The project of the Conference on the Sleswig-Holstein Question, now that France accepted it, was fairly started, and it gave Palmerston a chance of extricating his Ministry without much ignominy from the complication in which they had become enmeshed. The Queen favoured it, as she favoured any arrangement that seemed likely to make for peace; but, as the Conference was to meet without a basis and without an armistice--indeed, as the capture of Düppel had made Prussia and Austria masters of the situation, an armistice was of little consequence--her Majesty’s view of the issue was not so sanguine as that of her Prime Minister. “Austria and Prussia,” says Count Vitzthum, “were not sorry to take advantage of it (the Conference) in order to escape from a false position, in which they had placed themselves as belligerent Powers and cosignatories of the London Treaty. Both of them declared their readiness to attend the Conference, on condition that the German Bund received, as such, an invitation also. It was the first time since its existence that the Diet had been invited to attend and vote at a European Conference. The choice of its representation fell on the Saxon Minister of State, the most active advocate of the Federal standpoint. He accepted the choice, but was unable, from the haste with which the matter was arranged, to reach London on the 20th of April, the day fixed by the impatient Lord Russell for the opening of the Conference.”[200] As might be expected, this led to a hitch in the proceedings. Austria and Prussia alleged that they could not take part in the Conference until Count Beust appeared on the scene, so that the first meeting of the diplomatists was ominously abortive. It was not till the 25th of April that the Conference met for work, and the story of its transactions is somewhat painful for Englishmen to recall. It soon became apparent that the real object of the German representatives was to thwart the policy of the English Government, and tear up the Treaty of London under the very eyes of their English colleagues. Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell speedily discovered why the Diet had been invited for the first time to take part in a European Conference. Austria and Prussia, being cosignatories of the Treaty of London, found it a little embarrassing to take the initiative in “denouncing” that futile instrument; but they put forward Count Beust, as the representative of the Diet, to repudiate it, and he, on behalf of corporate Germany, declared that no solution of the problem could be accepted which did not provide for the complete separation of the Duchies from Denmark. In vain did Palmerston and Russell resist a demand that was utterly irreconcilable with the policy of maintaining the integrity of Denmark which was formulated in the Treaty of London. Russia and France abandoned them, and it became evident that continued victory would render the Germans, not more moderate, but more exacting in their demands.