Lastly, what does M. Thiers mean by saying that M. de Gontaut has received communications of a nature tending to remove all ambiguities. which, however, did not originate from him, M. Thiers? Of what ambiguities does he speak? Had I reproached him with any? Certainly not.

If you had not rendered the situation obscure by your instructions to General von Manteuffel, the whole of the Telegram of M. Thiers of the 11th of March would have been a perfect absurdity, and one that he is quite incapable of committing.

But after M. Thiers had learnt, from other sources than myself, that I demanded of him more than was asked from Berlin and from Nancy, he was no doubt justified in speaking of ambiguities.

The President's Telegram was at once communicated to you from Nancy. You learnt that M. Thiers accused me of "ambiguities." By your proceedings you had in some measure led M. Thiers to bring this accusation against

me.

Count St. Vallier had had the want of tact to make known to the German General the Telegram containing the expression hurtful to

the feelings of the German Ambassador, and the General brought it to your knowledge.

such circumstances, what was your duty?

66

Under

Your duty was to explain to the President the state of things, and to tell him that the ambiguities were solely caused by your error, resulting from two negotiators, having the management of the affair, the one officially, the other secretly; the former of whom did not know that the latter was acting in addition to himself, whilst the latter was unacquainted with the official orders sent to the former. Instead of pursuing this course, you added to your documents the President's Telegram, in order to use it eventually as material for an accusation against me. Now this really forms material for an accusation against you yourself. I place it under your notice as such, to prove that it is you who have given the President occasion to accuse me of ambiguities.

On the 11th of March, at 7.30 P.M., you telegraphed to me the following:

"I cannot yet make out, from your Telegram No. 13, that you have officially communicated. our proposals, nor can I discover the reply given

to them. I order your Excellency to make that communication immediately, without reserve, and to announce to me, by telegraph, that it has been made, and to whom.

(Signed) "VON BISMARCK.”

In this Telegram also, not a word is said about my communicating to M. Thiers the text of our Draft. The order to demand the extension of the neutralisation was not withdrawn.

However wearisome it may be, I must once more state how matters stood, as regards myself, on the 11th, according to the documents.

On the 2nd of March, I had received by telegraph, and on the 4th of March by letter, the order to negotiate on the basis of our Draft, and, in addition, to demand the extension of the neutralisation, if I thought it obtainable. On the 8th, you had enjoined me, by telegraph, to communicate to the French Government the whole of our proposals.

But the prolongation of the period of neutralisation belonged to the whole of our proposals.

I could not simultaneously present to M. Thiers the text of the Draft Convention, and insist on the whole of our proposals.

The fore-cited Telegram of the 11th, modified in no particular the order given up to that date.

If I was to communicate our proposals to M. Thiers without reserve, he was, on the other hand, to be told without reserve what we demanded, what was contained in the Draft Convention, as well as what was not said in it.

From the 5th of March, I had scrupulously followed these instructions. If you had made your instructions more precise, and had limited them to the duty of presenting the text of the convention to M. Thiers, it would have been impossible for me to have insisted on the whole of our proposals, since the whole was more than the text.

The work of a drafter of diplomatic documents, especially of instructions by telegraph, is to draw them up in such a form that they cannot be misunderstood. But the Telegrams sent to me during this negotiation were drawn up in such a way as to be unintelligible.

What does your Highness mean, when you say in your Telegram that you had not yet learnt by my Telegram No. 13 whether I had officially communicated our proposals ? What does "officially" mean? When an ambassador

makes, by the order of his own Government, proposals to a foreign one, either by word of mouth, or in writing, and negotiates in detail thereon with the head of the foreign government, is not such a negotiation under all circumstances "official?"

More than this-when you telegraphed on the evening of the 11th of March—you were in possession, not only of my Telegram No. 13, with regard to which you could not misunderstand me, but also of another document of the 8th of March, here annexed, which could leave you no doubt as to the fact of my having "officially" communicated our proposals to M. Thiers.

[A 660, p. 2.-March 11th, 1873.-Paris.]

"Paris, March 8th, 1873.

[BY ROYAL MESSENGER.]

"After having received, in the evening of the 4th of March, the order of your Highness of the 3rd, I repaired to Versailles on the 5th. My Telegram No. 10/9 has informed your Highness of the state in which I found the President. There could be no question of treating circumstantially the matter in abeyance. At the President's request, I only gave him some general indications about our proposals, the essence of which was already known to him from the reports of the French Ambassador. He complained that the reservation about Belfort, and the distant term of the evacuation would do him much harm.