Editing Unification of Germany (section)

==== Proclamation of the German Empire ====
[[File:Wernerprokla.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|alt=painting of well dressed and portly princes and dukes cheering a king on a dais|January 18, 1871: The proclamation of the [[German Empire]] in the [[Hall of Mirrors]] at the [[Palace of Versailles]]. [[Otto von Bismarck|Bismarck]] appears in white. The Grand Duke of Baden stands beside Wilhelm, leading the cheers. Crown Prince Friedrich, later [[Frederick III, German Emperor|Friedrich III]], stands on his father's right. Painting by [[Anton von Werner]]]]
{{main|Proclamation of the German Empire}}
The humiliating capture of the French emperor and the loss of the French army itself, which marched into captivity at a makeshift camp in the Saarland ("Camp Misery"), threw the French government into turmoil; Napoleon's energetic opponents overthrew his government and proclaimed the [[French Third Republic|Third Republic]].{{Sfn|Howard|1968|pp=222–230}} "In the days after Sedan, Prussian envoys met with the French and demanded a large cash indemnity as well as the cession of Alsace and Lorraine. All parties in France rejected the terms, insisting that any armistice be forged "on the basis of territorial integrity." France, in other words, would pay reparations for starting the war, but would, in Jules Favre's famous phrase, "cede neither a clod of our earth nor a stone of our fortresses".{{Sfn|Wawro|2003|p=235}} The German High Command expected an overture of peace from the French, but the new republic refused to surrender. The Prussian army [[Investment (military)|invested]] Paris and [[Siege of Paris (1870–1871)|held it under siege until mid-January]], with the city being "ineffectually bombarded".{{Sfn|Taylor|1988|p=126}} Nevertheless, in January, the Germans fired some 12,000 shells, 300–400 grenades daily into the city.{{Sfn|Howard|1968|pp=357–370}} On January 18, 1871, the German princes and senior military commanders [[William I of Germany#Emperor|proclaimed Wilhelm "German Emperor"]] in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.<ref>[http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/kaiserreich/innenpolitik/reichsgruendung/index.html Die Reichsgründung 1871] (The Foundation of the Empire, 1871), Lebendiges virtuelles Museum Online, accessed 2008-12-22. German text translated: [...] on the wishes of Wilhelm I, on the 170th anniversary of the elevation of the House of Brandenburg to princely status on January 18, 1701, the assembled German princes and high military officials proclaimed Wilhelm I as German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Versailles Palace.</ref> Under the subsequent [[Treaty of Frankfurt (1871)|Treaty of Frankfurt]], France relinquished most of its traditionally German regions ([[Alsace]] and the German-speaking part of [[Lorraine (province)|Lorraine]]); paid an indemnity, calculated (on the basis of population) as the precise equivalent of the indemnity that Napoleon Bonaparte imposed on Prussia in 1807;{{Sfn|Taylor|1988|p=133}} and accepted German administration of Paris and most of northern France, with "German troops to be withdrawn stage by stage with each installment of the indemnity payment".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Crankshaw |first=Edward |title=Bismarck |date=1981 |publisher=The Viking Press |isbn=0-3333-4038-8 |location=New York |page=299 |ol=28022489M}}</ref>