Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871 There men tumbled into the ditches and frantically tried to climb the walls of the fortress…” With six-pound shells bursting in their midst, the French troops dissolved in a great sauve qui peut headed for Sedan. For their helpless French targets, who watched the German gun flashes draw closer and closer, the sights, sounds, and shocks of this artillery massacre became a horror beyond description. The one-sided bombardment exhilarated the German gunners, who drove in for the kill against no resistance. Worse, shellfire burst among the trees, adding jagged splinters to the shrapnel and shell fragments tearing into French units. A hill might shield French soldiers from shells fired from one direction, but they lay naked to projectiles smashing in from other angles. They were hit with a storm of shells whistling in from an arc of ninety degrees. The one-sided bombardment exhilarated the German gunners, who drove in for the k “Once the Germans began firing, the French could find no cover anywhere. “Once the Germans began firing, the French could find no cover anywhere. From the political intrigues that began and ended the war to the bloody battles at Gravelotte and Sedan and the last murderous fights on the Loire and in Paris, this is the definitive history of the Franco-Prussian War.more But Marshal Achille Bazaine's grognards ("old grumblers") were the stuff of legend, the most resourceful, battle-hardened, sharp-shooting troops in Europe, and they carried the best rifle in the world. While the armies mobilized in July 1870, the conflict appeared "too close to call." Prussia and its German allies had twice as many troops as the French. Digging into many European and American archives for the first time, Geoffrey Wawro's Franco-Prussian War describes the war that followed in thrilling detail. Alarmed by Bismarck's territorial ambitions and the Prussian army's crushing defeats of Denmark in 1864 and Austria in 1866, French Emperor Napoleon III vowed to bring Prussia to heel. Digging into many European and American archives for the first time, Geoffrey Wawro's Franco-Prussian War The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 violently changed the course of European History. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 violently changed the course of European History.