Issued to mark Prussia's crushing defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, this Baden kreuzer was struck in the immediate aftermath of the January 1871 armistice and the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles — an event in which Baden's Grand Duke Frederick I played an enthusiastic early role, having pushed for closer alignment with Prussia years before Bismarck's wars made it inevitable. Baden was among the first southern German states to side openly with the North German Confederation during the conflict, a political calculation that paid off handsomely in the new imperial order.
Issued to mark Prussia's crushing defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, this Baden kreuzer was struck in the immediate aftermath of the January 1871 armistice and the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles — an event in which Baden's Grand Duke Frederick I played an enthusiastic early role, having pushed for closer alignment with Prussia years before Bismarck's wars made it inevitable. Baden was among the first southern German states to side openly with the North German Confederation during the conflict, a political calculation that paid off handsomely in the new imperial order.