the war. A painful illness from which I was suffering made it necessary that the council should be held in my room. On this occasion I was the only civilian in uniform. I declared it to be my conviction that peace must be concluded on the Austrian terms, but remained alone in my opinion; the king supported the military majority. My nerves could not stand the strain which had been put upon them day and night; I got up in silence, walked into my adjoining bedchamber, and was there overcome by a violent paroxysm of tears. Meanwhile, I heard the council dispersing in the next room. I thereupon set to work to commit to paper the reasons which in my opinion spoke for the conclusion of peace; and begged the king, in the event of his not accepting the advice for which I was responsible, to relieve me of my functions as minister if the war were continued. With this document I set out on the following day to explain it by word of mouth. In the antechamber I found two colonels with a report on the spread of cholera among their troops, barely half of whom were fit for service. The alarming figures confirmed my resolve to make the acceptance of the Austrian terms a cabinet question. Armed with my document, I unfolded to the king the political and military reasons which opposed the continuation of the war.

...

We had to avoid wounding Austria too severely; we had to avoid leaving behind in her any unnecessary bitterness of feeling or desire for revenge; we ought rather to reserve the possibility of becoming friends again with our adversary of the moment, and in any case to regard the Austrian state as a piece on the European chessboard and the renewal of friendly relations with her as a move open to us. If Austria were severely injured, she would become the ally of France and of every other opponent of ours; she would even sacrifice her anti-Russian interests for the sake of revenge on Prussia. . . .

To all this the king raised no objection, but declared the actual terms inadequate, without, however, definitely formulating his own demands. . . . He said that the chief culprit could

...

not be allowed to escape unpunished, and that justice once satisfied, we could let the misguided partners off more easily, and he insisted on the cessions of territory from Austria. I replied that we were not there to sit in judgment, but to pursue the German policy. Austria's conflict in rivalry with us was no more culpable than ours with her; our task was the establishment or initiation of German national unity under the leadership of the king of Prussia. . . .

What seemed to me to be paramount with his Majesty was the aversion of the military party to interrupt the victorious course of the army. The resistance which I was obliged, iņ accordance with my convictions, to offer to the king's views with regard to following up the military successes, and to his inclination to continue the victorious advance, excited him to such a degree that a prolongation of the discussion became impossible; and, under the impression that my opinion was rejected, I left the room with the idea of begging the king to allow me, in my capacity of officer, to join my regiment. On returning to my room I was in the mood that the thought occurred to me whether it would not be better to fall out of the open window, which was four stories high; and did not look round when I heard the door open, although I suspected that the person entering was the Crown Prince,1 whose room in the same corridor I had just passed. I felt his hand on my shoulder, while he said, "You know that I was against this war. You considered it necessary, and the responsibility for it lies on you. If you are now persuaded that our end is attained, and peace must now be concluded, I am ready to support you and defend your opinion with my father."

He then repaired to the king, and came back after a short half-hour, in the same calm, friendly mood, but with the words, "It has been a very difficult business, but my father has consented." This consent found expression in a note written with a lead pencil upon the margin of one of my last memoranda,

1 Afterwards the Emperor Frederick III, who died in 1888 after a reign of only ninety-nine days.

something to this effect: "Inasmuch as my Minister-President has left me in the lurch in the face of the enemy, and here I am not in a position to supply his place, I have discussed the question with my son; and as he has associated himself with the Minister-President's opinion, I find myself reluctantly compelled, after such brilliant victories on the part of the army, to bite this sour apple and accept so disgraceful a peace." I do not think I am mistaken as to the exact words, although the document is not accessible to me at present. In any case I have given the sense of it; and, despite its bitterness of expression, it was to me a joyful release from a tension that was becoming unbearable. I gladly accepted the royal assent to what I regarded as politically necessary, without taking offense at its ungracious form. At this time military impressions were dominant in the king's mind; and the strong need he felt of pursuing the hitherto dazzling course of victory perhaps influenced him more than political and diplomatic considerations.

By the Peace of Prague (1866), which concluded the Seven Weeks' War, Austria relinquished her claims upon Holstein, consented to the dissolution of the old Germanic Confederation, and recognized Prussian leadership in Germany. Prussia now annexed the kingdom of Hanover, together with several other German powers which had sided with Austria in the war. Bismarck formed all the independent states north of the river Main into the North German Confederation, under the presidency of Prussia (1867). This was a great advance toward German unity. Baden, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and HesseDarmstadt, the four states south of the Main, did not enter the confederation, partly because they distrusted Prussia and partly because of French opposition to such a union.

167. The Ems Telegram 1

With his usual prescience Bismarck realized that a war with France 'lay in the logic of history." The French emperor, Napoleon III, would never submit without a struggle to the formation of a strong German empire right on the border of France. Bismarck, for his part, welcomed a contest with France. If successful, it would bring the South German states into an intimate alliance with the North

1 Bismarck, Reflections and Reminiscences, vol. ii, pp. 278–283.

German Confederation; it would complete the work of unification under Prussia. After 1867 both France and Prussia prepared for the inevitable conflict. In 1870, when Prussia was ready, Bismarck brought it on in the following manner. The throne of Spain had become vacant and the Spaniards offered the crown to a cousin of King William. Napoleon at once informed the Prussian monarch that he would regard the accession of a Hohenzollern to the Spanish throne as a sufficient justification for war. In the face of this threat, William gave way and induced his cousin to decline the honor. Then Napoleon went further and instructed the French ambassador to ·Prussia, Count Benedetti, to secure a pledge from William that a Hohenzollern prince would never, under any circumstances, become a candidate for the Spanish throne This pledge William refused to make, and from the watering-place of Ems, where he was then staying, telegraphed his decision to Bismarck at Berlin. Bismarck at the time was dining with Roon and Moltke.

During our conversation I was informed that a telegram from Ems, in cipher, if I recollect rightly, of about 200 "groups," was being deciphered. When the copy was handed to me, it showed that Abeken had drawn up and signed the telegram at his Majesty's command, and I read it out to my guests, whose dejection was so great that they turned away from food and drink.

On a repeated examination of the document I lingered upon the authorization of his Majesty, which included a command, immediately to communicate Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection both to our ambassadors and to the press. I put a few questions to Moltke as to the extent of his confidence in the state of our preparations, especially as to the time they would still require in order to meet this sudden risk of war. He answered that if there was to be war he expected no advantage to us by deferring its outbreak; and even if we should not be strong enough at first to protect all the territories on the left bank of the Rhine against French invasion, our preparations would nevertheless soon overtake those of the French, while at a later period this advantage would be diminished; he regarded a rapid outbreak as, on the whole, more favorable to us than delay.

In view of the attitude of France, our national sense of honor compelled us, in my opinion, to go to war; and if we did not act according to the demands of this feeling, we should lose, when on the way to its completion, the entire impetus toward our national development won in 1866, while the German national feeling south of the Main, aroused by our military successes in 1866, and shown by the readiness of the southern states to enter the alliances, would have to grow cold again. . . . Under this conviction I made use of the royal authorization, communicated to me through Abeken, to publish the contents of the telegram; and in the presence of my two guests I reduced the telegram by striking out words, but without adding or altering, to the following form:

"After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary prince of Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to the imperial government of France by the royal government of Spain, the French ambassador at Ems further demanded of his Majesty the king that he would authorize him to telegraph to Paris that his Majesty the king bound himself for all future time never again to give his consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. His Majesty the king thereupon decided not to receive the French ambassador again, and sent to tell him through the aide-de-camp on duty that his Majesty had nothing further to communicate to the ambassador." The difference in the effect of the abbreviated text of the Ems telegram, as compared with that produced by the original, was not the result of stronger words but of the form, which made this announcement appear decisive, while Abeken's version would only have been regarded as a fragment of a negotiation still pending, and to be continued at Berlin.

After I had read out the concentrated edition to my two guests, Moltke remarked, "Now it has a different ring; it sounded before like a parley; now it is like a flourish in answer to a challenge." I went on to explain, "If in execution of his Majesty's order I at once communicate this text, which contains no alteration in or addition to the telegram, not only to