Versailles preliminary peace
The preliminary peace of Versailles (officially peace preliminaries between the German Empire and France ) was signed on February 26, 1871 between France and the German Empire during the Franco-Prussian War in Versailles Palace . This preliminary peace was confirmed and supplemented by the Peace of Frankfurt in May 1871 .
The contract text comprises ten articles. Dispensed with Article I France on large sections of his department Haut-Rhin , Bas-Rhin and Moselle and two arrondissements of the department of Meurthe favor of the German Empire , which during the war founded was. The ceded areas became officially part of the German Empire ( Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen ) in June 1871 with the law on the union of Alsace and Lorraine with the German Empire . In Article II, France undertook to pay reparations amounting to five billion gold francs . The remaining articles regulate, among other things, the evacuation of occupied territories, the emigration of residents of the ceded areas and the start of peace negotiations .
The treaty was signed for Germany by Chancellor Bismarck and the four South German ministers Bray-Steinburg , Wächter , Mittnacht and Jolly . Signed for France by Thiers and Favre .
literature
- Eberhard Kolb : The way out of the war. Bismarck's policy in the war and the initiation of peace in 1870/71. Oldenbourg, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-486-54641-4 .
