What was the significance of the franco prussie war for Germany?

Answer 1

It established the national French sentiment known as Revenchism whereby national rhetoric justified the construction of the Maginot Line, an aggressive foreign policy against Germany, an alliance with Russia and Great Britain, germanophobe speeches and publications, and a call for the return of Alsace and Lorraine. This placed France on that long trajectory toward the First World War.

If it were not for the war, there would be no Germany. The Revolutions of 1848 failed to unify the disparate German lands and so Bismarck attempted it again, successfully, in 1870 by rallying most of the German states behind Prussia in a coalition war against France. Germany was proclaimed an empire in Versailles with the coronation of Kaiser Wilhelm I along with annexing Alsace and Lorraine from France.

Most historians would agree that the break with Bismarckian Realpolitik and the crash course towards the Great war occurs around 1890 with the advent of Kaiser Wilhem II.

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Answer 2

The Franco-Prussian War was critical for Germany in several ways:

1) Established Germany as the New Land Power in Europe: The Franco-Prussian War definitively showed that Germany was the new most-powerful country on the continent of Europe, taking the mantle away from France.

2) United the Lutheran North with the Catholic South: Bismarck had had trouble unifying the Lutheran Northern part of Germany with the Catholic Southern part of Germany. The patriotism drummed up by the war united the previously independent Catholic States of Bayern (Bavaria), Baden, and Württemberg, as well as the previously-French territory of Alsace-Lorraine into the German Empire.

3) Realigned the British and French Relationship: By forcing France into a weakened position, Germany would now have to contend with a strengthened British-French relationship as France would turn to its previous enemy to its newfound enemy. This would eventually be Germany's undoing in the First World War.