ere ready to take it as a matter of course that Napoleon
should be the aggressor. Finally, by publishing through the _Times_
the secret document in M. Benedetti's own hand, which assured help to
Germany in annexing Holland, if Germany would help Napoleon to seize
Belgium, Bismarck destroyed all remaining sympathy for France.

Now, however, that the inner history of events has come to light, we know
that it was Germany who fomented the quarrel, though both Austria and
France must be held responsible for the conditions which made the policy of
Germany possible. The significant suppression of the part of Bernhardi's
memoirs dealing with his secret mission from Bismarck to Spain, and the
fact that a large sum of Prussian money is now known to have passed to
Spain, [80] while the Cortes was discussing the question of succession,
make it probable that Bismarck not only took advantage of French hostility
to Prince Leopold's candidature, but deliberately instigated the offer of
the Spanish throne to a German prince, because he knew France was certain
to resent it.

[80] Lord Acton, "Historical Essays and Studies."

Napoleon, however, must be held responsible, inasmuch as since the close of
the Seven Weeks' War, he had intrigued with Austria to induce her to
revenge herself by a joint attack with him upon Germany, hoping that he
might win with Austria's help those concessions of territory along the
Rhine, which Bismarck had peremptorily refused him as a _pour-boire_
after Sadowa. Austria, too, must take a share of the responsibility, since
through the secret negotiations of the Archduke Albrecht she had encouraged
Napoleon in this idea. Both Napoleon and the Archduke were convinced that
those South-German States which had been annexed by Prussia for siding with
Austria would rise, if their attack on Prussia could be associated with the
idea of liberation. Bismarck's cleverness in picking the quarrel over the
question of the Spanish succession, a matter which did not in the least
concern South-Germany, proved fatal to their expectations. This triumph of
diplomacy, together with the success of his master-stroke of provocation,
the Ems telegram, decided the fate of France. As edited by Bismarck, the
King of Prussia's telegram describing his last interview with the French
Ambassador at Ems, infuriated the French to the necessary pitch of
recklessness, while to Germans it read like the account of an insult to
German-speaking peoples