ing and without
weakness"--this utterance was itself an official international threat,
with the hand on the sword hilt. The phrase, _La Prusse cane_ (Prussia
climbs down), served in the press to illustrate the range of the
parliamentary proceedings of July 6 and 7; which, in my feeling,
rendered all compliance incompatible with our sense of national honor.

On July 12 I decided to hurry off from Varzin to Ems to discuss with
his Majesty about summoning the Reichstag for the purpose of the
mobilization. As I passed through Wussow my friend Mulert, the old
clergyman, stood before the parsonage door and warmly greeted me; my
answer from the open carriage was a thrust in carte and tierce in the
air, and he clearly understood that I believed I was going to war. As
I entered the courtyard of my house at Berlin, and before leaving the
carriage, I received telegrams from which it appeared that the King
was continuing to treat with Benedetti, even after the French threats
and outrages in parliament and in the press, and not referring him
with calm reserve to his ministers. During dinner, at which Moltke and
Roon were present, the announcement arrived from the embassy in Paris
that the Prince of Hohenzollern had renounced his candidature in order
to prevent the war with which France threatened us. My first idea was
to retire from the service, because, after all the insolent challenges
which had gone before, I perceived in this extorted submission a
humiliation of Germany for which I did not desire to be responsible.
This impression of a wound to our sense of national honor by the
compulsory withdrawal so dominated me that I had already decided to
announce my retirement at Ems. I considered this humiliation before
France and her swaggering demonstrations as worse than that of Olmuetz,
for which the previous history on both sides, and our want of
preparation for war at the time, will always be a valid excuse. I took
it for granted that France would lay the Prince's renunciation to her
account as a satisfactory success, with the feeling that a threat of
war, even though it had taken the form of international insult and
mockery, and though the pretext for war against Prussia had been
dragged in by the head and shoulders, was enough to compel her to draw
back, even in a just cause; and that even the North German
Confederation did not feel strong enough to protect the national honor
and independence against French arrogance. I was very