Since there is such a strong focus on fake news and news manipulation lately, I was trying to find a 100% clear-cut case of media manipulation in European history. And I remembered the Ems dispatch, which started the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

France and Prussia at loggerheads

By 1870, France and Prussia are on a collision course. France is by now under the rule of the Napoleon III’s Second Empire. It still pretends to be the major player on the continent, but it has been severely humiliated by the failure of the expedition of Mexico (1863-67) and must watch with Prussia moving in all directions to unite all the Germans states under its rule. First, they crushed Denmark (1864) and then humiliated the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1866) which definitely neutered the influence of Vienna upon German affairs. In 1867, Prussia created the North German Confederation, a 30.000.000 men affair capable of tipping the balance of power in Europe.

          

                                                  The Prussian gains along the XIXth century

The Spanish Question

Napoleon III was worried. By the time the Second Empire emerges from the ulcer of the Mexico expedition (1867), a new powerhouse on the border of France has emerged. Since the Revolution, France had managed more to keep control over the German politics, helped by the fact of the desunion and fragmentation of the states. All of this was now lost thanks to the cunning of Bismarck. The things get even more worrying when, in 1868, the queen Isabell II of Spain abdicates due to a liberal uprising. Why does it matter? Because the Spanish government tries to find a suitable replacement and has no better idea than to propose the throne to Leopold, prince of Hohenzollern. That immediately sets all the alarms bells in Paris: it is simply unthinkable to let a German prince take over Spain and let the national territory surrounded by Prussians. 

The events

By february 1870, the Prince of Hohenzollern has eventually taken back his candidacy to the throne of Spain, advised in this sense by the Prussian wing for peace and diplomacy. They don’t want a war with France. But Bismarck does not agree with that. For the past 8 years, Bismarck has been instrumental in leading the rise of Prussia and he feels like his work is not finished. In order to complete it, he must win a decisive victory over France in order to eventually gain prestige abroad and totally dominance at home. So, unilaterally, in July of the same year, Bismarck himself reactivates the candidacy. It immediately sends the nationalistic fervour in France and Prussia to all time high. Never has a war between Prussia and France looked so close.

But once again, in less than a week, the crisis is neutralized: the Prussian court confirms that there is no more any candidacy and Bismarck seems to have lost. However, the shivers that Bismarck’s words have sent weigh heavier: The French Foreign Minister asks his envoy, the count Benedetti, to extract an official promise from the King of Prussia that there will NEVER be any candidacy from the German prince to the throne of Spain.

Benedetti finds the King at Bad Ems, a quiet German town of Rhenania, famous for its thermal waters on July 13. The conversation is amicable, the tone is friendly, but the King knows that he must inform Bismarck about the whereabouts of the negotation. So, he sends him a telegram.

Meeting of Count Benedetti and King Willem at Bad Ems.

The telegram

The telegram sent to Bismarck was as follow:

Count Benedetti intercepted me on the promenade and ended by demanding of me, in a very importunate manner, that I should authorize him to telegraph at once that I bound myself in perpetuity never again to give my consent if the Hohenzollerns renewed their candidature.

I rejected this demand somewhat sternly, as it is neither right nor possible to undertake engagements of this kind [for ever and ever]. Naturally, I told him that I had not yet received any news and, since he had been better informed via Paris and Madrid than I was, he must surely see that my government was not concerned in the matter.

[The King, on the advice of one of his ministers], decided, in view of the above-mentioned demands, not to receive Count Benedetti any more, but to have him informed, by an adjutant, that His Majesty had now received [from Leopold] confirmation of the news which Benedetti had already had from Paris and had nothing further to say to the ambassador.

His Majesty suggests to Your Excellency, that Benedetti's new demand and its rejection might well be communicated both to our ambassadors and to the Press.

As you can see, a pretty bland and diplomatic turn. Nothing to start a war with.

But you obviously don’t know your Bismarck. The cunning fox knew he had to find a way to tweak this news in order to send the sparks flying in Paris newspapers and parliament.

So, his solution was to send to the Press and a condensed version of his own making:

After the news of the renunciation of the Prince von Hohenzollern had been communicated to the Imperial French government by the Royal Spanish government, the French Ambassador in Ems made a further demand on His Majesty the King that he should authorize him to telegraph to Paris that His Majesty the King undertook for all time never again to give his assent should the Hohenzollerns once more take up their candidature.

His Majesty the King thereupon refused to receive the Ambassador again and had the latter informed by the Adjutant of the day that His Majesty had no further communication to make to the Ambassador.

As you can see, the tone is much more dry. It sounds like the King and the Ambassador never actually met, or actually left in very bad terms. Moreover, the sentence “had no further communication” definitely entices one to think that the communication channels are definitely broken.

Bismarck all in

Bismarck sends his version to the Agence Continentale, a news agency which he crucially controls since 1865 thanks to his friendship with the banker Gerson von Bleichroder. By July 14th, the news is on the newspapers desk all over Europe. As soon as the news of this supposed “diplomatic incident” is published, the streets of the French capital are taken over by demonstrations against the Germans. The windows of the Prussian embassy are smashed by rioters. Meanwhile, in Germany, Bismarck fans the flame of nationalism by distributing for free copies of newspaper with his own version of the event in order to make it look like Benedetti was pestering the King with haughty demands. By the 15th of July, the French government is in turmoil and must compose with the rallies clamoring for war and the suspicion of the opposition: there is a last attempt to ask clarifications from the count Benedetti, but the telegram arrives too late and the careful examination of the diplomatic papers asked by the opposition is refused. 

The aftermath

The war is declared. Bismarck has already won. He has successfully enticed the French to declare war and made Prussia look like the victim. The Second Empire has 6 months left to live. Prussia’s crushing victory will turn the German Confederation into the German Empire, spreading the seeds of the next two World Wars. There is no denying the skills of Bismarck as a statesman, and his ability to manipulate the opinion, But his victory was also the victory of the collusion between his government, the media and the bankers profiteering from all this mayhem.

Sources:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9p%C3%AAche_d'Ems

https://www.herodote.net/13_juillet_1870-evenement-18700713.php

http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/depeche-d-ems/