Studies in American History 
331 
mained neutral, and demanded as the price of her neutrality 
the cession of the Bavarian Palatinate along the Rhine. Fail- 
ing here, she requested territorial compensation in Belgium 
and Luxemburg. Bismarck denied the request and left Na- 
poleon deceived and disappointed. 
The continued growth of Prussian territory and power 
alarmed the French emperor. When, due to a revolution, 
Spain invited a distant relative of the German emperor to ac- 
cept the throne, France realized that she was to be put be- 
tween the jaws of the Hohenzollern vise. Thereupon she de- 
manded that the candidacy of the Hohenzollern prince be 
withdrawn. It was done. France made a second demand, 
namely, that his candidacy never be renewed. Germany re- 
fused to comply with this request, and war followed. 
Two cocks had met; they would not let others crow louder 
than they ; they themselves were ready to fight for a monopoly 
of the Rhine as a drinking fountain. A few years before, 
Napoleon had made a treaty with Austria by which, in the 
event of an Austro-Prussian War, Austria, in case of victory, 
was to have Silesia. France would remain neutral, and 
Austria, to compensate her for this benevolent attitude, would 
consent to the erection of the Rhineland into an autonomous 
state. France had played a diplomatic game with both 
Austria and Prussia. She had lost. Her next move was war. 
Prussia had also played a diplomatic game with France. She 
had won. She had also won in her war with Austria. She 
was ready to fight again for European ascendancy and for the 
preservation of her Rhine provinces. 
Everybody knows the outcome of the Franco-Prussian War 
of 1870 : the defeat of the French ; the payment of one billion 
dollars indemnity; the loss of Alsace and a part of Lorraine. 
The significant thing for this study is — France lost her hold 
on the upper Rhine. Not a single foot of river frontier re- 
mained. Well did Ranke, the German historian, say, “It is 
against Louis XIV that we have now to wage war.’’ Thus was 
the seventh landmark in the evolution of Lothair’s middle 
kingdom reached and passed. Germany had achieved a great 
success, altho a tardy one, in acquiring an additional share in 
this borderland. 
It was Britain that was largely responsible for the establish- 
ment of Prussia astride the Rhine in 1815. Fifty-five years 
later this new continental power had dislodged France from 
