The Franco-Prussian War did not end with the catastrophic French defeat at Sedan on 1 September 1870 when an entire French army surrendered, the Emperor Napoleon III was captured and his regime collapsed. The war went on for another five agonizing months, and resolved itself into a contest for Paris ? for while Paris held out. France was undefeated. The story of this dramatic final phase of the war is the subject of Douglas Fermer's masterly account, the sequel to his Sedan 1870. He weaves this story of military victory and defeat into a gripping narrative and it sets the extraordinary events of nearly 150 years ago in the wider context of European history. AUTHOR: Douglas Fermer is a historian and former archivist who has written James Gordon Bennett and the New York Herald and translated a remarkable French memoir of the Franco-Prussian War ? The Reality of War by Leonce Patry. SELLING POINTS: ?The second volume of Douglas Fermer's new history of the Franco-Prussian War ?Graphic account of the siege of Paris and the final French defeat ?Focuses on the vain attempts of the French provincial armies to relieve the siege ?Vivid, eyewitness accounts from soldiers and civilians ILLUSTRATIONS: 16 pages b/w plates *
