In 1866, Prussia won from Austria the important victory of Königgrätz or Sadowa, and thereby asserted its leadership. The outcome was a check to Napoleon, who had expected a different result. Moreover, by it Bismarck was encouraged to pursue his plans for the consolidation of Germany under a still more openly acknowledged Prussian supremacy. A crafty and utterly unscrupulous diplomat, he was able to mislead Napoleon and his unskilful ministers. Soon after Sadowa the Emperor tried to obtain territorial compensation from Prussia. He wished, in return for recognition of Prussia's new position and of the projected union of North and South Germany minus Austria, to obtain the cession of territories on the left bank of the Rhine, or an alliance for the conquest and annexation of Belgium to France. Such schemes having failed, Napoleon tried next to satisfy French jingoism by the acquisition of the Duchy of Luxembourg. This move resulted only in securing the evacuation by its Prussian garrison of the Luxembourg fortress and the neutralization of the duchy. From that time on, tension increased between France and Prussia. Bismarck was, indeed, more anxious for war than Napoleon. He suspected the weakness of the French Empire, he despised its leaders, he realized the advance in military efficiency of his own country, and his aim was unswerving to establish a Prussianized German Empire at the cost, if possible, of the downfall of France. As a matter of fact, France, as now, was far from being permeated with militarism and, a few months before the war in 1870, the military budget was actually reduced. The occasion for a dispute arrived with the suggested candidacy of Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a German prince related to the King of Prussia, to the crown of Spain. As early as 1868, intrigues had begun to put a Prussian on the Spanish throne, but Napoleon had not as yet been disturbed. It was not until 1870 that he took the matter seriously. In July, Prince Leopold accepted the crown, egged on by Bismarck, and with the fiction of the approval of King William as head of the Hohenzollerns, as distinguished from his position as King of Prussia.