Then began the great strife between the two Governments which had wrested the Elbe Duchies from the Dane. When the short war ended, certain divisions from each army were posted in the conquered country, and the rivalry which animated the two Courts was carried on by diplomats and statesmen. Prussian policy, since the days of Frederick II., had leaned always towards, if not an alliance with Russia, yet the maintenance of a solid understanding with that growing Power. Herr von Bismarck, who was a deep student in the history of his own country, and who had always nourished large ideas, kept steadily on the well-trodden path, but imparted to his methods a boldness, an inventiveness, and an energy most unusual in Prussian statescraft. The Polish insurrection of 1864 gave him an opportunity which he did not neglect, and while the poor patriots were assisted from the side of Galicia, on the Posen frontier they were ruthlessly repressed, the Russian and Prussian troops making common cause, and crossing the frontier whenever that step seemed needful. The ill-fated Poles, of course, were defeated; Prussia had recorded a fresh claim upon the benevolent neutrality of Russia, while Austrian “ingratitude,” never forgiven in St. Petersburg, took a deeper tinge in the eyes of the Czar. The Prussian Government had not long to wait for their reward. During the summer of 1865, the abiding quarrel between Vienna and Berlin, respecting the future status of the conquered or restored Duchies, nearly came to an open rupture. Neither side, however, was ready for a blow, and the “Convention of Gastein,” which Bismarck, in a letter to his wife, defined as a mode of “pasting together the cracks in the building,” was devised to gain time. The Prussian army, still incomplete from the royal and the military point of view, had been augmented after the Danish war, and the new levies of horse and artillery had not acquired the requisite instruction. So the summer and autumn of 1865 wore away, revealing the spectacle of King William and Herr von Bismarck battling fiercely with the Parliament, and not so clearly displaying Von Moltke and Von Roon labouring hourly to bring the machine intrusted to their charge up to the highest attainable efficiency. There were other reasons for delay. As it was more than probable that the South Germans, and possible that the King of Hanover would not rank themselves with Prussia, but go with Austria and the Bund, an ally was wanted who would divide the forces of the largest Power. That ally was found in the newly united kingdom of Italy.