France initiates hostilities, and the south German…

France initiates hostilities, and the south German states join their forces to those of Prussia.

The adversaries use, for the first time in European warfare, such revolutionary technological innovations as railroads, the electrical telegraph, rifles and breech-loading artillery.

The two French armies, outnumbered and outgeneraled, quickly fall back from the frontier to Metz and to Sedan.

Prussia invades France, besieges the army at Metz, and ...