"May the grace of God give you strength to bear the hopeless grief, the weight of which we know from our own knowledge! In imagination I place myself in your attitude of mind, and realise that you must both be benumbed with sorrow at seeing your sweet child dead before you, knowing that you can never again see a light in her dear eyes, never again a smile on her face! Certainly it is hard to say: 'Thy will be done!' I put this text on the tomb of my son Sigismund, your god-child, because I know of no other consolation; and yet I cannot overcome that pain to-day, though many years have already gone by, and though God has given me a large family. Time does undoubtedly blunt the keenest edge of a parent's anguish, but it does not take away the weight of sorrow which goes with one for the rest of one's life. That my wife is united with me in these sympathetic thoughts you know." The course of the war of 1866 is well known, and there is no need to trace it in detail. The operations of the Crown Prince with the Second, or Silesian, Army exercised a crucial influence on the whole campaign. Field-Marshal Count von Blumenthal, who, as Chief of the Staff, saw the whole of the operations, bears testimony to the brilliant strategic dispositions of the Crown Prince, which were particularly exhibited in the defeat of the Austrians at Nachod and the subsequent engagements. Von Blumenthal notes that the Crown Prince possessed, not only an extraordinary power of self-control and coolness, but also, what is not always found even in the greatest military leaders an instinctive perception of how much he could leave to subordinates, while himself keeping a firm hand on the general course of action. The soldiers themselves adored him, for he always managed to find time to visit the wounded in the field hospitals, as well as to encourage by his inspiring utterances the troops in line. The manner in which the Crown Prince effected a junction with Prince Frederick Charles and the First Army was most masterly; he came up exactly at the right moment and at the right place. Unfortunately, as generally happens, politics intervened, and the Crown Prince was prevented from following up the victories with as much energy as he desired--indeed, it seemed to him that there was a conspiracy to tie his hands and control his movements. He even dropped a hint in the sympathetic ear of von Blumenthal that if this treatment continued he would ask the King to relieve him of his command. Happily this was not necessary. The King himself assumed the supreme command on July 1, and two days later there came the crowning mercy of Königgrätz, or Sadowa, when the Austrians, under Benedek, were totally defeated. It was for his services at this great battle that the Crown Prince was decorated with the Order "Pour le Mérite." Of Bismarck's exertions in this war, an English observer who was with the Prussian Army has left the following striking picture: