The clash of two extraordinary personalities--Otto von Bismarck and Napoleon III--drives this account of the events leading up to the Franco-Prussian War, one of the most momentous and decisive conflicts in the history of Europe. David Wetzel tells how this utterly avoidable war unfolded in the brief, eventful days of July 1870, ushering in an era of power politics that would reach its apocalyptic climax in World War I. Hotheaded militarists, high-minded...