ABSTRACT
The story of the Hohenzollern candidature for the Spanish throne and of its sequel, the Ems telegram, has been told a hundred times, yet to pass over events so genetic in a history of the war of 1870 would be like ignoring Adam and Eve in a history of mankind. Russia was favourable, England indifferent, while Austria warned him that the proposal might excite national feeling in Germany and possibly lead to war. One of the German historians of the New Empire, Ottokar Lorenz, admits that “It is justifiable to regard as honestly intended Napoleon’s professions of peace at the end of 1869 and the programme of the new Ollivier Ministry.” In the meantime French public opinion was more and more being swept into the dangerous swirl of passion, inflamed by injured pride and wounded sensibilities, yet totally unable to recognize that any corresponding sentiment could exist in Germany.
