German Troops March into Paris on 1 March 1871, signed, inscribed Wilh. Beck, Berlin in Preussen, Ritterstr. 19a, gouache on paper, laid down on board, 100 x 152 cm, framed, (Hu)

After the siege of Paris, which lasted from 19 September 1870 until 28 January 1871 and resulted directly in the proclamation of William I as German Kaiser, the 3rd German army under its Commander, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia (later Kaiser Friedrich III), organised the triumphal procession into Paris on 1 March 1871.They marched from the Arc de Triomphe along the Champs Élysées to the Place de la Concorde to the sound of military marching music. This humiliation was to make a deep and lasting impression on collective French memory.
The accurate depiction (although with a somewhat distorted perspective) of the triumphal procession is historicised yet true in every detail. The following persons can be identified: the Commander of the 3rd German army, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, his Chief of Staff, General Leonhard von Blumental, the Commanders of the 5th and 11th Prussian regiments Hugo Ewald von Kirchbach and Julius von Bose, and the Commander of the 2nd Bavarian regiment Jakob von Hartmann. Beside them, Otto von Bismarck, later Imperial Chancellor and the Head of the General Staff, Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke can be seen. The other German imperial princes (Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, etc.) and their adjutants present cannot be precisely identified.
According to a contemporary account:

“In the meantime the mass of the invading army had lined up near Longchamps in the Bois de Boulogne. There were troops of the 5th and 11th Prussian and 2nd Bavarian regiments, one battalion from each of these regiments. At 11 o’clock these 30,000 men were presented to the Kaiser, who was escorted by the imperial princes and generals of his headquarters, and then at 1 o’clock they began their march into the city to the sound of music.”