ABSTRACT
The King of Prussia and his Chancellor Bismarck had visited Paris in 1867 to attend, like all crowned heads were doing, the Great Exhibition where, amongst other things, French military hardware could be compared with the latest offerings from Krupp, including an enormous cannon. Indignation at the Prussian slight whipped up a patriotic fervour that found one of its outlets in music, through a virtual explosion of performances of Musset's Le Rhin allemande in its many settings. On 28 July, the ageing and corpulent Emperor rode out of Paris to lead his troops into battle against a Prussian army well trained and disciplined, equipped with the latest weaponry and led by a King who was also a first-rate professional soldier and with him General Moltke, a brilliant strategist. The reaction of the Parisians and the new republican government to the news of the defeat at Sedan was to revile the Emperor and all that he stood for.
