This conflict[232] was eagerly canvassed in all its stages by Englishmen of all classes, who seemed at this time to take a keener interest in the fascinating problems of American politics than in their own domestic affairs. But perhaps nothing appealed more strongly to the imagination of the people than the ease with which the American people disbanded their armies, and absorbed a million unpensioned officers and soldiers at the very moment of victory into the mass of the peaceful civil population. The calmness, courage, and good sense with which the Americans set aside the menaces of the war party against England, and applied themselves to pay off the six hundred millions sterling of their war debt, further commanded the admiration of the world. Not even in Mexico could the United States be persuaded to interfere. Their Government simply refused to recognise that of the Emperor Maximilian, and accredited a minister to the President of the Mexican Republic, who still waged a desultory struggle with the Imperial Government and its French allies. As France, however, had now thought it prudent to announce the withdrawal of her troops from Mexico, the United States could afford to wait for the inevitable issue. The Danish Question, in which the Queen had so deeply interested herself during the previous year, was easily settled--for a time. Austria and Prussia agreed to share the spoils of war, and the Duchies were divided between them. This arrangement, formulated by the Convention of Gastein, in August, averted war between the allies. As for the views of the minor States and the claims of the Duke of Augustenburg, they were brusquely put aside. The Duke had made the fatal mistake of pretending to regard the services of Prussia in liberating the Duchies as uncalled for. He even hinted that his cause would otherwise have been much better managed by the Diet. When he came to Berlin to press his claims at the Prussian Court, he had an interview with Von Bismarck in the King’s billiard-room, which ought to have warned him of what was coming. “At first,” said Bismarck once, “I wanted from him no more than what the minor Princes conceded in 1866. But he would not yield an inch (thank Heaven! thought I to myself, and thanks to the wisdom of his legal advisers).... At first I called him ‘Highness,’ and was altogether polite. But when he began to make objections about Kiel Harbour, which we wanted, and would listen to none of our military demands, I put on a different face. I now titled him ‘Translucency,’ and told him at last, quite coolly, that we could easily wring the neck of the chicken we ourselves had hatched.”[233]