In terms of proportional German casualties and destruction , it was surpassed Cause_change_of_position_on_a_scale only by the period January to May 1945 ; one of its enduring results was 19th-century Pan-Germanism , when it served Assistance as an example of the dangers of a divided Germany and became Becoming a key justification for the 1871 creation of the German Empire ( although it excluded Preventing_or_letting the German-speaking parts of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg empire ) .