“Your Majesty knows, no doubt, that if it had not been for these gentlemen (Minghetti and Visconti-Venosta) I should have declared war on you in 1870.” But “these gentlemen” had only held Victor Emmanuel back because they were themselves held back by the counsels of the Austrian Cabinet. “Too late!” was their verdict; for they, too, had heard of Wörth. But if they drew back when Victor Emmanuel was willing to go on, they could also be reproached for having pledged themselves more deeply than he: a piece of secret history which those who held the secret have only recently revealed. The essential “new fact” is that already set forth in this chapter: that on the eve of the declaration of war the Archduke Albert, whose success at Custozza had gained him the reputation of a great strategist, was sent to Paris by Francis Joseph to concert a joint plan of campaign against Prussia. He conferred there with Lebœuf, Lebrun, Frossard, Jarras, and other leading French soldiers, and Lebrun was sent off to pursue the negotiations at Vienna. France, it transpired in the course of the discussions, was much readier to take the field than either of her allies. She claimed to be able to mobilise in a fortnight, whereas it was admitted that it would take both Austria and Italy about six weeks to mobilise. The Archduke proposed, therefore, that the three Powers should begin their mobilisation simultaneously, but that Austria, instead of declaring war before she was ready, should affect neutrality while concentrating two army corps at Pilsen and Olmütz. Lebrun did not altogether like the arrangement. He smelt a rat, and suspected a disposition on the part of the Austrians to wait and see which way the cat would jump. Still, there was something to be said for it; for it could be no advantage to France that her ally should be crushed while in the act of mobilising. So a formal agreement between France and Austria was concluded on June 13th, 1870. That was the occasion on which the Archduke Albert drafted the plan of campaign: not merely a general scheme of joint action between the two Powers, but a detailed plan of campaign for the distribution and employment of the French army. His draft still lies in the archives of the French War Office, though naturally it is not shown to everyone; and the plan itself conforms in almost every particular to the plan which Napoleon adopted. The criticism passed on it by the few military experts who have since reviewed it is this: that it was an excellent plan on paper—excellent on the assumption that the French generals could direct the enemy’s movements as well as their own, but that it was composed without regard to the actual conditions of the case, allowing nothing for independent Prussian initiative, and therefore was, on the whole, a bad plan.