Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/74



or the desire of the French people, involved Napo- leon in the war of 1859 and led to a fatal weak- ening of his position. In 1864 Napoleon se- cretly suggested to Prussia that she might take Schleswig-Holstein, thus greatly encouraging her to undertake the war of 1864. France at this time was under treaty obligations to Denmark which made such action doubly dishonest. When the war between Austria and Prussia broke out in 1866, Napoleon concluded a secret treaty with Austria which contained a bargain that he would assist Austria to recover Silesia in return for a cession of Venetia to Italy, to compensate the lat- ter for Savoy and thus to eradicate the evil ef- fects of the arrangement of 1858. As this treaty became known, it absolutely alienated Prussia from France. At the same time Napoleon had se- cretly demanded from Prussia the cession of the Rhenish Palatinate which belonged to Bavaria; this would mean of course that Prussia and France together would first have to take it from Bavaria. Bismarck secretly informed Bavaria of this demand and thus turned her decisively against Napoleon; so that he was enabled to make secret treaties of alliance not only with Bavaria but with Wurtemberg and Baden for their mili- tary support in case of war. Napoleon had thus