Armistice of Versailles
The signatories were Jules Favre, foreign minister in the provisional Government of National Defence, for the French and Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the newly established German Empire, for Prussia and her allies.
Although technically an armistice, the military position of France at the time and the terms were such that it was de facto a conditional surrender by the vanquished to the victors.
The emperor then order the commander of the XII Corps, General Barthélémy Lebrun, to send a negotiator (parlementaire) to the Prussians with a request for an armistice.
Nevertheless, Lebrun and a non-commissioned officer with a white pennant crossed the lines to seek an armistice "equally acceptable to both armies", bearing a formal letter to that effect.
Favre, a staunch republican, was appointed vice president and minister of foreign affairs in the provisional government declared on 4 September 1870, after the capture of the Emperor Napoleon III.
Like President Louis Jules Trochu, Favre did not believe France held a realistic chance of winning the war or even of defending Paris.
From there they proceeded to the headquarters at Château de Ferrières, where two full days were exhausted in discussion, but no armistice was arranged before Favre returned to Paris on 19 September.
Bismarck agreed, but refused to sign an armistice for such elections unless certain Parisian forts were surrendered in compensation for the advantage France would gain in time.
"[7] On 1 October two neutral American officers, General Ambrose Burnside and Colonel Paul Forbes, were granted permission by the Germans to visit Paris as observers.
When they returned they reported to the Germans the French conditions for an armistice: that it last two weeks, that elections be held, that Paris be revictualled and that no territory be ceded—although Favre had apparently come to accept the loss of Alsace.
[8] After the failure of the first effort at an armistice, the Government of National Defence sent Louis Adolphe Thiers on a diplomatic mission to the capitals of neutral Europe.
[9] When Thiers was granted a safe conduct through the German siege lines around Paris, he briefly met Bismarck, only to tell him that he was unauthorised to speak to the enemy.
According to Thiers it caused Bismarck to increase his demands, but Lord Lyons believed that the chancellor was merely looking for an excuse to break off talks.
[14] On that date, on the Pont de Sèvres, between the German and French lines, Thiers met Favre and counselled acceptance of Bismarck's terms.
During that period Favre and Ernest Picard were the only voices in the government advocating a capitulation or a sortie torrentielle, a major military undertaking.
Owing to a lack of information about operations in the departments of Jura, Doubs and Côte-d'Or, these areas were exempted from the general armistice terms in order to preserve the fortified region of Belfort, then under siege.
[24] The primary source for the extent of the agreement reached on the date of the ceasefire is the diary of the future German emperor Frederick III, based on his contacts with Bismarck.
[23][26] Lacking sources of information on the disposition of his own troops at the time, Valdan relied on that supplied by von Moltke in demarcating the lines of control of the two sides.
Both sides were to withdraw ten miles from the lines of control and the area between the German siege works and the disarmed Parisian forts was to be neutral.
[26] The Army of the East under General Justin Clinchant, still operating in Jura, Doubs and Côte-d'Or, was not informed that the armistice did not apply to its area.
[29] On 31 January, having already negotiated safe passage for wounded soldiers into Switzerland and having received from his government confirmation that no armistice for his zone would be forthcoming, Clinchant signed a convention with the Swiss at the border post of Les Verrières, allowing his army to retreat across the frontier.
[28] On 1 February the whole road from Pontarlier to the border was filled with retreating troops, and the last skirmish of the war was fought at La Cluse by men of the reserve, who held off the Germans before joining their comrades in Switzerland.
Nonetheless, when Jules Simon, representing the government, met the Delegation in Bordeaux on 31 January, he ordered removed the placards that read: Let us make use of the Armistice as a school for instruction for our young troops.
