Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of wartime violence.

On January 2nd, 1870, Emperor Napoleon III appointed Émile Ollivier, a Manet family friend and moderate republican, to the position of minister of justice to try and appease the emperor’s republican opponents. Tensions between France and Prussia were growing: Prussia had made advances in military technology that threatened the balance of power in Europe. France had also wound down its standing army to avoid internal conflict between imperialists and republicans, whereas the Prussians had invested in their military. In 1866, Napoleon III had reinstated the National Guard, but they were largely “untrained.” 

Meanwhile, there were political divisions. The rivals included Bonapartists, who supported Napoleon; monarchists, who supported either the Bourbons or the Orléans; moderate republicans, who were led by Léon Gambetta; and radical republicans, led by Louis Blanqui. These groups vied for power in France. Napoleon III felt a war against a foreign power could unify these factions against a common enemy, thereby enabling him to assert imperial power. In a similar manner, Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck felt that he could use conflict with France to unify the German Empire he was trying to create.