Meanwhile Miss Nightingale had been very busily engaged with the correspondence and other tasks thrown upon her by the outbreak of war in Europe. "Saw Florence for half an hour this morning," reported her father (June); "over-fatigued certainly, but speaking with a voice only too loud and strong. Princess [Alice of] Hesse writes to her to ask for instructions for the hospitals there, and Sutherland's joke is 'There's nothing left for _you_, all is gone to Garibaldi.'" She had been applied to by representatives of all three combatants. Prussia, as usual, was the better prepared, and the Crown Princess had written to Miss Nightingale in March (three months before hostilities actually began) asking for her assistance and advice about hospital and nursing arrangements. A Prussian manufacturer communicated with her about the best form of hospital tents for field-service. The two sisters of the British Royal House were on opposite sides in this war, for Hesse-Darmstadt had thrown in its lot with Austria; but it was not till after the outbreak of hostilities that the Princess Alice wrote to Miss Nightingale through Lady Ely[72] for advice about war hospitals. Miss Nightingale at once sent it. Her Memorandum, she was told (July 3), had been forwarded to Prince Louis for use at Headquarters, and the Princess begged her to send further information for use by the hospital authorities in Darmstadt. The Italians had been earlier in "going to Miss Nightingale." The Secretary of the "Florence Committee for helping the Sick and Wounded" had written to her for advice in May. Her reply caused great delight, as an English correspondent at Florence recorded. "I have read the letter," he wrote, "which will be translated and inserted in the _Nazione_. Miss Nightingale gives, with her accustomed clearness and precision, excellent advice to the Committee, which some of them very much need. At the same time she expresses her cordial sympathy with the Italian cause. She recalls the admirable condition in which the Sardinian army was landed in the Crimea, and the praise which its appearance extorted from Lord Clyde. And she concludes her letter by saying that if the sacrifice of her poor life would hasten their cause by one half-hour, she would gladly give it them. But she is a miserable invalid."[73] The Committee had asked whether she would not come to Italy "were it but for one day" in order to inspire them by her presence. Her piece of "froth" (as she called it) was widely printed in the Italian press. She had deplored the outbreak of the war, but when it resulted in an extension of the boundaries of free Italy she felt that there were compensations. Miss Nightingale also joined the Committee of the "Ladies' Association" formed in this country "for the Relief of the Sick and Wounded of all nations engaged." She advised the Committee on the form of aid most requisite, and at the end of the war, in thanking