The Home Journal

The European War.

Austria and Prussia together filched from the less powerful State of Denmark the Schleswig-Holstein Province. It was understood that these Provinces were to be and form part of the great Germanic Confederation, and the Bund (the Congress) would provide further redistribution. Count Bismarck, ambitious of territory, and leading King William I. with what appears to absolute sway, desires to annex these territories to Prussia; and for this purpose has proposed to Austria that, for a pecuniary consideration, she should relinquish all claim to any rule over the conquered provinces. "Austria declines to do this, claiming that her national honor would be compromised in acceding to the proposal. Thereupon they both prepare for war. Bismarck the Prussian Minister who is a scoundrel of unquestionable ability, hopes to conceal his high handed outrages upon the Parliament and people, by getting up a war which will evoke the national enthusiasm, and thus drown the recollection of his usurpations and crimes in a fog of military glory. The game is an old one and has been played here as well as in Europe, with such success as to afford him encouragement to proceed. The people will bleed while it is played."