France started the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), and was defeated by the Kingdom of Prussia and other German states. The end of the war led to the unification of <answer>Germany</answer>. Otto von Bismarck annexed Alsace and northern Lorraine to the new German Empire in 1871; unlike other members states of the German federation, which had governments of their own, the new Imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine was under the sole authority of the Kaiser, administered directly by the imperial government in Berlin. Between 100,000 and 130,000 Alsatians (of a total population of about a million and a half) chose to remain French citizens and leave Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen, many of them resettling in French Algeria as Pieds-Noirs. Only in 1911 was Alsace-Lorraine granted some measure of autonomy, which was manifested also in a flag and an anthem (Elsässisches Fahnenlied). In 1913, however, the Saverne Affair (French: Incident de Saverne) showed the limits of this new tolerance of the Alsatian identity.
The end of the war led to which companies unification?
Germany