[11] See Sir H. Rumbold's Recollections of a Diplomatist (First Series), vol. ii. p. 292, for the Czar's hostility to France in 1870.
[12] Memoirs of Count Beust, vol. ii. pp. 358–359 (Appendix D, Eng. edit.).
[13] Revue des deux Mondes for April 1, 1878.
[14] Seignobos, A Political History of Contemporary Europe, vol. ii. pp. 806–807 (Eng. edit.). Oncken, Zeitalter des Kaisers Wilhelm (vol. i. pp. 720–740), tries to prove that there was a deep conspiracy against Prussia. I am not convinced by his evidence.
[15] Souvenirs militaires, by General B.L.J. Lebrun (Paris 1895), pp. 95–148.
[16] Bismarck: his Reflections and Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 58.
[17] Memoirs of Count Beust, vol. ii. p. 359. The Present Position of European Politics p. 366 (1887). By the author of Greater Britain.
[18] See the Rev. des deux Mondes for April 1, 1878, and "Chronique" of the Revue d'Histoire diplomatique for 1905, p. 298; also W.H. Stillman, The Union of Italy, 1815–1895, p. 348.
[19] For the relations of France to the Vatican, see Histoire du second Empire, by M. De la Gorce, vol. vi. (Paris, 1903); also Histoire Contemporaine (i.e. of France in 1869–1875), by M. Samuel Denis, 4 vols. The Empress Eugénie once said that she was "deux fois Catholique," as a Spaniard and as French Empress. (Sir M.K. Grant Duff, Notes from a Diary, 1851–1872, vol. i. p. 125.)
[20] Chauvinist is a term corresponding to our "Jingo." It is derived from a man named Chauvin, who lauded Napoleon I. and French glory to the skies.
[21] Bismarck, Reminiscences, vol. ii. pp. 41, 57 (Eng. edit.).
[22] Ib. p. 58.
[23] The ex-queen Isabella died in Paris in April 1904.
[24] Sorel, Hist. diplomatique de la Guerre Franco-Allemande, vol. i. p. 77.
[25] Benedetti, Ma Mission en Prusse, p.34. This work contains the French despatches on the whole affair.
[26] In a recent work, Kaiser Wilhelm und die Begründung des Reichs, 1866–1871, Dr. Lorenz tries to absolve Bismarck from complicity in these intrigues, but without success. See Reminiscences of the King of Roumania (edited by S. Whitman), pp. 70, 86–87, 92–95; also Headlam's Bismarck, p. 327.
[27] Busch, Our Chancellor, vol. i. p. 367.
[28] Sorel, Hist. diplomatique de la Guerre Franco-Allemande, vol. i. chap. iv.; also for the tone of the French Press, Giraudeau, La Vérité sur la Campagne de 1870, pp. 46–60. Ollivier tried to persuade Sir M.E. Grant Duff (Notes from a Diary, 1873–1881, vol. i. p. 45) that the French demand to King William was quite friendly and natural.
[29] Heinrich Abeken, by Hedwig Abeken, p. 375. Bismarck's successor in the chancellory, Count Caprivi, set matters in their true light in a speech in the Reichstag shortly after the publication of Bismarck's Reminiscences. I dissent from the views expressed by the well-informed reviewer of Ollivier's L'Empire libéral (vol. viii.) in the Times of May 27, 1904, who pins his faith to an interview of Bismarck with Lord Loftus on July 13, 1870. Bismarck, of course wanted war; but so did Gramont, and I hold that the latter brought it about.
[30] J. Morley, Life of Gladstone, vol. ii. p. 328.
[31] This version has, I believe, not been refuted. Still, I must look on it with suspicion. No Minister, who had done so much to stir up the war-feeling, ought to have made any such confession--least of all against a lady, who could not answer it. M. Seignobos in his Political History of Contemporary Europe, vol. i. chap. vi. p. 184 (Eng edit.) says of Gramont: "He it was who embroiled France in the war with Prussia." In the course of the parliamentary inquiry of 1872 Gramont convicted himself and his Cabinet of folly in 1870 by using these words: "Je crois pouvoir déclarer que si on avait eu un doute, un seule doute, sur notre aptitude à la guerre, on eût immédiatement arrêté la négociation" (Enquête parlementaire, I. vol. i. p. 108).
[32] Quoted by Sorel, op. cit. vol. i. p. 196.
[33] Benedetti, Ma Mission en Prusse, p. 411.
[34] Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern died at Berlin on June 8, 1905. He was born in 1835, and in 1861 married the Infanta of Portugal.
CHAPTER II
FROM WÖRTH TO GRAVELOTTE
"The Chief of the General Staff had his eye fixed from the first upon the capture of the enemy's capital, the possession of which is of more importance in France than in other countries. … It is a delusion to believe that a plan of war may be laid for a prolonged period and carried out in every point."--VON MOLTKE, The Franco-German War.
In olden times, before the invention of long-range arms of precision, warfare was decided mainly by individual bravery and strength. In the modern world victory has inclined more and more to that side which carefully prepares beforehand to throw a force, superior alike in armament and numbers, against the vitals of its enemy. Assuming that the combatants are fairly equal in physical qualities--and the spread of liberty has undoubtedly lessened the great differences that once were observable in this respect among European peoples--war becomes largely an affair of preliminary organisation. That is to say, it is now a matter of brain rather than muscle. Writers of the school of Carlyle may protest that all modern warfare is tame when compared with the splendidly