were omitted, and very properly omitted, by Bismarck in his abbreviated version.  Had he included those words, he might have claimed to be the final cause of the War of 1870.  As it is, his claim must be set aside as the offspring of senile vanity.  His version of the original Ems despatch did not contain a single offensive word, neither did it alter any statement.  Abeken also admitted that his original telegram was far too long, and that Bismarck was quite justified in abbreviating it as he did[29].

[Footnote 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 liberal (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.]

If we pay attention, not to the present more complete knowledge of the whole affair, but to the imperfect information then open to the German public, war was the natural result of the second and very urgent demand that came from Paris.  The Duc de Gramont in dispatching it must have known that he was playing a desperate game.  Either Prussia would give way and France would score a diplomatic triumph over a hated rival; or Prussia would fight.  The friends of peace in France thought matters hopeless when that demand was sent in so insistent a manner.  As soon as Gladstone heard of the second demand of the Ollivier Ministry, he wrote to Lord Granville, then Foreign Minister:  “It is our duty to represent the immense responsibility which will rest upon France, if she does not at once accept as satisfactory and conclusive the withdrawal of the candidature of Prince Leopold[30].”

[Footnote 30:  J. Morley, Life of Gladstone, vol. ii. p. 328.]

On the other hand, we must note that the conduct of the German Press at this crisis was certainly provocative of war.  The morning on which Bismarck’s telegram appeared in the official North German Gazette, saw a host of violent articles against France, and gleeful accounts of imaginary insults inflicted by the King on Benedetti.  All this was to be expected after the taunts of cowardice freely levelled by the Parisian papers against Prussia for the last two days; but whether Bismarck directly inspired the many sensational versions of the Ems affair that appeared in North German papers on July 14 is not yet proven.