China has always made an attitude of supporting France, but it is really too late in time, the French were defeated in a month, how can people help?

It took three months to lobby the Parliament to authorize the Emperor to use special powers in times of emergency, and France was powerless at this time.

After the Prussian Polish army captured the Napoleonic Chancellor, the war entered a short interlude, and the Puppo and German allied forces needed time to adjust their deployment, and Moltke's rapid action could only be tactical, even in the precision of organization, and it was impossible to operate like a machine in this era, so there was also the problem of logistics not keeping up.

During this interlude, the two countries engaged in simple negotiations in which France could accept the annexation of Prussia with the South German Confederation, recognize the status of the United Kingdom of Prussia and Poland, and not hinder the unification of Germany. But France could not accept the reparations for the cession of land. Bismarck was going to accept the French conditions at this time, and his aim was not to cede the land, but the German nation, which had been stirred up by national sentiment at this time, and the king and the army, who had completely lost patience with Bismarck in the face of victory, did not support Bismarck. Even if Bismarck threatened to resign, it would no longer work at this time, and the king would like to take the opportunity to replace Bismarck.

The German nation, at this time was not only the Prussians, but also the other states, were excited by the brilliant victory of the French, the Germans had been oppressed by France for so many years, I did not expect such a brilliant victory between Britain and Germany, how could France be forgiven, how Napoleon treated the German state back then, everyone has not forgotten it.

Therefore, Alsace and Lorraine had to be ceded to Prussia, for the simple reason that these two places were historically German national lands, if only history, and the key point is that the population here is also predominantly German-speaking. Until the 17th century, Alsace was part of the Holy Roman Empire, predominantly German-speaking and ruled by the Habsburgs, before being ceded to France by the Peace of Westphalia after the Thirty Years' War. The local population constantly resisted French rule, French language and customs, French culture, and much more.

Since French speakers are only a minority of the local population, the vast majority have been speaking a dialect of southern Germany. Until 1833, German was the only language of instruction in the local primary schools. Since 1853, the French government has made French the only language of instruction in Alsace and limited German lessons to one lesson per day. This assimilation was deeply stimulated by the German-speaking peoples. In particular, the people of the neighbouring state of South Germany are particularly sympathetic to the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine. Bismarck's aim in agitating national sentiment was to unify Germany, and he needed the support of these southern Germans.

Under these trade-offs, Bismarck supported France's proposal to cede Alsace and Lorraine, but France refused. Regardless of whether the people here are all Germans or not, whether they all speak German or not, France has ruled this place for 200 years, and it is impossible to suddenly give up this place.

Moreover, the economy of the two places is very developed, and it is the second most economically developed area after the Paris region. First of all, it is an important crossroads as a gateway between South Germany and the North, as well as an east-west thoroughfare between France and Germany. The Rhine River, which has excellent navigation conditions, flows through it and is connected by canals to the Rhône and Marne. Therefore, the import and export trade here has always been very developed, and the transportation arteries are easy to develop some bulk industrial production, such as the cotton textile industry, which is very developed here, which is an industry that Germany lacks. On the contrary, the steel industry, which was extremely important to France, was not so important to Prussia, which owned the Ruhr area, but the capture of this place would have weakened France.

Politically, economically, and militarily, France could not give up the place, so it refused Prussia's demands, and as a result the war continued.

At this time, the international environment was favorable to Prussia, because of the relationship with China, Britain supported Prussia to weaken France, although this could upset the balance of the European continent, but too strong France was a greater threat to Britain, and Britain needed France to be less strong, especially when France was not so friendly to Britain.

The German coalition army led by Popo has been marching very fast, and France has a huge number of reserves, but it has never been able to form it, let alone recruit new soldiers for training, and they are hurriedly pulled up and sent to the battlefield, often without having a military advantage, so they continue to retreat.

Prussia even dared to divide its forces, and after ensuring the neutrality of Austria, the army that remained to defend Austria also marched into France, and they attacked south from Strasbourg, planning to occupy Lyon, and the main force was to approach Paris.

In fact, France still has a chance, Paris is the center of the national railway, if France can transfer their western forces to Paris, where they can conduct defensive battles, and avoid high-mobility field battles with Prussia, they may be able to hold Paris. Finally, through a war of attrition, Prussia was forced to make concessions. The southern Alsatian city of Belfort has been holding on, and it has held out here for more than 100 days in history, until it really ended, and it was not captured by Prussia, resulting in this place finally remaining in France.

But the French character never lacks the courage to attack, but it lacks the perseverance to persevere. If they were in a good situation, they would have been able to use this courage to attack, just as Napoleon had done with his new recruits. But when things don't go well, the French are the most prone to collapse. Although France still has the courage to attack, they do not have the ability to attack and lack the patience to defend.

The impatient French, who formed a new cabinet, came to power the politician Emmile Olivier, who had always opposed Napoleon's autocracy, a man who was blindly optimistic about the war. In addition, due to the political need to maintain his rule, he did not allow the front-line troops to retreat deep into the theater of operations, let alone withdraw to Paris. He feared that a revolution would follow with the retreat of the defeated army to Paris, and everyone knew that the French did not have the courage to face defeat head-on, and that the people would be dissatisfied and put the blame on the government.

This kind of decision cannot be said to be completely wrong, if the French blocked the Prussian army on the front, it would be correct, but the French army failed to stop, but it is not necessarily wrong, because no one can say whether it will cause a revolution when the French army retreats. If the revolution is triggered earlier, France will have to end sooner.

However, it was impossible for the French army to stop the Popo army, because the other side could always maintain an offensive strength of four or five hundred thousand, while the French army never exceeded 300,000, and their army was always unable to organize.

Defeat after defeat displeased the French, and there was another revolution in Paris. Then the emperor and the high-ranking officials of the government fled from Paris, and France was really finished.

At this time, China completed its political preparations to rule France, and China could provide military assistance to France. But at this time the French no longer needed assistance, what they needed was peace.

Under the mediation of Britain, France quickly accepted Prussia's terms, ceded Alsace and Lorraine to Prussia except for Balfour, which remained in its own hands, and compensated Prussia 8 billion francs.

It is worth mentioning that the French paid this indemnity, which was mainly raised by themselves, was a bond underwritten by the Bank of France, and not turned to British financiers, and the French were really rich.

The main reason is that the Bank of France has money, and the French banking industry, with the Bank of France as the main body, is also one of the most developed financial industries in Europe. The occupation of Paris was by the working class, which was for the first time independent in the political arena, and they were grossly inexperienced and made many serious mistakes, firstly, by failing to form a government quickly and seeking recognition from abroad, secondly by failing to establish a central government and demanding allegiance from other localities, and thirdly by failing to control the gold reserves of the Banque de France.

The Banque de France is actually a private bank with 15,000 shareholders, including 200 financial giants who own more than half of the shares of listed companies in France. The bank held more than 70 million francs of gold and silver coins, more than 100 million francs of bank notes, 800 million francs of state securities and bills, hundreds of millions of francs of collateral for bank loans, and tens of millions of francs of gold and silver ingots. In addition, there were valuables worth one million francs, securities worth nine hundred million francs, and eight hundred million francs of banknotes (without the signature of the teller) in the bank. In total, the bank has three billion francs of various assets.

But instead of using these reserves as a financial lever to strengthen its rule, the Paris Commune, founded by the workers' organizations, did not even seize the Banque de France, but suffered an economic crisis of its own. They only wanted the Banque de France to allocate the most urgently needed money to the Commune and to pay the salaries of their workers' army. But the Banque de France did not accept, and when the Commune twice demanded payment from the bank, the bank deliberately made things difficult. Even in this case, the Commune did not go to seize the banks.

The workers' power at this time was too immature, full of illusions and unrealistic ideals, and they did not seek national power, nor did they seek foreign recognition, and of course they could not be recognized. They took over the small world of Paris, and then they did a lot of ridiculous things, and they held conventions not about foreign policy, about governing ideas, but about trivial things like whether the banks should return the tools mortgaged by bankrupt craftsmen to the craftsmen.

The French government and cabinet, which had fled Paris, quickly seized local power and received support from the other provinces, and they began to mobilize manpower and material resources to stabilize the army and begin to suppress the Paris Commune.

Ironically, they were never able to raise more than 500,000 offensive troops against the Popo army, but they did organize an army of 700,000 to suppress the Paris Commune. France did not lack troops, only time to organize their manpower, and Prussia would not give them this time, they never bought enough time for themselves.

The events that followed, as in history, were no different from those in history, with the establishment of the Prussian-dominated German Empire at Versailles; France suppressed the Paris Commune and established a republic. The Napoleonic family retreated to Quebec, again away from French politics. The imperial era of France came to an end.

With the great merit of unifying Germany, Bismarck, the prime minister and foreign minister, had no prestige for a while, and even the emperor of the German Empire could not overshadow him, and his authority was extremely stable.

The newly formed German Empire also quickly shocked everyone, because it quickly overwhelmed all its competitors in terms of population and economy, and its population was as high as 50 million (including Poland), which was only slightly smaller than Russia in Europe, but far stronger in economy and technology. And military strength has been proven.

Bismarck relied on the power of his own cohesion to unify Germany, and began to dominate and play a central role in European politics, and in the Bismarck era, Berlin suddenly became the center of Europe, and a series of international conferences began to be held in Berlin, and without Germany, it seemed that the problems of Europe could not be solved. Bismarck became the de facto chancellor of Europe, and after Metternich, the European continent began to enter the Bismarck era.

But Bismarck, the iron-blooded chancellor, did not have much ambition in fact, his aim was only to unify the German nation, and then let Germany maintain its status as a European power, nothing more. In order not to come into conflict with Britain, Bismarck never vigorously developed the German navy during his administration, nor was he keen on expanding the colonies. Rather, they are obsessed with establishing a series of intricate diplomatic treaties on the European continent, so that no one can go to war alone, and instead maintain peace in the midst of tension and confrontation.

If China does not interfere, Europe will definitely follow this process, which is not what Zhou Lang wants to see.

He had to smash the system of continental equilibrium that Bismarck was trying to create.

Zhou Lang thinks that the breakthrough is France!

His approach was to support France and quickly regain its strength.