During the struggle for Parliamentary Reform in England another great democratic movement on the Continent was in full and rapid progress. It was the movement of the German people in favour of German Unity, which had been arrested in 1848. The pacific policy of the Queen had saved England from sharing in Palmerston’s wild scheme to thwart the aspirations of the German race in 1865. Hence Englishmen could view critically the strife between the people of Germany, led by Prussia, and the forces of Teutonic feudalism, organised and made militant by Austria. But it was impossible for the Queen to be indifferent to the result of this conflict. The husbands of her daughters were fighting on different sides. The struggle had been long foreseen by the Prince Consort, who was a strong partisan of German Unity, and had for years used all his influence with the Court of Berlin to induce Prussia to lead the national movement in Germany. In the summer of 1866 Europe felt that the truce of Gastein was fast coming to an end. Manteuffel was the Prussian Governor of Holstein. Goblenz was the Austrian Governor of Sleswig, and the claims of the Augustenburg Pretender--reserved for future settlement by the Convention of Gastein--soon furnished the administrators of the two provinces with a fruitful cause of quarrel. When a popular ovation was accepted by the Prince-Pretender in Sleswig, Manteuffel harshly reprimanded him. At Kiel in Holstein Austria openly encouraged the Pretender’s Party in defiance of Prussia. Agitators from South Germany went about the country, under Austrian patronage, urging the Holsteiners to shake off the yoke of Prussia. The “conjoint dominion’ was no longer endurable. Austria proposed to submit the dispute to the German Diet, a proposal which Prussia rejected, and when the Powers began to prepare for war, their example was followed by Italy, who now saw her chance of delivering Venice. In fact, early in spring, 1866, Italy and Prussia had entered into a secret Treaty embodying offensive and defensive action against Austria. The French Emperor knew of the existence of this Treaty, and it was a mystery why he did not intervene between the disputants. The probability is that he calculated on being able to interfere with profit to France after Prussia and Austria had each exhausted themselves in a long and sanguinary struggle, a reckoning which the sudden collapse of Austria completely upset. Napoleon III., though ostensibly suggesting a reference of the dispute to a European Conference, was secretly intriguing with both Powers. To Prussia he proposed an alliance on the basis of ceding to France the left bank of the Rhine, including Belgium, which England was bound to defend by arms. To Austria he offered an alliance based on the cession of Venice to Italy, in return for Silesia--a province which every Prussian regards with pride, as one of the Great Frederick’s spoils of war. And all this time England was under