10. Napoleon III and Bismarck after the Battle of Sedan (1 September 1870) The Battle of Mars-la-Tour (16 August 1870)
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15. ‘ The continued existence within the Reich of an enlarged Prussian state with a virtual monopoly of military power, with a position in the Bundesrat superior to that of the other states, and with a parliamentary system of its own, based on a form of suffrage which was not democratic but favoured the propertied classes, was the best possible assurance against any possibility of the federal government succumbing to the forces of liberalism and democracy. In Bismarck’s Constitutional system, the federal government was given enough influence . . . to keep the particularism of the south within safe bounds, while Prussia was allowed to retain significant power to protect the aristocratic-monarchical system by discouraging dangerous experiments on the part of the federal government.’ G. A. Craig, Germany 1866-1945 (Oxford: OUP)
