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1870-71 Franco-Prussian War Medal


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Just got this in, it is a 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War medal for combatants. The brass is marked around the edge as made from captured french cannons - rather cheaky! I also have the non-combatant medal which is in steel rather than bronze.

 

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  • 1 year later...

Nice example of this medal you have. As you say, it was made of bronze from captured cannon (AUS EROBERTEM GESCHUETZE) is struck into the edge of the medal. The Victoria Cross was also originally of bronze from captured (Russian) cannons. This had been a tradition since the Napoleonic Wars. Such campaign medals were previously awarded for 1813-1815 and 1864, the war of 1866 being an exception, in which only crosses were awarded. In the case of your medal, this is an original as issued example. There were many privately made pieces, which neither have the edge inscription, and they only have a very thin brass wire loop instead of the thicker, moulded type as on your example. Interstingly, in 1895, the 25th anniversary of the Franco-Prussian war, bars were issued for at least 25 different battles and skirmishes, and the originals were of fire-gilded bronze, and were in various different lengths and sizes, according to the inscrption. Medal sets with several bars can often be encountered, the bars should always be in matched sizes, otheriwse a sure sign that they didn't originally belong together. Most common bars the be found: Metz, Paris, Le Mans, Beaugency-Cravant, Vionville-Mars La Tour, Gravelotte-St.Privat, Beaumont, Wörth, Spicheren (sometimes Spichern). Bars range in price on the German market from about 30 Euros to several hundred Euros. There are also numerous copy bars around. The originals were always fire-gilded and cleanly struck and were attached on the the ribbon with two flatwire pins to the rear. The example shows a bar combination, which is llikely to have been awarded to a Bavarian soldier, as the Bavarian troops took part in both battles of Wörth and Weissenburg, as well as the encirclement of Paris. Bars in sets were always size-matched. In 1895 all recipients of the 1870 Iron Cross received a silver Oakleaf with 25, which was mounted on the ribbon above the cross. Usually these were genuine silver.

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As to the cheekyness of captured cannon - this was an old tradition, and further to this there is a Victory monument in Berlin, till the present day - worth seeing, the "Siegessäule", which is a victory column, crowned with a monumental gilded "Victoria" angel with banner, the column is adorned with the barrels of captured Danish, Austrian and French cannons from 1864, 1866 and 1870/71. You can follow this in internet, esp. on www.berlin.de See picture of Victory Column . Siegessäule - added

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  • 6 months later...

picture of Victory Column or Siegessäule (Berlin) now added.

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Forgot I had these postcards, here's the view of the Siegessaule taken in the 1930's.post-3823-0-31957600-1466340175_thumb.jpgpost-3823-0-36315100-1466340194_thumb.jpg

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Fantastic view, you can't even get these cards over here. That has all changed now, in 1938 the Siegessäule and the Bismarck figures were all moved from their positiion in front ot the Reichstag to a new site in the middle of the Tiergarten, now called Großer Stern, on the "Straße des 17.Juni" as it was called after 1953. Everything looked so much better in those days, not forgetting that later almost everything was entirely destroyed.

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Now added more examples of the 1871/71 medal with it's campaign bars (Gefechtsspangen).

The first example has the bars Vionville-Mars LaTour, Gravelotte-St.Privat and Metz, together with the Kaiser-Wilhelm Medal and the Landwehr-Dienstauszeichnung after 1913, so the wearer served till at least 1913!

The next one is a nice set of three, the first has an empty ribbon for the Red Eagle Order or the Allgemeines Ehrenzeichen, now missing for some reason. The rule was, when the recipient died, all orders (not other decoratons) had to be returned to the Ordenskanzlei in Berlin. This is followed by a non-combattant version in iron, this example has a tarnished silvering, and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Medal, which looks to be either heavily gold-plated, or in gold, as a private jeweller production.

The third is a so-called Solo-Spange, with just one medal, this has the rare bars Belfort and An der Lisaine - this came originally with a somewhat oxidised non-combattant medal, which I then decided to put a combattant's medal in it's place, as I get the feelng that this was mistakenly added at some point. Bars usually were only awarded to combattants.

The final item is a piece of ribbon with odd examples of bars added, these are: Beaumont, Spicheren and Sedan. The first bar could well be a copy - the other two are definite originals. Altogether, there are about 25 known official bars awarded to the medals. These bars were awarded before the 25th anniversary of the war in 1895, as was the jubillee oakleaf to the iron cross. Bars were always size-matched. These could vary.

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