By securing the appointment of Lord Beaconsfield as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James, the Emperor Napoleon III gave a signal to Europe to prepare for war. The appointment was made known on February 3, 1858, and on the 6th the new minister landed at Dover. For the next ten years, during which France and Germany were arming against each other, Lord Beaconsfield, working in close co-operation with the French Emperor, preserved an armed peace in Western Europe. Hostilities were averted in 1859, and again in 1860, when hostilities seemed imminent over the question of Savoy. In 1861, the Polish difficulty was smoothed over, and in 1863, the Danish. Then came the Schleswig-Holstein crisis, which was settled without a fight in 1864. During all these years, the relations between Great Britain and France remained cordial, and the two countries acted in harmony on more than one occasion. The Emperor and the minister understood each other thoroughly, and Lord Beaconsfield was enabled to boast, in 1867, that he had “secured for France a great, a powerful, and a lasting ally”.
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