January 18 in Military History — On This Day

⚔️📍 Versailles, France1871

German Empire Proclaimed at Versailles

In the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles — deliberately chosen to humiliate France — Prussian King Wilhelm I was proclaimed Emperor of a united Germany. The ceremony took place while Paris was still under siege in the Franco-Prussian War.

The proclamation at Versailles created a powerful new state that would dominate European politics until 1945 and sowed seeds of French revanchism leading to World War I.

Outcome

German Empire (Second Reich) established

The SCUD War

Beginning January 18, Iraq launched SCUD ballistic missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia — Saddam's strategic gambit to draw Israel into the war and shatter Arab coalition unity. Israel was struck 39 times; Riyadh was targeted repeatedly. The US rushed Patriot missile batteries to both countries, and the world watched televised intercept attempts in real time. The Patriot's effectiveness was hotly debated — later analysis found it rarely actually destroyed SCUDs in flight. On February 25, a SCUD struck a US barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 American soldiers — the single deadliest coalition loss of the war.

Iraq's SCUD campaign was the war's great strategic miscalculation — it failed to fracture the coalition, brought US Patriot missiles into action, and turned world opinion further against Saddam while killing more coalition soldiers than any ground engagement.

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