<P> In addition to the problems facing Napoleon III in obtaining potential allies, Bismarck worked feverishly to isolate France from the other European powers . Since 1863, Bismarck had made efforts to cultivate Russia, co-operating, amongst other things, in dealing with Polish insurgents . This important move gained for Bismarck the neutrality of Russia if Prussia went to war, and it also prevented Austria from taking sides with France as Austria fully supported the Poles . When Alexander II came to France on an official visit in 1867, he was at the receiving end of an unsuccessful assassination attempt by Polish - born Anton Berezovski while riding with Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie . Tsar Alexander was very offended that not only the French courts had given Berezovski imprisonment instead of death but also the French press had sided with the Pole rather than Alexander . This experience forever shattered his views of France and saw in the reaction his visit had received why his father had despised the French . </P> <P> In 1868, he held discussions with the Prussians, intending to counter a possible Austrian alliance with Napoleon III by Franz Joseph . If German forces were, for any reason, bogged down in the west, then Prussia's eastern and southern flanks would have been highly vulnerable . With his usual skill, Bismarck moved carefully to sidestep the nightmare . The Russian government even went so far as to promise to send an army of 100,000 men against the Austrians if Austria joined France in a war against Prussia . Whilst at Ems in the crucial summer of 1870 Wilhelm I and Bismarck had meetings with Tsar Alexander, also present in the spa town Alexander, though not naturally pro-German, became very comfortable with Prussian suggestions . </P> <P> Bismarck also had talks at Ems with Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, the Russian Foreign Minister, and was assured in mid-July, days before the French declaration of war, that the agreement of 1868 still held: in the event of Austrian mobilisation, the Russians confirmed that they would send 300,000 troops into Galicia . Bismarck now had all he wanted: a counter to Austria and the assurance of a one - front war . </P> <P> Bismarck then made Benedetti's earlier draft public to The Times in London that demanded Belgium and Luxembourg as the price for remaining neutral during the Austro - Prussian War . Sensitive to the threat of a major power controlling the strategically significant Low Countries and the English Channel coastline, the United Kingdom government in particular took a decidedly cool attitude to these French demands, and the British people were disturbed by this subversive attempt at going back on Napoleon III's word . Therefore, Britain as a nation did nothing to aid France . The Prime Minister, William Gladstone, expressed his thoughts on the matter to Queen Victoria by writing to her that "Your majesty will, in common with the world, have been shocked and startled ." Though it had enjoyed some time as the leading power of continental Europe, the French Empire found itself dangerously isolated . </P>

Who started and had to pay for starting the franco-prussian war