Bismarck manipulated the truth and
provoked a war
In the tense political situation between France and Prussia in the summer of 1870,
Bismarck doctored
and then published a diplomatic document,
the “Ems Dispatch” with
the intention of provoking France to declare war.
This succeeded; France declared war on Prussia on July 19, 1870. Thus
Prussia did not appear as the aggressor and, after its victory in 1871, it
incorporated Alsace-Lorraine into the newly founded German Empire.
This provocation, aggravated by the proclamation of the German Empire and of the King of Prussia as its Emperor
in the very palace of the French kings in Versailles, represented an exaggerated humiliation of France.
From this point on, France viewed Germany as its archenemy.
“Revanche”, the recovery of the lost territories of Alsace-Lorraine and the humiliation of Germany,
became the primary goal and intent of French politics up to the First World War.
Bismarck's politics thus sowed distrust and enmity in Europe, laying the foundations for two World Wars.
