) found himself
in a position of such difficulty that he contemplated resignation. The
French however, by changing and extending their demands enabled him to
find a cause of war of such nature that the whole of Germany would be
united against French agression. France asked for a letter of apology,
and Benedetti personally requested from the king a promise that he would
never allow the candidature to be resumed. Bismarck published the
telegram in which this information and the refusal of the king were
conveyed, but by omitting part of the telegram made it appear that the
request and refusal had both been conveyed in a more abrupt form than
had really been the case.[1] But even apart from this, the publication
of the French demand, which could not be complied with, must have
brought about a war.

In the campaign of 1870-71 Bismarck accompanied the headquarters of the
army, as he had done in 1866. He was present at the battle of Gravelotte
and at the surrender of Sedan, and it was on the morning of the 2nd of
September that he had his famous meeting with Napoleon after the
surrender of the emperor. He accompanied the king to Paris, and spent
many months at Versailles. Here he was occupied chiefly with the
arrangments for admitting the southern states to the confederation, and
the establishment of the empire. He also underwent much anxiety lest the
efforts of Thiers to bring about an interference by the neutral powers
might be successful. He had to carry on the negotiations with the French
preliminary to the surrender of Paris, and to enforce upon them the
German terms of peace.

After 1870.

For Bismarck's political career after 1870 we must refer to the article
GERMANY, for he was thenceforward entirely absorbed in the affairs of
his country. The foreign policy he controlled absolutely. As chancellor
he was responsible for the whole internal policy of the empire, and his
influence is to be seen in every department of state, especially,
however, in the great change of policy after 1878. During the earlier
period the estrangement from the Conservatives, which had begun in 1866,
became very marked, and brought about a violent quarrel with many of his
old friends, which culminated in the celebrated Arnim trial. He incurred
much criticism during the struggle with the Roman Catholic Church, and
in 1873 he was shot at and slightly wounded by a youth called Rullmann,
who professed to be an adherent of the Clerical party. O