ABSTRACT
Until the first week in July of 1870, the General Council of the International and for that matter all Europe went about normal business. But Louis Bonaparte of France, with advisers of the calibre of the Duc de Gramont, Marshal Le Boeuf and the Empress Eugénie, had little difficulty in finding the right time, place and excuse to blunder into war. French reaction to the famous Ems Despatch brought war dangerously near. The French and German Internationalists protested against the preparations for war and affirmed their solidarity with each other, but in events of such magnitude they were powerless. Louis Bonaparte confused his own destiny with that of France, and the still greater tragedy was that much of France agreed with him. Bismarck, on the other hand, identified Prussia's destiny with that of Germany; his case was sounder, if the consequences no less disastrous. 1
