defeat. The enigmatic question would then relate to the Franco-Prussian War, and the reasons for France’s defeat.

Over the next seventy-five years, France and Germany were to fight one another twice more, before the Treaty of London of 5 May 1949 created the Council of Europe, which West Germany joined in 1951, and became ancestor of the European Union.

Painting in Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century was centred on Paris. A lot happened in other countries too – such as the Pre-Raphaelites – but the major movements of the time came together in the capital city of France. Yet in the middle of this, from 1870-71, there was a major war in northern France between two of the great empires of the day, France and Prussia. Paris was put under siege, fell to Prussian occupation, and was then torn apart by the Commune.

These events had great impact on art and artists at the time. Some fled for safe places: several went to London, where they were exposed to important influences such as the paintings of Turner and Constable, who were formative to the Impressionists. Some died during that war, and promising and influential careers were terminated abruptly. Many stayed, and witnessed the horrors of war at first hand.

This weekend I look at the Franco-Prussian War and its immediate aftermath, stopping short of the ensuing turmoil of the Paris Commune.

Like so many wars, the Franco-Prussian War arose because of the conflicting ambitions of countries. The French Second Empire under Napoleon III had been in decline for several years, and had already demanded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the left bank of the Rhine in ‘compensation’ for Prussia’s annexation of territories to form the North German Confederation. Prussia was clearly seeking to become the dominant power in Europe, by forming a single nation from those previously separate states, plus the Southern German States and the French territory of Alsace-Lorraine.

France and Prussia were on a collision course, and on 19 July 1870 France declared war on the North German Confederation, a war for which the French were almost completely unprepared.

Fleury Chenu’s father in Briançon, France, was a master tailor working for the French Sixth Regiment at the time. Chenu’s Trainees, Snow Effect from 1870 gives a good idea of the limited preparation which the French had made as tensions mounted during the previous winter. Although a detailed realist painting, Chenu’s sky is powerful, and sets the scene for the straggling trainees as they make their way along the icy road.

Pierre-Georges Jeanniot had become an officer in the French infantry in 1866, and at the time of the war was a Lieutenant in the 23rd Infantry. He must have known how numerically inferior and weak the French forces were when he painted these Reservists (1870) queueing in the heavy showers to enlist and serve their country. This mobilisation occurred before reforms had been implemented to the system, and proved chaotic and inadequate.

Jeanniot was wounded at Rezonville, was awarded the Légion d’Honneur for his service during the war, and eventually left the army in the rank of Major.

Emperor Napoleon III left Paris for the new headquarters in Metz, as commander of the Army of the Rhine, on 28 July 1870. Although the Prussian army had its own professional General Staff under the command of Field Marshal von Moltke, Adolph von Menzel here shows the ceremonial Departure to the Army of King William I, 31 July 1870 (1871). That same day, Napoleon’s forces moved towards the Saar River to pre-emptively seize the Prussian town of Saarbrücken.

Anton von Werner had been sent with the staff of the Prussian Third Corps under the command of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia. When French and Prussian forces fought their first substantial action in the Battle of Wissembourg on 4 August, the French were soundly defeated and forced to retreat. The commander of the French I Corps was killed, and von Werner committed that to canvas in 1888 as Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm with the Body of General Abel Douay, Weißenburg, 4 August 1870.

That was the first of a series of major defeats for the French during August.

Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville made his reputation with a succession of popular paintings showing the war. The Last Cartridges (1873) shows French snipers from the Blue division of the Marines ambushing Bavarian troops in l’Auberge Bourgerie in Bazeilles just prior to the Battle of Sedan, in which the French suffered their most disastrous defeat to date: on 2 September 1870, Napoleon III himself was forced to surrender with 104,000 of his soldiers.

De Neuville’s The Spy from 1880 shows a scene exploiting the humiliation of the French defeat. As Prussian forces advanced through northern France, they captured and shot good French citizens who they considered had got in their way. The Frenchman in blue to the right of centre is being searched and stripped in front of a group of Prussian officers, clearly accused of trying to defend his own country. Paintings like this fuelled Revanchism, the lasting sense of bitterness and demand for revenge against Prussia, and were disturbingly popular.

De Neuville’s In the Trenches (1874) is perhaps a more faithful depiction of the conditions that French soldiers had to endure as the Prussians took more French territory during the early winter. Members of the Garde Mobile take what shelter they can in the bitter cold.

Paul-Émile Boutigny’s undated Scene from the Franco-Prussian War shows that life was no easier for the better-trained and properly equipped Prussian forces as the fighting moved into the winter. I’m very grateful to Boris for decoding the uniforms and equipment shown here (see his comment below). The soldier on the left is French, and holds a French Chassepot musketon with a long yataghan bayonet, while his colleague on the right appears to be Prussian, with his pickelhaube spiked helmet and a heavy cavalry cuirass that’s essentially modernised armour. Behind them is a group of mixed French and German soldiers who appear to be walking wound proceeding in front of an ambulance wagon.

Émile Betsellère’s moving L’Oublié! (Forgotten) from 1872 shows the appalling conditions facing the wounded after a winter battle.

Albert Anker was a Swiss artist who you wouldn’t have expected to have painted scenes from the Franco-Prussian War. However, in January 1871, he was witness to a strange event that must have affected him deeply.

The French General Charles Bourbaki (1816-1897) had been put in command of the Army of the East, soldiers who had been hastily trained and were ill-equipped. He and his troops were defeated in their attempt to raise the siege of Belfort, and were pursued by the Prussians until they crossed the border into Switzerland in late January and early February. Just over half of his 150,000 men had survived, and were in desperate straits by this time, as the winter conditions worsened. The Swiss disarmed them, gave them as much shelter and aid as they could, as shown in Anker’s painting of Bourbakis from 1871, and returned them to France in March.

Most important of all, though, was the fact that on 19 September 1870, Prussian forces had taken control of the country around Paris, and put the capital under siege.