358 



DISCOVi;itY 



Spiritual and Everlasting State, and I write for jou 

 the Trutli." 



* * * • » 



If the matter of this book be true, we should like 

 the author to give us a really neat definition of error. 

 But enough. Wliy should this sort of thing be served 

 up to freemasons ? And if the general reader be 

 catered for, how can he fail to be nearly as ignorant 

 of the origins of freemasonry at the end of his reading 

 as he was at the beginning ? And the symbolism, the 

 politics, and the chemistry which permeate it will 

 mystify him. 



* * * * * 



And for this book we do not blame the author, whose 

 courage and energy we cannot but admire, nor need 

 we quarrel very much with the publishers. No! I 

 think the man we want to get at is the publisher's 

 reader who let them down by inducing them to give 

 this book to the world. 



The Ems Telegram aiid 

 the Franco-German War 



By A. J. Grant, M.A. 



Pro/essor o/ llislonj in llie Uniixrsily o/ Leeds 



The Ems telegram — by which phrase is always meant 

 Bismarck's editing and publication of the telegram 

 sent to him by King William I of Prussia from Ems — 

 has assumed in many quarters a fantastic importance. 

 It is quoted as the damning proof of the mendacity 

 of German Diplomacy ; but for it, says Emile Ollivier, 

 the French Chancellor, the war of 1870 would have 

 been avoided ; but for it, therefore, say some, the 

 Great War, which is the continuation of the war of 

 1870, would have never come, and we should be living 

 in a world ignorant of Sinn Fein and Bolshevism and 

 a six-shilling income-tax, in a world happily unable to 

 believe in the possibility of the agonies and the efforts 

 of those years which already begin to seem more like 

 nightmare than reality. It is the object of this paper 

 to examine the real character of this famous transac- 

 tion and to consider its importance. 



At the beginning of January 1870 there was a 

 moment of great relief in the international situation, 

 which had since 1866, at least, been continuously tense 

 and menacing. Napoleon III — prematurely old, seri- 

 ously ill, without the quick imagination or the measure 

 of will-power which he had once possessed — had made 

 great concessions to the opposition. He had given 



I'rance a new Constitution which seemed to establish 

 something very like the English Parhamentary system, 

 including the responsibility of Ministers. He had in- 

 duced his old opponent, Emile Ollivier, to undertake 

 the task of forming a Ministry. He had asked the 

 nation by a plebiscite to say whether it approved of 

 the new state of things, and 7, .358, 786 Frenchmen had 

 by their votes assured him that they did. It is true 

 that there were, even at home, black clouds on the 

 horizon. More than a million and a half of voters 

 had dared to vote against the Emperor in the plebiscite. 

 Nearly two millions had not voted at all. Paris and 

 the great towns were in opposition. Literature and 

 thought were anti-Imperial. \'ictor Hugo's fulmina- 

 tions never ceased. But Emile Ollivier beUevcd that 

 the corner had been turned, and that F"rance would 

 now develop peacefully into a constitutional monarchy. 

 To his sanguine temperament, the signs seemed to 

 point to a calm in domestic politics. 



He was equally hopeful in regard to foreign affairs. 

 The tension had been very great. Four years before 

 Bismarck and Prussia had overwhelmed Austria in the 

 " Seven Weeks' War." Napoleon's efforts to gain for 

 France some compensation, on the Rhine, in Luxem- 

 burg, or in Belgium, to balance the vast increase in 

 the power and prestige of Prussia, had resulted in 

 failure, and they had made French diplomatists, 

 whether the Emperor or his Ministers, seem clmnsy 

 amateurs, deficient in knowledge and weak in wiU, 

 in comparison with their great Prussian opponent. 

 It was certain that Bismarck's mind was immovably 

 set on the union of Germany under the leadership of 

 Prussia, and that, if France resisted that project, he 

 would gladly accept war. Many thought, like Prevost 

 Paradol, that France and Germany were Uke locomo- 

 tives running in opposite directions on a single line 

 of rails, and that collision was inevitable. But Emile 

 Ollivicr's accession to the highest political office had, 

 he hoped, changed that. He was willing to accept 

 the union of Germany under Prussia. NNTiy, then, 

 should there be war ? Ollivier believed that the danger 

 was past. He told the Chamber at the beginning of 

 Jtily that the foreign horizon was unusually clear, and 

 the English Foreign Office — where Lord Granville had 

 just come into power — was of the same opinion. 



All the world knows that this calm was destroyed 

 by one of the most violent stomis known to European 

 history. It was known to the French Ambassador in 

 Madrid, on July 2, that Leopold of Hohenzollern had 

 accepted the Spanish throne. For twelve days France 

 and Euroj^e were in a constantly increasing fever of 

 anxiety. War was practically voted by France on 

 July 15 ; the Battle of Sedan was fought on Sep- 

 tember 2, and the Empire and Napoleon disappeared. 

 It is only at the end of the Great War that we can 



