v58_0478 - 20 francs or Napoléon III, tête nue, contremarqué SEDAN 1859 Strasbourg F.531/16 var.

SATIRICAL COINS - 1870 WAR AND BATTLE OF SEDAN

During the war of 1870, the army of Châlons commanded by Mac-Mahon counted from August 15 the presence of Napoleon III and tried to come to the aid of Bazaine locked up in Metz with the army of the Rhine. On August 21, the army of Châlons leaves to join Mac-Mahon but this one is surrounded. Beaten several times, notably at Beaumont, the army was rejected and then surrounded at Sedan by the Prussian Generalissimo Moltke, despite the efforts of Commander Lambert who, wounded, fought with his porpoises until the last cartridge. On September 2, 1870, crushed by German artillery fire, Napoleon III and 83,000 soldiers of the French army surrendered to the King of Prussia. On September 3, Napoleon III and William I meet while Paris learns of the Emperor's defeat and captivity. Demonstrations burst out with cries of "forfeiture! forfeiture!". On September 4, Napoleon III is ousted while a government of national defense is set up.