[Illustration: PRINCE BISMARCK FRANZ VON LENBACH]
The rulers of France, however, have known how to exploit by calculated deception, the just, although excitable, pride of the great French nation in furtherance of their own interests and for the gratification of their own passions.
The more conscious the allied governments are of having done everything permitted by their honor and their dignity to preserve for Europe the blessings of peace, and the more apparent it is to everybody that the sword has been forced upon us, the greater is the confidence with which we rely on the unanimous decision of the German governments of the South as well as of the North, and appeal to the patriotism and self-sacrifice of the German people, calling them to the defense of their honor and their independence.
We shall fight, as our fathers did, against the violence of foreign conquerors, and for our freedom and our right. And in this fight, in which we have no other aim than that of securing for Europe lasting peace, God will be with us as He was with our fathers.
[After the war France had been obliged to return to Germany the two provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, which she had attached to herself in the times of Germany's weakness. It might have been better to unite these provinces with one of the German states, but it was feared that so valuable an increase in territory of one of the twenty-five states that had just been federated in the empire, might lead to renewed dissension. The suggestion, therefore, was made to administer the two provinces, for the present, as common property, and to leave the final arrangements to the future. A bill concerning the immediate disposition of Alsace and Lorraine was submitted to the Reichstag on May 2, 1871; when Prince Bismarck opened the discussion with the following speech.]
In introducing the pending bill I shall have to say only a few words, for the debate will offer me the opportunity of elucidating the various details. The underlying principles are, I believe, not subject to a difference of opinion; I mean the question whether Alsace and Lorraine should be incorporated in the German empire. The form in which this should be done, and especially what steps should first be taken, will be the subject of your deliberations. You will, moreover, find the allied governments ready to weigh carefully all suggestions different from our own which may be made in this connection.