The position of the three Powers, England, France and Russia, which might have combined to save Denmark and defeat the ambitious efforts of Germany, was peculiar. Louis Napoléon had proposed a congress to consider the affairs of Europe, and having been snubbed by Lord Russell, was sulking in his tent. In Russia there was certainly no desire for war; the memory of the Crimea was still fresh in men’s minds, the Polish business was not yet settled, and the country was longing for quiet—according to Prince Gortchakoff’s famous _mot_, “La Russie ne boude pas, elle se recueille,” but a marriage had recently been arranged between the Tsarevitch[41] and the Princess Dagmar, the second daughter of the King of Denmark, so the Court (which at that time was still Russia), with Prince Gortchakoff, eager for an English alliance, and a great number of ministers and nobles, were strong partisans of the Danes; and the whole chivalry of the country would have donned its armour to do battle for the father of their future Empress. They only waited for England. As to the attitude of England there should have been no doubt. The declaration of her statesmen had been explicit, showing not only their sense of an injustice which was to be perpetrated, but beyond that a right knowledge of the real objects which Bismarck had at heart. The national party in Germany made no secret of them. Two quotations taken from Lord Salisbury’s article in the _Quarterly Review_ of January, 1864, are clear in their testimony. There was a debate on the Danish Question in the Prussian Chamber on the 1st of December, 1864. Herr von Twesten, Chairman of the Committee appointed to consider the Augustenburg claims, made the following candid remark: “The Duchies are for Germany and Prussia a strong bulwark under all circumstances against any attack coming from the North. This, as well as their maritime position, are advantages which Prussia can never relinquish.” Dr. Loewe, a conspicuous man in the National Verein, speaks with even less affectation of concealment: “What interest has Prussia in the maintenance of the London Protocol? (The Treaty of 1852 by which the Powers, including Prussia, settled the succession to the Danish throne.) Since the time of the Great Elector, Prussian policy has always been rightly directed towards gaining the North German Peninsula for Germany.”