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Updated: July 2, 2025
The German artillery had likewise been greatly improved in efficiency of manoeuvre since 1866. It was in all respects superior to that of the French. Of the Prussian and South German leaders, I will only say that we shall meet again the men from whom we parted on the conclusion of the armistice of Nikolsburg. What was their task and how they executed it will be described in the pages that follow.
In a brilliant and interesting campaign a small Prussian army had defeated the Federal forces and occupied the whole of South Germany. The conquest of Germany by Prussia was complete. These States had applied at Nikolsburg to be allowed to join in the negotiations. The request was refused, and Bismarck at this time treated them with a deliberate and obtrusive brutality.
France had been too late, and when the demand was renewed Bismarck was able to adopt a very different tone. Let us complete the history of these celebrated negotiations. The discussion which had been broken off so suddenly at Nikolsburg was continued at Berlin; during the interval the matter had been further discussed in Paris, and it had been determined firmly to demand compensation.
But the Napoleonic court, and many who looked upon its head as a usurper, experienced, on the morrow of Sadowa, and in a greater degree after the preface to a peace had been signed at Nikolsburg, a sensation of diminished magnitude, a consciousness of lessened prestige, and a painful impression that their political, perhaps even their military place in Europe, as the heirs of Richelieu, Louis XIV., and Napoleon, had been suddenly occupied by a power which they had taught themselves to contemn as an inferior.
Already during the negotiations of Nikolsburg we were of the opinion that we could not do for any length of time without Austria in Europe a strong and vigorous Austria. In 1870, when the war between ourselves and France broke out, many sensitive Austrians whom we had hurt were naturally tempted to make use of this opportunity and to take revenge for 1866.
On the 23d of July an armistice was agreed on, and a conference was held at Nikolsburg to arrange the preliminaries of peace. There was no delay.
He was sent in to his father; the interview lasted two hours; what passed we do not know; he came out exhausted and wearied with the long struggle, but the King had given in, and the policy of Bismarck triumphed. The preliminaries of Nikolsburg were signed, and two days afterwards were ratified, for Bismarck pressed on the arrangements with feverish impetuosity.
When the inner history of the period comes to be written, it will be recognised that at no time of his extraordinary career did Bismarck prove himself a greater statesman than during the five days of armistice in July 1866, when he fought his diplomatic Koeniggraetz in the Castle of Nikolsburg and assuaged the wounds of the Austrian defeat by terms the moderation of which went far to obliterate the memory of the rancour of the recent strife.
On July 26, preliminaries of peace were signed at Nikolsburg, and peace was finally concluded at Prague, August 23, between Prussia and Austria, and about the same time with the South German states. The Prussian House of Deputies voted the annexation of the conquered states, and in October peace was concluded with Saxony.
Baron von der Pfortden, the Bavarian Minister, had himself travelled to Nikolsburg to ask for peace. He was greeted by Bismarck with the words: "What are you doing here? You have no safe-conduct. I should be justified in treating you as a prisoner of war." He had to return without achieving anything.
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