ABSTRACT
‘If in spite of this due representation there is no obtaining from the vanquished what the army and the country are entitled to expect, that is to say a heavy war-expenses indemnity from Austria as the principal enemy or quite strikingly extensive territorial acquisitions … the victor will have to swallow this bitter pill at the very gates of Vienna and let posterity be the judge.’ Such was the decision, as noted in the margin of Bismarck’s vote on the question of the peace terms, that William I had agreed to accept after prolonged and agonizing discussions during which the supposedly so imperturbable Prussian Minister-President, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, had several times burst into fits of tears. 1
