When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Age of Bismarck #19: Everybody Hates Spain

Added 2025-06-12 05:30:01 +0000 UTC

To bring about the war Bismarck wanted, he would have to goad France into making it. This was easier said than done for a regime which seemed pacific and focused inward, as Napoleon attempted to rework his government and drum up popular support through domestic reforms. But there was one sensitive pressure point Bismarck could press, once the Queen of Spain was deposed in September 1868, and Madrid began casting around for a new monarch to replace her. What if he inserted a Hohenzollern into this role, resurrecting the nightmare of France from centuries before, surrounded by the hostile Habsburgs? It would take some doing, but Bismarck was heavily involved in the scheme, even if, as we see here, he continued to deny to the end that he had any role in it at all.