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"Our retreat," so the archduke tells the story, "before the advance of the Prussian army, immediately preceding the battle of Sadowa, led us to camp one night in the neighborhood of a town in Bohemia. I was lodged in a peasant's cottage, when about midnight I heard the sentry at my door hoarsely challenging some new-comer.
It will hardly be denied that there is one lingering doubt in many, who recognise unavoidable self-defence in the instant parry of the English sword, and who have no great love for the sweeping sabre of Sadowa and Sedan. That doubt is the doubt whether Russia, as compared with Prussia, is sufficiently decent and democratic to be the ally of liberal and civilised powers.
To investigate the relative performances of the two armies is lunch the same as to decide the respective merits of the two Prussian armies at Sadowa, where one held the Austrians until the other arrived.
The relations of Prussia with Austria were anything but cordial at the time; and soon after their arrival the war broke out which culminated at Sadowa. A Prussian subject, the prince was naturally looked upon with distrust by the Austrians, who showed him scant respect.
He soon convinced himself that it was shallow and fantastic, and he built upon this conviction one of the most hazardous designs which ever originated in a brain observant of realities that identical design which eventually led Prussia, some years later, first to Schleswig and then to Sadowa, with the "arbiter of Europe," as Napoleon was then called, stolidly looking on!
Austria preserved her infatuated sense of security almost till the rude awakening caused by the rifle-shots that ushered in the campaign of Sadowa.
Russia was friendly, but there was no certainty she would always be so. Austria was an ally, but many people in Austria had not forgotten Sadowa, and in any case her military and naval forces were far from being efficient. An irresistible army, and a national spirit that would keep it so, were consequently Germany's first essentials.
"Somewhere about the year 1866, James Gordon Bennett, Sr., inducted James Gordon Bennett, Jr., into the mysteries of journalism. One of his first coups was the Prusso-Austrian war. The cable transmitted the whole of the King of Prussia's important speech after the battle of Sadowa and peace with Austria, costing in tolls seven thousand dollars in gold."
The ultramontane party, which, so far as it is an intelligent force in modern affairs, is the Romish clergy, and nothing more, hears with aversion any hint of German unity, listens with dread to the needle-guns at Sadowa, hates Prussia in proportion as it fears her, and just now does not draw either with the Austrian Government, whose liberal tendencies are exceedingly distasteful.
I hear vague rumours of coming war in almost every salon I frequent. There has been gunpowder in the atmosphere we breathe ever since the battle of Sadowa. What think you of German arrogance and ambition? Will they suffer the swords of France to rust in their scabbards?" "My dear Marquis, I should incline to put the question otherwise.
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