Taken together, three wars fundamentally altered the balance of power in 19th-century Europe: the Schleswig-Holstein conflict of 1864; the 'Six Weeks' War' of 1866; and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. They marked the establishment of Prussian hegemony in central Europe, the creation of the Bismarckian Reich in 1871, and as a by-product the reduction of Habsburg influence and the collapse of Napoleon III's Second Empire. Showalter gives a full account of the international context as well as of the wars themselves and their consequences.