Origins of the Triple Alliance

On May 10, 1871, the Peace of Frankfort was signed between the new French republic and the still newer German empire. This date may be regarded as marking, in the conventional way that dates do, the termination not only of a great and dramatic war, but also of a period of European history. With the complete triumph of Germany over France, accompanied by the overthrow of what a few years before had seemed the brilliantly successful government of Napoleon III, with the proclamation at Versailles of William of Prussia as German emperor, with the entry of the Italian troops into Rome, and the extinction of the age-long temporal sovereignty of the Pope, Europe had within a few months undergone such changes as to constitute the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new one. This new epoch, which closes with the war of 1914, may be described as that of the ascendancy of Germany...