Glory & Defeat: The Franco-Prussian War 1870/71 (Full Documentary)

The Franco-Prussian War was a pivotal moment for Europe in the 19th century. It unified Germany into a single empire while toppling the French one. In six month the world got a taste of modern warfare and a bitter rivalry that would last into the 20th century.

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» THANK YOU TO OUR CO-PRODUCERS
John Ozment, James Darcangelo, Jacob Carter Landt, Thomas Brendan, Kurt Gillies, Scott Deederly, John Belland, Adam Smith, Taylor Allen, Rustem Sharipov, Christoph Wolf, Simen Røste, Marcus Bondura, Ramon Rijkhoek, Theodore Patrick Shannon, Philip Schoffman, Avi Woolf,

Chapters
00:00:00 Ems Dispatch Crisis
00:11:41 Why France Fought the German States Alone
00:21:55 Military Overview
00:46:04 Opening Battles: Saarbrücken, Wissembourg, Wörth
01:05:54 The Siege of Strasbourg
01:16:49 Battles of Gravelotte and Mars-La-Tour
01:27:39 Siege of Metz
01:38:56 Battle of Sedan
01:54:50 Why France Didn't Surrender After Sedan
02:05:47 French All-Out War
02:16:38 The Pope's Army
02:27:31 Strasbourg Falls
02:38:17 Rise of Guerrilla Warfare
02:49:50 The Battle of Orléans
03:06:13 Battle of Chateaudun
03:24:22 The Last Imperial Army Surrenders
03:34:23 The 1st (Failed) Paris Commune Uprising
03:45:43 The Weird And Only Naval Battle of The Franco-Prussian War
03:56:43 Bismarck Gets Closer To German Unification
04:07:24 Battles of Amiens and Beaune-La-Rolande
04:18:19 Battle of Villiers-Champigny
04:28:23 Battle of Beaugency
04:37:33 Battle of Nuits-St. Georges
04:48:04 Christmas During the Franco-Prussian War
04:59:42 German Artillery Shells Paris
05:10:31 Army of the East
05:19:58 Battle of Belfort Gap
05:30:31 Kaiserproklamation
05:42:04 Peace
05:54:18 Paris Commune

» THANK YOU TO OUR CO-PRODUCERS
John Ozment, James Darcangelo, Jacob Carter Landt, Thomas Brendan, Kurt Gillies, Scott Deederly, John Belland, Adam Smith, Taylor Allen, Rustem Sharipov, Christoph Wolf, Simen Røste, Marcus Bondura, Ramon Rijkhoek, Theodore Patrick Shannon, Philip Schoffman, Avi Woolf, Emile Bouffard, William Kincade,
Daniel L Garza, Stefan Weiß, Matt Barnes, Chris Daley, Marco Kuhnert, Simdoom

» SOURCES
For a complete list of sources for each episode, please look for the individual episode videos on YouTube.



»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Toni Steller, Philipp Appelt
Digital Maps: Battlefield Design
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand

Channel Design: Simon Buckmaster

Contains licensed material by getty images
Maps: MapTiler/OpenStreetMap Contributors & GEOlayers3
All rights reserved - Real Time History GmbH 2022

[rennor]

Three Germans were sitting on a train in 1946. After a long awkward silence the youngest German spoke up. "Stop looking at me like that! I received the Iron Cross for heroics at Hürtgen Forest." The middle aged German scoffed, and replied "So what? I got the Military Merit Cross at Passchendaele for courage and bravery." Then the elderly German looked up and responded; "I was at the Battle of Sedan and Siege of Paris and I didn't receive any medals. But at least we won the damn war."

[ianvance]

I have a great-great-great grandfather who fought in this war, on the Prussian side. His name was Schultz (too common to look up). I have inherited his Prussian Army cufflinks, they have been passed down in our family for 150 years now.
Thanks for bringing this story to life in this video!

[parlyramyar]

Can't believe all of this is free. Many thanks to all those who worked on this great documentary. Kudos 👍🏻

[DarkFire]

This is probably the most professional and impressive history documentary ever published on YouTube. Congratulations to the entire team at RTH. Brilliant achievement!

[FirstLast_Nba]

Bismark has a plan. Bismark ALWAYS has a plan.

[peterszeug]

XXL props for the very authentic German and French pronounciation! it makes the whole thing so much more real, a fine detail most content creators would ignore <3

[robertgresham]

Thank you so much for providing all of the educational materials that you do. The fact that it’s freely available to anyone who wishes to learn speaks volumes about your work. It’s truly appreciated.

[xModerax]

I watched all 6 hours of it and I went from cheers to tears. In our history classes, the war ended with Sedan but in reality it was just the beginning. Thank you for this masterful display of history!

[vincentb]

So the French declare war on Germany for really no reason at all, they pretty much lose every battle, the Germans sue for peace only asking for a few cities that historically and nationally always were German, but the French refuse because it’s dishonorable. Hmm…

[dirremoire]

So, Karl Marx said "the French need a beating". Jesse, you should have stopped right there. 😂

[augustvonmackensen]

Brain: “You’ve already watched this series as individual episodes, why do you need to watch it all again as a whole?”
Me: “Yeah, but….

[seemo]

This documentary that I watched intermittently over three days is one of the best I have ever seen on YouTube. Jessy Alexander passion to history is clear also he added great dimension to this documentary with his French and German quotes. Brilliant! Thank you very much for this work. Perfection!

[MalikF]

The most underrated war. It sets the stage for the next 70 years of war.

[py]

More than six hours on Franco Prussian War, a historically pivotal yet often neglected war (just look at the volume of videos dedicated to the American Civil War which happened a few years earlier)! Didn’t expect to find such wonderful thing here in YouTube! Thanks!!

[ChristianFeider]

the french have a tendency to always play the victim...even if they started the whole mess themselves....alsace was german historicly, but they took it after the 30 years war...they destroyed baden, and never got charged for it
so, why telling us, this war wasnt justified?

[cmciff]

Feels strange to just provide a thumbs up for such a masterpiece. So brilliantly written, produced and narrated. Thank you.

[eurapersaus]

The soldiers and civilians mutilated by cannon balls, bullets and bayonets must have been really impressed by the bravery of the French emperor, who had to endure the pain of sitting on a hard third class train bench while fleeing the battle scene.

Thank you for this thorough and well made documentary.

[nicholasgignac]

I watched this video in full across multiple 1 hour sessions and every time I opened it back up to continue watching, I’d immediately move to upvote the video only to realize I’ve done it already.

This is the type of video that deserves more than just one upvote. I can only imagine the incredible amount of work you put into this. Fantastic job.

[thefritz]

Congratulations! Certainly one of if not "the" most ambitious and well done history projects on youtube. Surprising how interesting and consequential these events were, that I had completely ignored. I learned a lot. Many thanks to all participants in this project.

[TheYoungOwl-]

The moment you realise that The French had made their worst enemy