When this point, which was indistinct in the Emperor’s letter to your Majesty yesterday, was cleared up, I recognized, and did not conceal the fact from the Emperor, that the situation today, as yesterday, was still a purely military one, and emphasized the necessity arising from it for us to obtain by the capitulation of Sedan above all things a material pledge for the security of the military results we had attained.  I had already weighed from all sides with General von Moltke yesterday evening, the question whether it would be possible, without detriment to the German interests, to offer to the military feelings of honor of an army which had fought well more favorable terms than those already laid down.  After due and careful consideration we both came to the conclusion that this could not be done.  When, therefore, General von Moltke, who in the meantime had arrived from the town, went to your Majesty to submit the Emperor’s wishes, he did not do so, as your Majesty is well aware, with the intention of advocating them.

The Emperor then went out into the open air, and invited me to sit beside him just outside the door of the cottage.  His Majesty asked whether it would not be practicable to allow the French army to cross into Belgium, to be disarmed and detained there.  I had discussed also this eventuality with General v.  Moltke on the previous evening and adduced the motive already given for not entering into the question of this course of procedure.  With respect to the political situation, I myself took no initiative, and the Emperor went no further than to deplore the ill-fortune of the war, stating that he himself had not wished the war, but was driven into it by the pressure of public opinion in France.  I did not regard it as my office to point out at that moment that what the Emperor characterized as public opinion was only the artificial product of certain ambitious coteries of the French press, with a very narrow political horizon.  I merely replied that nobody in Germany wished for the war, especially not your Majesty, and that no German Government would have considered the Spanish question of so much interest as to be worth a war.  I continued that your Majesty’s attitude toward the Spanish succession question was finally determined by the misgiving whether it was right, for personal and dynastic considerations, to mar the endeavor of the Spanish nation to reestablish, by this selection of a King, their internal organization on a permanent basis; that your Majesty, in view of the good relations existing for so many years between the Princes of the Hohenzollern House and the Emperor, had never entertained any doubt but that the Hereditary Prince would succeed in arriving at a satisfactory understanding with his Majesty the Emperor respecting the acceptance of the Spanish election, that, however, your Majesty had regarded this, not as a German or a Prussian, but as a Spanish affair.