The ultimate, although not the immediate, effect of the French successes at Magenta and Solferino, was the creation of an Italian kingdom, which included within its boundaries, Naples, Sicily, the States of the Church, except Rome, and of course the Duchies on the right bank of the Po. The price of compliance, exacted by the Emperor Napoleon, whose plans had been thwarted, was the cession to him of Nice and Savoy. Venice and the territory beyond the Mincio remained Austrian for several years. While the map of Italy was in course of reconstruction, the political conflict in Berlin raged on with unintermitted violence. Simultaneously the Austrian Emperor was induced to assert his claims to predominance in Germany, but the plans laid, in 1863, were blighted by the prompt refusal of William I. to take any share in them. It was the first symptom of reviving hostility between the two Powers, although a little later, on the death of the King of Denmark, they were found, side by side in arms, to assert the claims of the German Bund upon Holstein, Schleswig and Lauenburg, and avert the occupation of those countries by the troops of Saxony and other minor States alone. The campaign which ensued brought the “new model of the” Prussian army to the test of actual experiment. But the brave adversaries they had to encounter, if stout in heart, were weak in numbers; and Europe did not set much store by the victories then achieved by Prussia. The public and the Governments were intently occupied with the Secession War in the United States of America, and the astounding expedition to Mexico, which was designed to place an Austrian Archduke on “the throne of the Montezumas,” under illustrious French patronage. Thus the quality of the troops, the great influence of the famous “needle-gun,” the character of the staff, and the excellent administrative services escaped the notice of all, save the observant few. The political aspects of the dispute were keenly discussed. Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell were, at one moment, disposed to fight for the Treaty of 1851; but the Danish King committed grave blunders; Russia stood aloof, the Emperor Napoleon III. distinctly refused to enter the lists, and the House of Commons was decidedly averse to war. Here it should be noted that the French Emperor, meditating on the value to him of the rival Powers in Germany, had determined to stand well with both. He hoped to please Austria by making the brother of Francis Joseph Emperor of Mexico, and to keep open the possibilities of an alliance with Prussia, by throwing no obstacles in her way on the Eider.