[Private Property of King George of Hanover.]

your Majesty's troops, I saved by sending them to England, I got back and had them delivered over to your Majesty's Agent in November, 1867.

Your Majesty, on the other hand, has not fulfilled the Agreement hitherto, but taken another course.

Your Majesty first, at the commencement of the year 1868, laid the Agreement, concluded without reservation between your Majesty and myself, before the Prussian Landtag.

Your Majesty then yourself declared to the Landtag that your Majesty was not bound to obtain its consent to the Agreement. In spite of this your Majesty sought this assent, and received the same, with a condition very difficult for your Majesty to execute.

The acceptance or refusal of the Agreement by the Prussian Landtag is a matter which as regards me does not alter your Majesty's engagements arising from the Agreement.

Your Majesty then, after the Chambers had but just given their consent to the Agreement respecting the Property, without any alteration, at the same time with the publication of this assent, which, I repeat it, left your obligations toward me intact, issued an Ordinance on the 3rd March, 1868, which laid an embargo on the whole Property of my House.

2nd

I entered a Protest against this Ordinance through my Agents in Hanover, but I am not aware if it came to your Majesty's knowledge.

This Ordinance against me rests upon accusations which, even if well founded, could not be brought to bear against me, because the Property Agreement of the 29th September, 1867, places no conditions upon me to which I have acted contrary by the deeds of which I am accused.

But even these accusations are without foundation, and untrue. The Hanoverians who have withdrawn themselves from the Prussian Military Service have done so without my knowledge and without my influence. They first sought shelter in Holland, and afterwards in Switzerland. In both Countries Prussian influence was able to make their residence there impossible. They then went to France, whose hospitable territory gave them the same Protection as to other Political Refugees. These Refugees the Councillors of your Majesty have designated as a "Legion." It is, however, impossible to form in time of peace, on the

[Private Property of King George of Hanover.]

territory of another Power, a "Legion" with hostile intentions against a third Power. The Advisers of your Majesty have even spoken with regard to this supposed "Legion" of the rights of defence in case of peril. But how can a number of 700 to 800 unarmed Refugees endanger the safety of a State like Prussia? It is only so far correct that I have not left these Political Refugees helpless.

The other accusation spoke of invitations on my part to hostilities against the Prussian State. This accusation referred to a speech in which I had spoken of my trust in God and my right, at an entertainment of my family in the circle of my own people and my invited guests. This no one can or shall prevent, and as that was not the first time that I had done so, so also it will not be the last.

The facts upon which the Advisers of your Majesty in the Report of the 2nd March, 1868, found their accusations against me were partly known to your Majesty before the 26th September, 1867. This knowledge did not then prevent your Majesty from concluding the Property Agreement unconditionally and perfecting it by your Ratification. They were partly known to your Majesty before the assent of the Prussian Landtag was given. This information did not deter your Majesty from asking the assent of your Landtag to the Agreement, which assent, I repeat, according to the declaration of your own Advisers, was unnecessary, as far as your Majesty was concerned, and of no account whatever as regards myself.

Nevertheless the Ordinance of the 2nd March, 1868, did not bar the way for your Majesty's recurring according to your own judgment to the fulfilment of the Agreement, which has been fulfilled on my part just as I signed it.

But your Majesty then went further.

Your Majesty has, notwithstanding that your Majesty was not at all bound by the decisions of the Prussian Landtag in the matter of this Agreement, by virtue of a resolution of the same Landtag on the Ordinance of 2nd March, 1868, not only actually closed this way, but your Majesty also wished to have it closed to you.

For the first Adviser of your Majesty spoke to the same effect as those who sought to make the raising of the embargo on my Property dependent on the decree of the Prussian Landtag. But Count Bismarck has for that purpose again appealed to the earlier Accusations, which, I repeat it, even if they were true,

[Protest against Annexation to Prussia.]

towards our Kingdom, a pretence has recently been raised at Berlin that, in the course of the negotiations relative to the Neutrality in question, we had entered, with the Cabinet of Vienna, into an engagement to co-operate with our troops with the Austrian Army stationed in Holstein.

That assertion is entirely false.

Our Government considered itself engaged by the assurance it had given to observe Neutrality in the event of the Federal Pact being dissolved, and it was only in the event of our Country being attacked by Prussia that we should have accepted the assistance which His Majesty the Emperor of Austria had been pleased to tender to us. But, full of confidence in the loyalty of the Prussian Government, we caused an answer to be returned to His Imperial Majesty that we did not require that assistance.

Consequently, the Austrian Army Corps which had occupied Holstein, crossed our States, without halting there and following the shortest road, to reach the South of Germany.

At about the same time we allowed the Prussian Army Corps, under the orders of Lieutenant-General Manteuffel, to pass through our Country, to go to Minden.

Our conduct, in that instance, was therefore under the strictest principles of Neutrality.

We were far from expecting, then, that the King of Prussia would use, a few days after that, those same troops to take possession of our Country.

Our Army was on the most complete peace footing, because we rested on the Neutrality which had been named to us, and the negotiations for which, although adjourned, were to be renewed at a fitting opportunity, so far as regarded the special conditions of its execution, in conformity with the expressed and reiterated Declarations which Count Platen-Hallermund, our Minister for Foreign Affairs, had made on the subject to Prince Isenburg, the Prussian Minister.

Our Government had, therefore, not bought any horses, nor taken the slightest step to which a character of Military Armament could be attributed.

All that the Prussian newspapers have said, lately, with reference to the pretended Armaments of Hanover, rests on no foundation whatever, and could only have been used to mislead public opinion and to palliate the unqualifiable acts of violence which have been committed against us, against our Kingdom, and our subjects. Always animated by the same spirit of moderation, of con

[Protest against Annexation to Prussia.]

ciliation, and of impartiality, we had ordered our Envoy at the Diet to vote against the Austrian proposal of 14th June, inasmuch as its object tended to induce the Germanic Confederation to take part against Prussia, and to vote for the proposed mobilisation on condition only that it was not directed against the latter Power, but that it tended solely to the Maintenance of Tranquillity and the Security of the Federal Territory.

The allegations which the Prussian organs have lately made against our policy in that respect are equally destitute of all consistency.

The attitude which our Government had observed from the beginning of the conflict, gave us, therefore, reason to hope that our Kingdom and our faithful Subjects would find themselves beyond the reach of a War which appeared to become daily more imminent.

But what was our sorrowful surprise, when, on the 15th June last, the Cabinet of Berlin, feigning to forget all the antecedents "of the question, caused a summons to be presented to our Government, the object of which was not to invite us to arrange, by common consent, the definitive conditions of the Neutrality which had been offered to us and to which we had agreed in principle, but to make us abandon, in favour of Prussia, certain prerogatives essential to our Sovereignty, a part of the Independence of our Kingdom, and numberless legitimate Rights of our Subjects, although our Sovereignty and the Independence of our Kingdom had been recognised and guaranteed by the whole of Europe.*

We were allowed but one day for reflection to decide, and we were threatened with War in case we refused to submit to the dictates of Prussia.

After having heard our Ministers, we took, in accordance with their unanimous advice and in perfect conformity with our own views, the resolution of declaring to the Envoy of the King of Prussia that the Proposals which had been submitted to us were inadmissible; but that our Government remaining immovable in the conviction that Federal Law forbad all War between the Members of the Confederation, would take no Military steps against the Prussian Government, its Ally, so long as the Frontiers of Hanover were not attacked; and that it did not abandon the hope that the relations of good neighbourhood which had existed up to that time between the two Governments, would be maintained intact.

See note, page 1748.

[Protest against Annexation to Prussia.]

Our resolution having been communicated to the Prussian Envoy, the latter answered by a Declaration of War, against which our Minister for Foreign Affairs immediately protested.

This took place at midnight of the 15th to the 16th June last. But at 5 o'clock in the afternoon of that same day, the 15th June, the Army Corps of General Manteuffel had disembarked in the neighbourhood of Harburg, and took a hostile attitude before the Declaration of War.

We uphold to the reprobation of all honest men the proceedings of the Prussian Government, which, taking our good faith by surprise, had managed to obtain from us leave for the passage of its Troops through our Territory, with the secret intention of invading it.

We uphold to the indignation of the civilised world that Aggression, in time of Peace, against the States of a friendly Sovereign, relative, and friend; and we are persuaded that the whole world will, with us, condemn that outrage against public morality, the Law of Nations, the rights of Treaties, and the Usages of civilised Nations.

We are, at the same time, convinced that all impartial men will say with us that the decided and premeditated intention of the Prussian Government was, for a long time past, to take possession of our States; that the proposal of Neutrality which had been made to us, was simply to lull us into a false security; that the Prussian Cabinet had purposely offered us conditions of a humiliating Alliance, knowing that we could not accept them, and that in fact, whatever might have been the line of conduct which we had followed, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for us to escape from the violence of the Prussian Government.

In the impossibility in which our Army found itself, of effectually repelling the Invasion of the Prussian Troops which fell on all sides upon our Kingdom, whose Frontiers they occupied for several days past, we concentrated our Troops at Göttingen, in order afterwards to lead them beyond the Prussian sphere of action.

Arrived near Eisenach, we entered into negotiations relative to a truce which had been offered to us and which was agreed to on either side. But before its termination, our Troops were attacked by the Prussian Army, in compliance with an order received from General Vogel de Falckenstein.