the candidacy of a Hohenzollern to the Spanish throne.

Matters were rapidly reaching an impasse, and Bismarck was correspondingly elated, because France was appearing to Europe a trouble-maker. The duc de Gramont and Emile Ollivier committed the error of dictating a letter to the Prussian Ambassador for him to transmit to the King, to be in turn sent back as his reply. King William was offended by this high-handed procedure. He had already told comte Benedetti at Ems that a satisfactory letter was on its way from Prince Antony and had promised him another interview upon its arrival. After receiving the dispatch from his ambassador at Paris communicating Gramont's formulas, he sent word to Benedetti that Prince Leopold was no longer a candidate and that the incident was closed. Nor was the King willing to grant Benedetti's urgent requests for an interview (July 13).

The King and the French Ambassador had remained perfectly courteous, and the next day, at the railway station, they took leave of each other with marks of respect. Things were not yet hopeless, until Bismarck, by a trick of which he afterwards bragged, caused a dispatch to be published implying that Benedetti had been so persistent in pushing his demands that King William had been obliged to snub him. The French were led to believe that their representative had been insulted, and neutrals sided with Prussia as the aggrieved party. After deliberation the French Ministry decided on war and the decision was blindly ratified by the Corps législatif on July 15. At this meeting Emile Ollivier made his famous remark that the Ministry accepted responsibility for the war with a "clear conscience." His actual words, "le cœur léger," seemed, however, to imply "with a light heart", and thereafter weighed heavily against him in the minds of Frenchmen.

CHAPTER II

THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR—THE GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE

September, 1870, to February, 1871

On July 19 the French Embassy at Berlin declared a state of war. Paris was wild with enthusiasm and eager for an advance on Berlin. The provinces were for the most part cool, but accepted the war calmly because they were assured of an easy victory. The leaders of the two nations had for each other equal contempt. "Ce n'est pas un homme sérieux," Napoleon had once said of Bismarck, and Bismarck thought Napoleon "stupid and sentimental." Meanwhile each nation had eyes on the territory of the other: France was ready to claim the Rhine frontier; Prussia wanted all it could get, and certainly Alsace and Lorraine. The idea, so often repeated by the Germans since the war, that these provinces were annexed because they had once been German, was not in Bismarck's mind,—"that is a Professor's reason," he said.[1] He wanted Strassburg because its commanding position and the wedge of Wissembourg could cut off northern from southern Germany. The frontier of the Vosges was as desirable to the Germans as the Rhine to the French.

From the beginning all went wrong in France. The Government found itself left in the lurch by the European states whose alliance it had expected. Moreover, mobilization proceeded slowly and in utter confusion. In spite of Marshal Le Bœuf's famous exclamation ("Il ne manquera pas un bouton de guêtre"), never did a nation enter on a war less prepared than the French. On the other hand, all Germany, well trained and ready, sprang to the side of Prussia. The whole military force was grouped in three armies—under Steinmetz, Prince Frederick Charles, and the Crown Prince. But, meanwhile, it seemed necessary to the French to give a semblance of military achievement. The Emperor had started from Paris on July 28 leaving the Empress as regent. On August 2, a vain military display with largely superior forces was made across the frontier at Saarbrücken, a practically unprotected place was taken, and the Emperor was able to send home word that the Prince Imperial had received his "baptism of fire" and that the soldiers wept at seeing him calmly pick up a bullet. The same day King William took command of the German forces at Mainz, and on August 4 the army of the Crown Prince entered Alsace and defeated at Wissembourg the division of about twelve thousand men of General Abel Douay, who was killed. On the 6th Mac-Mahon, with a larger force, met the still more numerous Germans somewhat farther back at Wörth, Fröschwiller, and Reichsoffen, and was utterly routed with a loss of over ten thousand in killed, wounded, and taken. Alsace was thus completely exposed to the enemy, and the road was open to Lunéville and Nancy. On the same day, German armies under Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles crossed into Lorraine at Saarbrücken and engaged the troops of the French general Frossard at Forbach and Spicheren, inflicting on them a severe repulse. Meanwhile Frossard's superior, Bazaine, though not far away, did not move a finger to help him. "If Frossard wanted the baton of marshal of France he could win it alone."

The news of these disasters was a terrible shock to Paris. The "liberal" Ollivier Cabinet was overthrown and replaced by a reactionary one led by General Cousin-Montauban, comte de Palikao. The Emperor withdrew from military leadership and Marshal Bazaine received supreme command. Bazaine was a brave soldier, but a poor general-in-chief, and withal a self-seeking man, incompetent to deal with the difficulties in which France found itself. He was perhaps not a conscious traitor in the great disaster which soon came to pass, but he thought more of himself than of his country. At the time we are concerned with he was considered the coming man. Meanwhile Mac-Mahon, cut off from Bazaine's main army, fell back, between August 6 and August 17, to Châlons. Bazaine was apparently without intelligent strategic plans. He professed to be desirous of concentrating at Verdun, but was afraid to get out of reach of Metz. He won first an indecisive battle at Borny (August 14), which was unproductive of any concrete advantage. On August 16, he let himself be turned back, by an enemy only half as numerous, at Rezonville (Vionville, Mars-la-Tour). On the 18th, he encountered, on the contrary, a much larger force at Saint-Privat (Gravelotte) and let himself be cooped up in Metz. Critics of Bazaine say that he could have turned both Rezonville and Gravelotte to the advantage of the French.

The familiar military uncertainties now began to show themselves in the movements of Mac-Mahon and his troops. The armies of Steinmetz and of Frederick Charles were united under command of the latter to beleaguer Metz, and a smaller force under Prince Albert of Saxony was thrown off to coöperate with the army of the Crown Prince in its advance on Paris. Mac-Mahon had collected about one hundred and twenty thousand men, and Napoleon, without real authority except as a meddler, was with him. The plan was originally to fall back for the protection of Paris, but the Empress-Regent was afraid to have a defeated Emperor return to the capital lest revolution ensue, and Palikao urged a swift advance to rescue Metz, crushing Prince Albert of Saxony on the way, taking Frederick Charles between the two fires of rescuers and besieged, with the Crown Prince still too far away to be dangerous. Meanwhile Mac-Mahon moved to Reims, which was neither on the direct road to Paris nor to Metz, and at last started to the