Editing Napoleon III (section)

===Defeat in the Franco-Prussian War===
When France entered the war, there were patriotic demonstrations in the streets of Paris, with crowds singing ''[[La Marseillaise]]'' and chanting "To Berlin! To Berlin!" But Napoleon was melancholic. He told General Lepic that he expected the war to be "long and difficult", and wondered, "Who knows if we'll come back?" He told Marshal [[Jacques Louis Randon|Randon]] that he felt too old for a military campaign.{{Sfn|Girard|1986|p=473}} Despite his declining health, Napoleon decided to go with the army to the front as commander in chief, as he had done during the successful Italian campaign. On 28 July, he departed Saint-Cloud by train for the front. He was accompanied by the 14-year-old Prince Imperial in the uniform of the army, by his military staff, and by a large contingent of chefs and servants in livery. He was pale and visibly in pain. The Empress remained in Paris as the [[Regent]], as she had done on other occasions when the Emperor was out of the country.

The mobilization of the French army was chaotic. Two hundred thousand soldiers converged on the German frontier, along a front of 250 kilometers, choking all the roads and railways for miles. Officers and their respective units were unable to find one another. General [[Helmuth von Moltke the Elder|Moltke]] and the [[Prussian Army]], having gained experience mobilizing in the war against Austria, were able to efficiently move three armies of 518,000 men to a more concentrated front of just 120 kilometers. In addition, the German soldiers were backed by a substantial reserve of the [[Landwehr]] (Territorial defence), with 340,000 men, and an additional reserve of 400,000 territorial guards. The French army arrived at the frontier equipped with maps of Germany, but without maps of France—where the actual fighting took place—and without a specific plan of what it was going to do.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|loc=pp. 69–70 (2009 ed.)}}

On 2 August, Napoleon and the Prince Imperial accompanied the army as it made a tentative crossing of the German border toward the city of [[Saarbrücken]]. The French won a [[Battle of Saarbrücken|minor skirmish]] and advanced no further. Napoleon III, very ill, was unable to ride his horse and had to support himself by leaning against a tree. In the meantime, the Prussians had assembled a much larger army opposite Alsace and Lorraine than the French had expected or were aware of. On 4 August 1870, the Prussians attacked with overwhelming force against a French division in [[Alsace]] at the [[Battle of Wissembourg (1870)|Battle of Wissembourg]] (German: Weissenburg), forcing it to retreat. On 5 August, the Germans defeated another French army at the [[Battle of Spicheren]] in [[Lorraine]].

On 6 August, 140,000 Germans attacked 35,000 French soldiers at the [[Battle of Wörth]]; the French lost 19,200 soldiers killed, wounded and captured, and were forced to retreat. The French soldiers fought bravely, and French cavalry and infantry attacked the German lines repeatedly, but the Germans had superior logistics, communications, and leadership. The decisive weapon was the new German [[C64 (field gun)|Krupp six pound field gun]], which was [[Breechloader|breech-loading]], had a steel barrel, longer range, a higher rate of fire, and was more accurate than the bronze [[Muzzleloader|muzzle-loading]] French cannons. The Krupp guns caused terrible casualties in the French ranks.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|loc=p. 61 (2009 ed.)}}

When news of the French defeats reached Paris on 7 August, it was greeted with disbelief and dismay. Prime Minister Ollivier and the army chief of staff, Marshal [[Edmond Le Boeuf]], both resigned. The Empress Eugénie took it upon herself as the Regent to name a new government. She chose General [[Cousin-Montauban]], better known as the Count of Palikao, seventy-four years old and former commander of the French expeditionary force to China, as her new prime minister. The Count of Palikao named Marshal [[François Achille Bazaine]], the commander of the French forces in Lorraine, as the new military commander. Napoleon III proposed returning to Paris, realizing that he was not doing any good for the army. The Empress, in charge of the government, responded by telegraph, "Don't think of coming back, unless you want to unleash a terrible revolution. They will say you quit the army to flee the danger." The Emperor agreed to remain with the army.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|loc=pp. 80–81 (2009 ed.)}} With the Empress directing the country, and Bazaine commanding the army, the Emperor no longer had any real role to play. At the front, the Emperor told Marshal Leboeuf, "we've both been dismissed."{{Sfn|Milza|2006|loc=p. 81 (2009 ed.)}}

On 18 August 1870, the [[Battle of Gravelotte]], the biggest battle of the war, took place in Lorraine between the Germans and the army of Marshal Bazaine. The Germans suffered 20,000 casualties and the French 12,000, but the Germans emerged as the victors, as Marshal Bazaine's army, with 175,000 soldiers, six divisions of cavalry and five hundred cannons, was [[Siege of Metz (1870)|besieged]] inside the [[fortifications of Metz]], unable to move.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|loc=p. 92 (2009 ed.)}}

Napoleon was at [[Châlons-sur-Marne]] with the army of Marshal [[Patrice de MacMahon]]. MacMahon, Marshal Bazaine, and the count of Palikao, with the Empress in Paris, all had different ideas of what the army should do next, and the Emperor had to act as a referee. The Emperor and MacMahon proposed moving their army closer to Paris to protect the city, but on 17 August Bazaine telegraphed to the Emperor: "I urge you to renounce this idea, which seems to abandon the Army at Metz... Couldn't you make a powerful diversion toward the Prussian corps, which are already exhausted by so many battles? The Empress shares my opinion." Napoleon III wrote back, "I yield to your opinion."{{Sfn|Girard|1986|p=480}} The Emperor sent the Prince Imperial back to Paris for his safety and went with the weary army in the direction of Metz. The Emperor, riding in an open carriage, was jeered, sworn at and insulted by demoralized soldiers.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|loc=p. 92 (2009 ed.)}}

The direction of movement of MacMahon's army was supposed to be secret, but it was published in the French press and thus was quickly known to the [[German General Staff]]. Moltke, the German commander, ordered two Prussian armies marching toward Paris to turn towards MacMahon's army. On 30 August, one corps of MacMahon's army was attacked by the Germans at [[Beaumont, Meurthe-et-Moselle|Beaumont]], losing five hundred men and forty cannons. MacMahon, believing he was ahead of the Germans, decided to stop and reorganize his forces at the fortified city of [[Sedan, Ardennes|Sedan]], in the [[Ardennes]] close to the Belgian border.{{Sfn|Girard|1986|p=482}}

====Battle of Sedan and capitulation====
{{Further|Battle of Sedan}}
[[File:Nap sedan von Wilhelm Camphausen.jpg|thumb|Napoleon III at the [[Battle of Sedan]] (by [[Wilhelm Camphausen]])]]
[[File:Napoleon übergibt seinen Degen.JPG|thumb|Surrender of Napoleon III after the [[Battle of Sedan]], 1 September 1870]]
The Battle of Sedan was a total disaster for the French—the army surrendered to the [[Prussia]]ns and Napoleon III himself was made a prisoner of war.{{Sfn|Strauss-Schom|2018|pp=404–418}} MacMahon arrived at [[Sedan, Ardennes|Sedan]] with one hundred thousand soldiers, not knowing that two German armies were closing in on the city (one from the west and one from the east), blocking any escape. The Germans arrived on 31 August, and by 1 September, occupied the heights around Sedan where they placed artillery batteries, and began shelling the French positions below. At five o'clock in the morning on 1 September, a German shell seriously wounded MacMahon in the hip. Sedan quickly came under bombardment from seven hundred German guns.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|p=708}} MacMahon's replacement, General [[Emmanuel Félix de Wimpffen|Wimpffen]], launched a series of cavalry attacks to try to break the German encirclement, with no success. During the battle and bombardment, the French lost seventeen thousand killed or wounded and twenty-one thousand captured.

As the German shells rained down on the French positions, Napoleon III wandered aimlessly in the open around the French positions. One officer of his military escort was killed and two more received wounds. A doctor accompanying him wrote in his notebook, "If this man has not come here to kill himself, I don't know what he has come to do. I have not seen him give an order all morning."{{Sfn|Milza|2006|p=708}}

Finally, at one o'clock in the afternoon, Napoleon III emerged from his [[daydream|reverie]] and ordered a white flag hoisted above the citadel. He then had a message sent to the Prussian king, who was at Sedan with his army: "Monsieur my brother, not being able to die at the head of my troops, nothing remains for me but to place my sword in the hands of Your Majesty."{{Sfn|Milza|2006|p=709}}

After the war, when accused of having made a "shameful surrender" at Sedan, he wrote:

{{Blockquote|Some people believe that, by burying ourselves under the ruins of Sedan, we would have better served my name and my dynasty. It's possible. Nay, to hold in my hand the lives of thousands of men and not to make a sign to save them was something that was beyond my capacity....my heart refused these sinister grandeurs.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|p=79}}}}

At six o'clock in the morning on 2 September, in the uniform of a general and accompanied by four generals from his staff, Napoleon was taken to the German headquarters at [[Donchery]]. He expected to see King [[William I, German Emperor|Wilhelm I]], but instead he was met by [[Otto von Bismarck]] and the German commander, General [[Helmuth von Moltke the Elder|Helmuth von Moltke]]. They dictated the terms of the surrender to Napoleon. Napoleon asked that his army be disarmed and allowed to pass into Belgium, but Bismarck refused. They also asked Napoleon to sign the preliminary documents of a peace treaty, but Napoleon refused, telling them that the French government headed by the Regent, Empress Eugénie, would need to negotiate any peace agreement. The Emperor was then taken to the Château at Bellevue near {{Interlanguage link|Frénois (Ardennes)|fr|Frénois (Ardennes)}}, where the Prussian king visited him. Napoleon told the king that he had not wanted the war, but that public opinion had forced him into it. That evening, from the Château, Napoleon wrote to the Empress Eugénie:

{{Blockquote|It is impossible for me to say what I have suffered and what I am suffering now...I would have preferred death to a capitulation so disastrous, and yet, under the present circumstances, it was the only way to avoid the butchering of sixty thousand people. If only all my torments were concentrated here! I think of you, our son, and our unhappy country.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|p=710}}}}

====Aftermath====
The news of the capitulation reached Paris on 3 September, confirming the rumors that were already circulating in the city. When the Empress heard the news that the Emperor and the army had been taken prisoner, she reacted by shouting at the Emperor's personal aide, "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?!"{{Sfn|Milza|2006|p=711}} Later, when hostile crowds formed near the palace and the staff began to flee, the Empress slipped out with one of her entourage and sought sanctuary with her American dentist, Thomas Evans, who took her to [[Deauville]]. From there, on 7 September, she took the yacht of a British official to England.

On 4 September, a group of republican deputies, led by [[Léon Gambetta]], gathered at the [[Hôtel de Ville, Paris|Hôtel de Ville]] in Paris and proclaimed the return of the Republic and the creation of a [[Government of National Defence]]. The Second Empire had come to an end.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|pp=711–712}}