Franco-Prussian Treaty of Paris (February 1812)

Background. Prussia was a German state centred on the North European Plain, ruled for centuries by the House of Hohenzollern. After a defeat by Napoleon, reformers such as Stein and Hardenberg set about modernising the Prussian state. The supplied passages do not narrate the diplomatic circumstances surrounding any February 1812 treaty between Prussia and France, so no such circumstances are admitted here.

French Alliance and Withdrawal. The passages attest that Prussia stood in an alliance with France under Napoleon, and that after the defeat of Napoleon in Russia, Prussia quit its alliance with France and took part in the Sixth Coalition during the Wars of Liberation (Befreiungskriege) against the French occupation. No supplied passage states the date, terms, or signatories of any treaty concluded at Paris in February 1812, so those elements are not admitted.

Military Context. Prussian army reform, undertaken in response to defeat, ended in 1813 with the introduction of compulsory military service for men. By 1813 Prussia could mobilize almost 300,000 soldiers, more than half of them conscripts of the Landwehr of variable quality. The Iron Cross was introduced in 1813 by King Frederick William III and became a prominent Prussian symbol.