What had called these armed hosts into the field? Briefly put, it was the question which was to be the leading Power among the German-speaking peoples--Austria or Prussia. For centuries the former had asserted this position of proud pre-eminence, but there came a time when this claim of the Hapsburgs was no longer allowed by the great and growing monarchy of the Hohenzollerns. Austria wanted to have everything in Germany done after her particular way of thinking, and Prussia began to find it quite incompatible with her honour and her self-respect to be thus lorded over by a State which in many respects she deemed to be her inferior in point of light and leading. Thus it came to pass that these two rival Powers began to lead a very cat-and-dog life at the council-board of the Germanic Confederation of States; and Bismarck, who was the rising statesman of his time, prophesied that this condition of things could go on no longer, and that the only remedy for this eternal quarrelling between the two was a policy of “blood and iron” on the part of Prussia. Once, however, they seemed to have suddenly become the best of friends. This was when they joined their forces, in 1864, to snatch Schleswig-Holstein, or the Elbe Duchies, as they were called, from the rule of the Danes. Bismarck was the great champion of “Germany for the Germans,” and he thought it scandalous and unreasonable that a foreign people like the Danes should continue to domineer over the Teutons in the Elbe Duchies. Prussia and Austria, therefore, at his far-seeing instigation, combined to oust the Danes from the Duchies, and this they finally did after storming the Danish redoubts at Düppel. But the worst of it was that the conquerors could not agree as to their spoil. Prussia wanted to do one thing with the Duchies, and Austria another. It is a common enough thing for thieves to fall out over the distribution of their booty, and this was precisely what the rival German Powers did with regard to Schleswig-Holstein. Bismarck, the long-headed statesman that he was, clearly foresaw that they must and would do so, and this was the very thing he wanted. He wished to have a good pretext for going to war with Austria, in order that this Power might be altogether excluded from the German family of nations, and that Prussia, taking her place, might inaugurate a new and better era for the Teutonic peoples. Austria had fallen into the trap which he had laid for her, and she had no choice but to fight. Each, of course, claimed to be the injured party, and the old game of the wolf and the lamb was played over again to the amusement of all Europe. Some of the other German States sided with Austria, and some with Prussia, but the former were soon defeated and disarmed, and then Prussia was free to direct her whole strength against the Austrians.