Naturally, the astonishing successes won by Prussian arms against the Federal Corps, as well as the Austrians, compelled the South German States to sue for peace, and accept public treaties, which, while leaving them independent, brought them all, more or less, within the limits of a common German federation. But something more important was accomplished at Nikolsburg. Herr von der Pfordten, the Bavarian Prime Minister, repaired thither towards the end of July, and Bismarck was in possession of information, including a certain French document, which enabled him to state the German case in a manner so convincing and terrifying, that the Bavarian agreed to sign a secret treaty, bringing the army within the Prussian system, and stipulating that, in case of war, it should pass at once under the command of King William. That which Von der Pfordten conceded the Ministers of Wurtemburg and Hesse Darmstadt could not refuse, and thus provision was made, on the morrow of Sadowa, for that concentration of armed Germany which overwhelmed France in 1870–71. So that, although nothing formally constituting a United Germany had been done, Prussia, by securing the control of all her forces, and knowing that a strong and deeply-rooted public sentiment would support her, was satisfied that, providing time could be gained in which to arm, instruct and discipline upon the Prussian model the South Germans and the troops raised from the annexed provinces, she would be more than a match for France. South Germany, indeed, had long known her relative helplessness against the French. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the real peril was more perceptible to the soldiers and statesmen than to the people, many of whom were strongly imbued with democratic ideas of the French type. Yet, although they hungered for what they understood as liberty and independence, they were still German, and did not fail to see that their cherished desires could not be gratified either under French patronage or French prefects. The soldiers and statesmen had early perceived the full secret of South German dependence. The Archduke Charles, who had great knowledge and harsh experience to guide him, pointed out that the French posts on the Rhine had placed the country south of the Main at the mercy of France. “As long as the Rhine frontier from Huningen to Lauterbourg remains in her hands,” wrote a Prussian staff-officer at a later period, “Germany is open on the Rhine frontier to an invasion directed upon the Southern States.” No stronger testimony to the sense, if not to the reality of insecurity could be adduced, than the remarkable fact that, even so far back as the Crimean War, the then King of Wurtemberg, in conversation with Herr von Bismarck, set forth, significantly, the feelings, the hopes and the dread of South Germany. “Give us Strassburg,” he said, “and we will unite to encounter any eventuality . . . . for until that city shall