I never bought into the narrative that somehow the wily Prussians 'tricked' the poor French into declaring war on them.
Yes the Ems Dispatch was editorialised - but at that point France had already decided they would declare war if Prussia didn't agree to their demands.
I'm not entirely sure what other options Prussia had at this point, accept to humiliate themselves further by accepting all French demands (that no Hohenzollern would ever be permitted to be a candidate on the Spanish throne for the rest of time).
People will believe anything they want about casus belli, so long as it suits their politics. A week ago, someone here on HN was trying to convince me that the US State Department had a conspiracy to start the Ukraine war.
If people really want to do something, they find reasons / excuses. And if people want to really believe something, thebdo so too. The latter quite often leads to BS conspiracy theories. The former to false flag operations, lies, propaganda and very real conspiracies (the Suez Crisis comes to mind).
Yes the Ems Dispatch was editorialised - but at that point France had already decided they would declare war if Prussia didn't agree to their demands.
I'm not entirely sure what other options Prussia had at this point, accept to humiliate themselves further by accepting all French demands (that no Hohenzollern would ever be permitted to be a candidate on the Spanish throne for the rest of time).