Tradition et révolution. L'armée prussienne en 1870

In 1870, Prussia crushed the Napoleonic Empire in a true Blitzkrieg. It achieved national unity in 1871 and became a major player on the European continent.

The instrument of this success was its army, a terrible sword of Siegfried, forged by three organizational geniuses: Otto von Bismarck, Albrecht von Roon, and Helmuth von Moltke.

How could the terrible year and its major events – Sedan, the siege of Paris, the proclamation of the Second Reich in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, the Treaty of Frankfurt, the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine – have followed one another so quickly?

How did Prussia manage to raise the most formidable land army of its time, by bringing together a few formerly rival small armies and organizing them into loyal, flexible, maneuverable, and formidably effective army corps?

How did they invent the archetypal figure – the Gestalt – of the Prussian officer, the reincarnation of the Teutonic knights?

Understanding the Prussian army, its mechanisms, its order of battle, and its doctrine of employment in 1870 also provides the keys to the two world wars to come...