56 PRUSSIA to the long cherished plan of securing com- plete Prussian leadership in Germany, found the country in the very height of jealous dis- sensions with Austria, which had become par- ticularly prominent after the peace of Villa- franca between Austria and France (1859). The acts which this mutual jealousy inspired, and by which every possible factor was brought into the struggle for control, are described at length in the article GERMANY. For seve- ral years there was no open rupture ; it was only with the entrance of Bismarck into the Prussian cabinet as minister of foreign af- fairs, in 1862, and the uncompromising attitude then assumed in certain questions of German politics, that the breach seemed to become irreparable ; and no sooner had it been thus widened than the Sohleswig-llolstein compli- cation (see AUSTRIA, DENMARK, GERMANY, and ScHLESwio-IIoLSTEix) arose to present a possi- ble and plausible easus belli. In apite of many attempts at mediation, the attitude of the great powers became more and more hostile, and after several arbitrary acts on both sides, the convention of Gastein, which gave the occupation of Holstein to Austria and that of Schleswig to Prussia, but which it seemed evi- dent neither power would long adhere to, placed affairs in precisely the position where another step on either side must mean war. The convention was signed on Aug. 14, 1865 ; but as early as January, 1866, the conduct of the officials in the duchies gave cause for a new quarrel. In April Prussia made an alliance with Italy, and began to arm. The smaller states of Germany generally sided with Austria. On June 1 Austria arbitrarily took the question of the Danish duchies out of the limits of the Gas- tein agreement, by suddenly declaring it to be referred to the federal diet; and Prussia, re- garding this as a breach of treaty, marched its troops into Hol.stein, and proposed to restore the joint occupation of both duchies. Austria declared this act to bo a violation of the federal constitution, and the federal diot, acting en- tirely under its leadership, ordered (June 14) the mobilization of all the federal troops except those of Prussia. On June 15 Prussia sum- moned Hanover, Saxony, and Ilesse-Cassel to retract their action at the diet ; they refused, and on the next day Prussian troops occupied their territory, and war was begun. The con- flict whioh followed was a remarkable proof of the condition of preparation in which the Prus- sian state had placed itself; and under the name of the "seven weeks' war" it has be- come famous as one of the shortest but most decisive struggles in history. On June 22 and 23 the three divisions of the Prussian main army advanced toward the frontiers of Bohemia from two directions in Silesia under the com- mand of the Prussian crown prince, in Saxony under that of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia and Gen. Herwarth von Bittenfeld. From the 26th to the 29th various minor en- gagements took place along the lines, at Podol, Huhnerwasser, Munchengratz, Gitschin, Trau- tenau, Nachod, Koniginhof, &c. In the moan while, on the 28th, the Hanoverian army, cut off from reinforcements or means of retreat by the Prussian forces about it, had surren- dered at Langensalza. On July 1 the Prussiaa armies were united near Koniggratz ; and on the 3d they encountered at Sadowa, near by, the main Austrian army under Benedek, and achieved the decisive victory of the war. (See SADOWA.) The armies of Austria at once re- treated to the south, and the northern prov-^ inces were left in the power of the enemy.* While these things were in progress, a simul- taneous campaign was carried on by Prussia in western Germany, but with far less bloodshed ; an army under Gen. Vogel von Falkenstein had opposed the Bavarians and the army of the smaller states, forced them to retreat after a battle near Eissingen on July 10, met an Aus- trian division near Aschaffenburg on the 14th, and entered Frankfort on the 16th. Another portion of the " army of the Main," under Gen. Manteuffel, met the 7th and 8th corps of the federal army, July 24-27, at Tauberbischofs- heiin, Helmstadt, and Wurzburg, and won mi- nor victories. On the 26th preliminary nego- tiations for peace were begun at Nikolsburg, and a truce with Austria was declared ; this was followed by truces with Bavaria, Hesse- Darmstadt, Wurtemberg, and Baden (Aug. 1-3). Definite treaties of peace followed with Wur- temberg (Aug. 13), Baden (Aug. 17), Bavaria (Aug. 22), and Austria (the peace of Prague, Aug. 23). The " seven weeks' war," and the treaty which ended it, placed Prussia at the head of Germany, and marked it as one of the first military powers of Europe. The treaty of Prague virtually established a new federa- tion of German states, soon definitely formed (Aug. 18 to Oct. 21) into the "North German Confederation" (Norddeuttcher Bund), inclu- ding all the states north of the Main. It shut out Austria from Germany, and left the South German states to take their own course as to the establishment of a Bund between them- selves. But Prussia gained an aggrandizement of territory as well as of prestige ; for it an- nexed Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse- Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort, and thus not only extended its boundaries, but removed the principal obstacles to its territorial unity. The chief measures of Prussian politics from the close of the war of 1866 till 1870 are again treated in the article GERMANY. The minor measures of its politics during this period com- prised treaties on points of administration, posts, military affairs, &c., with the other states, and regulation of its own educational, industrial, and financial affairs. The part of Prussia in the Franco-German war of 1870-'71 (see FRANCE, and GERMANY) is inextricably in- volved with that of the whole German nation. The conflict served to precipitate the solution of the question which had always been the aim of the king and Bismarck : German unity
