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3 March – German federal election, 1871; 21 March – Otto von Bismarck is appointed as the first Imperial Chancellor of the German Empire and his Bismarck cabinet was sworn in. 16 April – Constitution of the German Empire, the basic law of the German Empire of 1871–1918, passed by German Reichtstag and coming into effect on 4 May 1871.
The empire was founded on 18 January 1871 at the Palace of Versailles, outside Paris, France, where the south German states, except for Austria and Liechtenstein, joined the North German Confederation and the new constitution came into force on 16 April, changing the name of the federal state to the German Empire and introducing the title of ...
The North German Confederation had already officially adopted the name "German Reich" in its Constitution by 1 January 1871, so constitutionally speaking, 18 January was not the day of the founding. Stampe from 1900 from the "Representations of the German Empire" series.
Flag of the North German Confederation (1866–1871) and the German Empire (1871–1918) Imperial Germany 1871–1918. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck determined the political course of the German Empire until 1890. He fostered alliances in Europe to contain France on the one hand and aspired to consolidate Germany's influence in Europe on the other.
German forces fought and defeated new French armies in northern France, then besieged Paris for over four months before it fell on 28 January 1871, effectively ending the war. In the final days of the war, with German victory all but assured, the German states proclaimed their union as the German Empire under the Prussian king Wilhelm I and ...
The 1871 event took place in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, the ceiling on which was celebrated by Louis XIV, the Sun King, as a conqueror of German cities and states. At the time of the imperial proclamation, the French capital Paris was besieged by coalition troops.
The North German Confederation was renamed, and some of its organs received a new title. The constitution of 1 January 1871 did have lasting significance in the German Empire despite the new constitution of 16 April 1871: article 80 (not repeated in the constitution of 16 April) which made many North German laws come into force also in the South.
With the unification of Germany and establishment of the German Empire in 1871, the Confederation evolved into a German nation-state and its leader became known as the chancellor of Germany. [4] Originally, the chancellor was only responsible to the emperor. This changed with the constitutional reform in 1918, when the Parliament was given the ...