Image:Reichsgruendung2.jpg
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Portrait by Anton von Werner. Oil on canvas. It depicts the proclamation of the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles, Paris, on January 18th, 1871. Otto von Bismarck, its constructor, is in white in the middle as Wilhelm I, the king of Prussia, is being proclaimed Emperor (on the picture it is the man with the white beard on the stage). The proclamation meant a unification of the distributed parts of Germany and a humiliation of France, which had recently been defeated in the Franco-Prussian War(1870-71). The war was triggered by Bismarck's Ems Dispatch.
According to the historian Volker Ullrich, it was bitter cold in the hall. It was a military event—neither the general public nor its parliamentary representatives were present, reflecting the fact that the nation-state was not constructed through a democratic decision, but via victories on the battlefield.
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