The true inner history and genesis of the Franco-Prussian War formed matter for talk with Ollivier, who was among the half-dozen men in Europe best able to inform Sir Charles on the question. The Memoir records a reminiscence told by M. Ollivier.
'When the war broke out, he naturally asked the Emperor about his alliances. The Emperor, who was singularly sweet and winning in his ways, smiled his best smile but said nothing, walked to a table, unlocked a drawer, and took out two letters-one from the Emperor of Austria, and the other from the King of Italy, both promising their alliance. But, although this was Ollivier's story, the Italian letter must have been conditional. Ollivier set down the defeat to this slowness of action, and supineness, due first to the Emperor's firm belief that Austria would move, and then to his stone in the bladder and refusal to let anyone else command. At a later date I became aware of the true story, which was that afterwards told by me in Cosmopolis. [Footnote: "The Origin of the War of 1870," by Sir Charles Dilke, Cosmopolis, January, 1896.] Austria had declined to join in a war begun in the middle of the summer. It had been fixed for May, 1871. Bismarck found this out from the Magyars, and made the war in 1870.'
To the detail thus gained at first hand Sir Charles Dilke added another in the next year. On February 1st, 1883, he met at Sir William Harcourt's house the Italian Ambassador Count Nigra, who had been in 1870 Minister in Paris:
'He told me that in 1866 the Italians had sent to Paris to ask whether they should join Prussia or Austria, both of whom had promised to give them Venice, and how the Emperor had told them that Italy was to join Prussia as the weaker side, and that when the combatants were exhausted he intended to take the Rhine. Nigra also told me that in 1870 the Emperor had told him that he meant peace, and that it was Gramont on his own account who had told Benedetti to get from the King of Prussia the promise for the future. This was all superficial, as we now know that Nigra was, as the Empress Eugénie said in 1907, a "false friend." Nigra said that Bismarck had made the war by telegraphing his own highly coloured account of the interview; for the French official account, which had only reached Paris (according to Nigra) after war had been declared, had shown that the King had been very civil to Benedetti, although the French Ambassador had persisted in raising the question no less than three several times…. [Footnote: The famous interview at Ems between the King of Prussia and M. Benedetti, the French Ambassador at Berlin, is referred to. See Benedetti, Ma Mission en Prusse, chap. vi.; Bismarck, His Reflections and Reminiscences, translated from the German under the supervision of A. J. Butler, vol. ii., chap, xxii.; Life of Granville, vol. ii., chap. ii.]
'On my return through Paris in September, 1882, I had interviews with Duclerc, the French Prime Minister, and with Nubar, as well as with Gambetta. Duclerc I found a cross old man, who was furious because I mentioned Madagascar. On the Tunis capitulations I found the French willing to come to an agreement; but Egypt, the Suez Canal, the Congo, the Pacific Islands, and Newfoundland were all of them difficult questions at this time….
'In a talk with Gambetta on October 19th he said to me that it was his intention, "whether I liked Duclerc or not," to keep him in power, whether he does what he ought, does nothing, or does what is ridiculous. The curse of France is instability. Duclerc is an honest man.' Gambetta was 'aged and in bad spirits.'
Sir Charles communicated this expression through Mr. Plunkett, the British Chargé d'Affaires, to M. Duclerc. "I gave him the third alternative in more diplomatic language," Mr. Plunkett wrote, "but he understood me, and we laughed over the idea."
A general reflection of this year is that 'Gambetta hates fools in theory, and loves them, I think, in practice.'
In London during the autumn session Sir Charles records some interesting gossip, to which may be added this first entry of earlier date:
'Lord Granville was a most able man, who did not, in my opinion, decline in intellectual vigour during the many years in which he took a great part in public affairs. He always had the habit of substitution of words, and I have known him carry on a long conversation with me at the Foreign Office about the proceedings of two Ambassadors who were engaged on opposite sides in a great negotiation, and call "A" B, and "B" A through the whole of it, which was, to say the least of it, confusing. He also sometimes entirely forgot the principal name in connection with the subject—as, for example, that of Mr. Gladstone when Prime Minister—and had to resort to the most extraordinary forms of language in order to convey his meaning. The only other person in whom I have ever seen this peculiarity carried to such a point was the Khedive Ismail, who sent for me when I was in office and he in London, and when the Dervishes were advancing upon Egypt, to say that he had an important piece of information to give the Government, which was the name of a spot at which the Dervishes might easily be checked, owing to the narrowness of the valley. He kept working up to the name, and each time failing to give it, so that I ultimately went away without having been able to get from him the one thing which would have made the information useful. Each time he closed his speech by saying, "Le nom de ce point important est—chose—machine—chose," and so on…