Such was the reply which the Queen made to what Sir Theodore Martin calls “the amiable but most mischievous weakness” that pervaded the letter from the King of Prussia. Such was the appeal which she made to what Sir Theodore calls “a sentiment higher than the short-sighted and selfish policy which it announced.” The King’s letter was perhaps amiable--but it was not weak. Its policy was perhaps selfish--a Sovereign who draws or sheathes the sword, save from motives of national selfishness, is guilty of a crime against his people--but it was not shortsighted. As Mr. Lowe, in his biography of Prince Bismarck, says, “Every one is now agreed, in the words of Leopold von Ranke, that his (the King of Prussia’s) neutrality during the Crimean War was the condition precedent of the great achievements which afterwards made Germany one.”[165] Prussia, in fact, was at this moment master of the situation; and it is amazing that the Queen, through her German connections, did not know it. Herr von Bismarck had been sent on a secret mission to the minor German States. His intrigues had rendered it certain that if Austria joined the Western Powers in war, Prussia would step into her place as the dominant power in Germany.[166] In fact, but one excuse is given for the grave error of the English Court in not seizing the opportunity offered by the letter of the King of Prussia for building the “golden bridge” over which his Majesty pledged his word the Czar would even then have gladly retreated. The Queen’s reason in her reply was that the resources of diplomacy--its Protocols, Notes, Conventions, &c., &c.--had been exhausted, and that “the ink that has gone to the penning of them might well be called a second Black Sea.”[167] A sanguine and proud young Princess must not be too harshly judged by History for a light jest, even on such a momentous issue. In a few brief months it was wiped out with her tears and her people’s blood. Moreover, her Majesty, as will be seen later, did not forget the hard stern lesson read to her by this “war for an idea,” when she saved England from a similar calamity in the dispute between Germany and Denmark over the Duchies. Only one thing now vexed the hearts of the War Party. The Address in answer to the Queen’s Message announcing war was carried. But the debate did not definitely commit the Government to a war for the purpose of breaking the power of Russia.