It would be interesting to detail the familiar story; but my limits will not permit.  I can only say that the three armies of the German forces, each embracing several corps, were, one under the command of General Steinmetz, another under Prince Frederic Charles, and the third under the crown prince,—­and all under the orders of Moltke, who represented the king.  The crown prince, on the extreme left, struck the first blow at Weissenburg, on the 4th of August; and on the 6th he assaulted McMahon at Worth, and drove back his scattered forces,—­partly on Chalons, and partly on Strasburg; while Steinmetz, commanding the right wing, nearly annihilated Frossard’s corps at Spicheren.  It was now the aim of the French under Bazaine, who commanded two hundred and fifty thousand men near Metz, to join McMahon’s defeated forces.  This was frustrated by Moltke in the bloody battle of Gravelotte, compelling Bazaine to retire within the lines of Metz, the strongest fortress in France, which was at once surrounded by Prince Charles.  Meanwhile, the crown prince continued the pursuit of McMahon, who had found it impossible to effect a junction with Bazaine.  At Sedan the armies met; but as the Germans were more than twice the number of the French, and had completely surrounded them, the struggle was useless,—­and the French, with the emperor himself, were compelled to surrender as prisoners of war.  Thus fell Napoleon’s empire.

After the battle of Sedan, one of the decisive battles of history, the Germans advanced rapidly to Paris, and King William took up his quarters at Versailles, with his staff and his councillor Bismarck, who had attended him day by day through the whole campaign, and conducted the negotiations of the surrender.  Paris, defended by strong fortifications, resolved to sustain a siege rather than yield, hoping that something might yet turn up by which the besieged garrison should be relieved,—­a forlorn hope, as Paris was surrounded, especially on the fall of Metz, by nearly half a million of the best soldiers in the world.  Yet that memorable siege lasted five months, and Paris did not yield until reduced by extreme, famine; and perhaps it might have held out much longer if it could have been provisioned.  But this was not to be.  The Germans took the city as Alaric had taken Rome, without much waste of blood.

The conquerors were now inexorable, and demanded a war indemnity of five milliards of francs, and the cession of Metz and the two province of Alsace-Lorraine (which Louis XIV had formerly wrested away), including Strasburg.  Eloquently but vainly did old Thiers plead for better terms; but he pleaded with men as hard as iron, who exacted, however, no more than Napoleon III would have done had the fortune of war enabled him to reach Berlin as the conqueror.  War is hard under any circumstances, but never was national humiliation more complete than when the Prussian flag floated over the Arc de Triomphe, and Prussian soldiers defiled beneath it.