ence; though instead of concluding that
his conduct was immoral they unite, according to M. Ollivier, in
applauding his political genius. Almost the whole story of the
connected machinations by which France was led step by step into war
have since been disclosed, and the only part which is still unrevealed
relates to the original devices by which Bismarck and Marshal Prim
concerted the preliminaries to the offer of the Spanish throne to
Leopold.[52]

It is cheerfully admitted by the German historians who are cited in
this volume that the train of incidents which produced so well-timed
an explosion was scientifically laid by the Prussian chancellor. But
they maintain that he was only countermining the underground
combinations of the French, who were known to be organising a triple
alliance with Italy and Austria for a combined assault upon Prussia;
and that the journey of the Austrian Archduke Albert to Paris in
March 1870 convinced Bismarck that he had no time to lose, because war
must be provoked before these alliances were consummated. And they
cite the example of Frederick the Great, who disconcerted the secret
preparations of his enemies by the sudden dash upon Dresden which
opened the Seven Years' War. This defence of his own very skilful and
not less astute manoeuvres was endorsed by Bismarck in a speech
before the Chamber in 1876; nor does it appear to us so untenable as
M. Ollivier holds it to be. He argues that the fear of being attacked
by France, if it had really influenced Bismarck's conduct in 1870,
must have been a wild hallucination, for the chancellor must have been
well aware that the emperor's policy at that time was decidedly
pacific, and that his own (Ollivier's) views were still more so. He
assures us that the project of a triple alliance was intended to be
exclusively defensive, that it never passed beyond the 'academic'
stage, or reached any practical form. The confidential negotiations of
1869 with Austria and Italy had been left, he says, in the stage of
unfinished outline, nor was it even suspected either by the French or
by the Italian ministry that they had been carried further. On the
other hand, it cannot be denied that in 1869 these negotiations had
been carried quite far enough to inspire the Prussian chancellor with
serious disquietude, if, as is very probable, he had good information
of them. We know, from M. Ollivier's very interesting account of what
passed at the first meeting of th