Only one obstacle existed:  there was nothing to fight about!  But that was overcome.  In 1870 the heart of the people of France was fired by the news that the French Ambassador had been publicly insulted by the kindly old King William.  There had been some diplomatic friction over the proposed occupancy of a vacant throne in Spain by a member of the Hohenzollern (Prussian) family.

Whether true or false, the rumor served the desired purpose.  France was in a blaze of indignation, and war was declared.

Not a shadow of doubt existed as to the result as the French army moved away bearing with it the boy prince imperial, that he might witness the triumph.  Not only would the French soldiers carry everything before them, but the southern German States would welcome them as deliverers, and the new confederation would fall in pieces in their hands.  The birthday of Napoleon I., August 15th, must be celebrated in Berlin!

This was the way it looked in France.  How was it in Germany?  There was no North and no South German.  Men and states sprang together as a unit, under the command of Moltke and the Crown Prince Frederick William.

The French troops never got beyond their own frontier.  In less than three weeks they were fighting for their existence on their own soil.  In less than a month the French emperor was a prisoner, and in seven weeks his empire had ceased to exist.

The surrender of Metz, August 4th, and of Sedan, September 2d, were monumental disasters.  With the news of the latter, and of the capture of the emperor, the Assembly immediately declared the empire at an end, and proclaimed a third republic in France.

Two hundred and fifty thousand German troops were marching on Paris.  Fortifications were rapidly thrown about the city, and the siege, which was to last four months, had commenced.

The capitulation, which was inevitable from the first, took place in January, 1871.  The terms of peace offered by the Germans were accepted, including the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, and an enormous war indemnity.

The Germans were in Paris, and King William, the Crown Prince (Unser Fritz), Bismarck, and Von Moltke were quartered at Versailles; and in that place, saturated with historic memories, there was enacted a strange and unprecedented scene.  On January 18, 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors, King William of Prussia was formally proclaimed Emperor of a new German Empire.  Ludwig II., that picturesque young King of Bavaria, in the name of the rest of the German states, laid their united allegiance at his feet, and begged him to accept the crown of a united Germany.

Moved by his colossal misfortunes, and perhaps partly in displeasure at having a French republic once more at her door, England offered asylum to the deposed emperor.  There, from the seclusion of Chiselhurst, he and his still beautiful Eugenie watched the republic weathering the first days of storm and stress.