Count Caprivi, in the course of his speech, denied absolutely
Prince Bismarck's statement to an interviewer, that he had brought on the war by falsifying the account of what had occurred at Ems between the King and Count Benedetti. The Chancellor read out a letter from the King himself intended to be the foundation of a despatch, declaring that Count Benedetti had importunately demanded a promise that no Hohenzollern would seek the throne of Spain, that he had refused to give one, and that he had declined to give Count Benedetti further audience on the subject. This state- ment was at once forwarded to all Prussian Ambassadors abroad. In other words, the " insult " which so excited France, the refusal to see the French Ambassador, was no invention of Prince Bismarck, but was actually given by the King himself, and accurately reported to all diplomatists. Nothing can seem clearer than this statement, which, more- over, agrees with the total silence of Count Benedetti, then and afterwards—he is still alive—but we have, of course, to hear Prince Bismarck's rejoinder. His object in accusing himself, truly or falsely, of a "falsification of documents," is, of course, to show that he, and he alone, forced on the war which turned out so successful. It is to be observed that both the Russian and English Governments, the latter through Mr. Gladstone, informed the Prussian Court that, in their opinion, no further concession to the French demand was possible.
