Faster, stronger, more powerful: the weapons of the Franco-Prussian War

In the Bourbaki Panorama, the railway and the telegraph pole are unmistakably representative of the enormous acceleration and increased efficiency of the 19th century. These were not only noticeable in everyday life. The technical progress of industrialisation was also evident in weapons production. The use of the most modern weapons such as machine guns and long-range breech-loaders surpassed the previously known warlike violence.

New weapons
Around 1840, Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse developed a firearm with a practical advantage: the ammunition could be inserted into the barrel from the rear, in the middle of the rifle. With the breech loader, it was no longer necessary for the shooter to rise from cover to ram a bullet into the barrel from the front. The time saved meant that the shot sequence could be increased. The French designer Antoine Alphonse Chassepot corrected the remaining defects of the needle rifle and twenty years later developed a weapon with double the range – now it could be fired accurately at a distance of 1200 metres. Shortly before the Franco-Prussian War, the entire French army was equipped with the Chassepot. The mitrailleuse also influenced the battlefield: despite the weight-related inertia of the object weighing almost a ton, it allowed a rate of fire of up to 90 rounds per minute (with 30 barrels). Its firing power reaches up to 3000 metres. In a way, it is a precursor of the machine gun.

Changed tactics
Due to technical innovations, warfare also changed - and at the same time the extent of destruction. The strength of the new weapons with their high rate of fire lay particularly in defence. They changed the previous tactics of the European armies: closed lines and formations and close combat had become obsolete. One had to pass through the enemy fire somehow.

Immense camps
Despite technically superior weapons, the poorly trained French Army of the East failed to cope with the new conditions, which proved to be a challenge especially in terms of organisation. After disarmament, 284 guns and mitrailleuses, 1,158 war vehicles, 64,800 blank weapons and 63,400 rifles were stored in Switzerland. For the rifles alone, the transport to the camps required several hundred loads. The confiscated weapons were returned to France after the rapid payment of the internment costs in accordance with the provisions of the treaty.