The Origins of the War of 1870 : New Documents from the German Archives

Robert Howard Lord had the opportunity of using and transcribing in full the seven volumes of documents in the archives of the German Foreign Office which contain the German official record of the diplomatic crisis leading up to the outbreak of the War of 1870. Save for rare exceptions these documents have never hitherto been printed, and have been seen by only a few investigators; it has therefore seemed worthwhile to publish them in extenso. The period covered is, indeed, a brief one—July 4–15, 1870, but a period as packed with events and pregnant with fateful consequences as the famous “ten days” of 1914. As an introduction to the documents Lord has retraced the history of the crisis in the light of the mass of new sources, with the aim both of bringing out the conclusions to be drawn from the new material and of summarizing the subject for the general reader. PREFACE TABLE OF CONTENTS NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS CHAPTER I. THE QUESTION OF RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE WAR OF 1870 CHAPTER II. THE HOHENZOLLERN CANDIDACY CHAPTER III. THE CRISIS. FIRST PHASE. JULY 3-8, 1870 CHAPTER IV. THE CRISIS. SECOND PHASE. JULY 9-12 CHAPTER V. THE RENUNCIATION. JULY 12 CHAPTER VI. THE EMS INCIDENTS AND THE 'EMS TELEGRAM.' JULY 13 CHAPTER VII. THE FINAL DECISIONS. JULY 14-15 DOCUMENTS FROM THE GERMAN ARCHIVES APPENDIX I. AUSTRIAN AND SPANISH DESPATCHES FROM BERLIN OF JULY, 1870 APPENDIX II APPENDIX III. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MARSHALL PRIM AND THE PRINCES OF HOHENZOLLERN-SIGMARINGEN APPENDIX IV BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX