The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque, French for "Beautiful Era", was a period in French and Belgian history that is conventionally dated as starting in 1871 and ending when World War I began in 1914. This era coincides with the late Victorian Era and the Edwardian Era, while in the newly rich United States, emerging from the horrors of the Civil War (1861-1865) and the Panic of 1873, the comparable epoch was dubbed the Gilded Age. In Germany, the Belle Époque coincided with the reigns of Kaiser Wilhelm I & II, while in Russia with the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II.