ALSACE-LORRAINE
On slight pretext, Germany in 1864 and in 1866 had made wars against Denmark and Austria that might easily have been avoided.
France took notice of the warlike ambitions of her neighbor and began to prepare for the war that she knew would soon come between her and Germany. The French emperor probably also desired this war, but the French people did not and France was not ready for it.
The Prussian chancellor, Bismarck, was a man of "iron and blood," for only by these two forces did he believe the Germans could advance.
In 1870, the Spanish Liberals expelled Queen Isabella II and offered the crown of Spain to a Hohenzollern prince. The offer was declined, but after Bismarck saw to what its acceptance might lead, he succeeded in having it renewed. Then the Emperor Napoleon informed King William that he would regard its acceptance as a sufficient ground for war against Germany. The Hohenzollern prince, however, rejected the offer and the matter might have ended here, had not Napoleon directed the French ambassador to secure from King William a promise never to permit a Hohenzollern prince to accept the Spanish crown.
King William who was at Ems refused to do this and declined to give the French ambassador another interview as he was leaving Ems that night. He telegraphed an account of the affair to Bismarck who realized that here was his chance to bring on the war he desired. He changed the wording of King William's telegram in such a way that when it was given out the next day, it gave the impression to Germans that their king had been insulted by the French ambassador and to Frenchmen that their ambassador had been insulted by the king of Prussia.
"There is little doubt," writes a German historian, "that, had this telegram been worded differently, the Franco-German struggle might have been avoided."
French pride would not now allow France to withdraw her request, and the war that Bismarck desired became certain—a war caused by a scrap of paper on which were written German lies signed by German leaders. After reading this story of the falsity of the greatest of all Prussian statesmen, Bismarck, it does not seem strange that another scrap of paper on which the Prussian government had written lies brought England into the World War and assured the defeat of Germany.
Poorly prepared, France could not stand long against the Prussian war machine. After a sharp conflict lasting about six months, the French National Assembly at Bordeaux was forced to ratify the unfair treaty which required her to pay a great indemnity in money and to give up the coveted provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, with the exception of Belfort. The beautiful country which had been the home of Jeanne d'Arc, the sacred heroine of France, was to be given over to rough and haughty bands of soldiers such as she had given her life to expel from her beloved France. But France had to choose between losing a small portion of the country, or meeting with complete destruction in war against greatly superior forces who had already destroyed the French military power.