With the defeat of France and the support of a grateful Germany, united by Bismarck, in 1871 Russia finally succeeded in getting the removal of Article XI of the Paris Treaty, allowing it to recommission its Black Sea Fleet. Events moved so rapidly in the fifteen years since the treaty that the international landscape was almost unrecognizable: with Napoleon III in exile in England following his removal by the forces of the Third Republic, Austria and France reduced in power and prestige, and the establishment of Germany and Italy as new states, the issues and passions of the Crimean War
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