Treaty of Frankfurt
Signed on 10 May 1871, the Treaty of Frankfurt ended the Franco-Prussian War and set the terms of the new German Empire's victory over France. France ceded almost all of Alsace and the German-speaking part of Lorraine, including the fortress city of Metz, and agreed to pay an enormous indemnity of five billion gold francs, with German troops occupying parts of France until it was paid. Bismarck had wanted a swift settlement, but the army's insistence on annexing Alsace-Lorraine for strategic depth overrode his caution. The territorial loss, more than the indemnity (which France paid off early), turned a defeated rival into a permanently aggrieved one: 'la revanche' and the recovery of the lost provinces became a fixed star of French politics for two generations. In buying security through humiliation and annexation, the peace prefigured the same miscalculation the Allies would make against Germany at Versailles fifty years later.
- Year: 1871 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
