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Updated: May 6, 2025
The Minister, the Deputes and the Duchesse de Tarascon talked politics, and ridiculed the trumpery emeute of the 14th; exulted in the success of the plebiscite; and admitting, with indignation, the growing strength of Prussia, and with scarcely less indignation, but more contempt, censuring the selfish egotism of England in disregarding the due equilibrium of the European balance of power, hinted at the necessity of annexing Belgium as a set-off against the results of Sadowa.
I have said nothing of the cares that oppressed the emperor in connection with the war in the Crimea, which was prolonged far beyond his expectations; of the campaign in Italy, broken short off by threats of intervention made by the king of Prussia, and followed by feelings of disappointment and revenge on the part of the Italians; of the intervention of the emperor in 1866, after the battle of Sadowa, to check the triumphant march of the Prussian army through Austria; nor of the bombs of Orsini, which led to a rupture of the friendliness between France and England, breaking up the cordial relations which existed between the two courts in 1857, and reviving that panic about French invasion which seems periodically to attack Englishmen ever since the great scare in the days of Bonaparte.
You can easily see that the old spirit is still struggling for empire; that the old contempt is still trying to make light of Italians; and that the old Metternich ideas are still fondly clung to. Does not this deserve another lesson? Does not this need another Sadowa to quiet down for ever? Yes; and it devolves upon Italy to do it.
The secret was disclosed by Rouher, President of the Senate, lately the eloquent and unscrupulous Minister, when, in an official address to the Emperor, immediately after the War Manifesto read by the Prime- Minister, he declared that France quivered with indignation at the flights of an ambition over-excited by the one day's good-fortune at Sadowa, and then proceeded:
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.
The party trampled down the vine-poles, brushed through the leaves, and in a little while were challenged. "Sadowa," said Fevrier, in his best imitation of the German accent. "Pass Sadowa," returned the sentry. Fevrier and his men filed upwards. He halted some two hundred yards farther on, and went down upon his knees. The soldiers behind him copied his example.
You can easily see that the old spirit is still struggling for empire; that the old contempt is still trying to make light of Italians; and that the old Metternich ideas are still fondly clung to. Does not this deserve another lesson? Does not this need another Sadowa to quiet down for ever? Yes; and it devolves upon Italy to do it.
And so came the abortive revolution of 1848, with its ensuing disgusts, until finally the man of destiny appeared and conducted affairs, by way of Sadowa and Sedan, to the new German Empire.
It is now fifty years since, through the Battle of Sadowa, Austria-Hungary was ousted from the German Confederation.
She recognized that all over Europe there was a fast-spreading secession among persons of education, and that its true focus was North Germany. She looked, therefore, with deep interest on the Prusso-Austrian War, giving to Austria whatever encouragement she could. The battle of Sadowa was a bitter disappointment to her.
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