January 18 in Victorian History
What the Victorians were up to on this date, year by remarkable year.
1871
The German Empire is proclaimed
In the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, as Paris starves under siege, the German princes proclaim Wilhelm I of Prussia the first Kaiser of a united Germany. Bismarck's wars of unification are complete, and the balance of power in Europe is redrawn. Britain watches with unease as a formidable new empire rises across the Channel.