Ems dispatch
Prussian telegram and press release that incited the French Empire to start the Franco-Prussian War
The Ems dispatch (French: Dépêche d'Ems, German: Emser Depesche), sometimes called the Ems telegram, was published on 13 July 1870; it incited the Second French Empire to declare war on the Kingdom of Prussia on 19 July 1870, starting the Franco-Prussian War. The actual dispatch was an internal telegram sent by Heinrich Abeken from Prussian King Wilhelm I's vacationing site at Ems to Otto von Bismarck in Berlin, describing demands made by the French ambassador concerning the Spanish succession. Bismarck, the chancellor of the North German Confederation, released a statement to the press, stirring up emotions in both France and Germany.
The name referred to Bad Ems, a resort spa east of Koblenz on the Lahn river, then in Hesse-Nassau, a new possession of Prussia.
Background
The Austro-Prussian War, from 16 June to 23 August 1866, which involved south and north German states on both sides as well as the emerging Italy, increased Prussia's power. Austria was defeated in the key Battle of Königgrätz (or Sadowa) on 3 July 1866. The preliminary Peace of Nikolsburg, 26 July, was followed by the Peace of Prague, 23 August. Bismarck thus managed to expel Austria from the German Confederation, to set up and dominate the North German Confederation (north of the Main) and to secure Prussian territorial gains. Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, Nassau and Hesse-Cassel, and Frankfurt were incorporated into Prussia, whose territory expanded thus by nearly a quarter and its population by more than 4 million to roughly 24 million, which was still less than France's 38 million. France did not take part in the war, which was brief but altered the European balance of power, and did not gain territories or prestige.
“Ems dispatch” enters the record as prussian telegram and press release that incited the French Empire to start the Franco-Prussian War. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what dispatch, Prussian and telegram can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Ems dispatch” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, dispatch, Prussian and telegram provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q168694. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1870 and 1866.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ems dispatch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.