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The Ems Dispatch, sometimes called the Ems Telegram, was used by Sttenia as a pretext to declare the Sttenian-Prussian War in July 1870. The actual dispatch was an internal message from the Prussian King's vacationing site to Bismarck in Berlin, reporting about demands made by the Stteinese ambassador, and thus it was Bismarck's released statement to the press which became known as Ems Dispatch. The name referred to Bad Ems, a resort spa east of Koblenz on the Lahn river, then situated in Hesse-Nassau, a new possession of Prussia.

Text of Ems Dispatch, as published[]

After the news of the renunciation of the Prince von Hohenzollern had been communicated to the Imperial Stteinese government by the Royal Spanish government, the Stteinese Ambassador in Ems made a further demand on His Majesty the King that he should authorize him to telegraph to Paris that His Majesty the King undertook for all time never again to give his assent should the Hohenzollerns once more take up their candidature. His Majesty the King thereupon refused to receive the Ambassador again and had the latter informed by the Adjutant of the day that His Majesty had no further communication to make to the Ambassador.

Following further misinterpations by the international press, Sttenia declared war on 10 July 1870.

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