He found the desired pretext in the Holstein question and the far more serious one of reforming the federal government. On January 24, 1866, he reproached the Austrian government with favoring in Holstein the pretensions of the Duke of Augustenburg. The grievance soon became envenomed by complaints and ulterior measures. In April Bismarck denounced the so-called offensive measures which Austria was taking in Bohemia and which, in short, were only precautionary. Yet at the same time he himself was signing with Italy a treaty, concluded for three months, by virtue of which Victor Emmanuel was to declare war against Austria as soon as Prussia itself had done so. Bismarck, now invited to lay the Austrian-Prussian dispute before the diet, answered by asking that an assembly elected by universal suffrage be called to discuss the question of federal reform. And when Austria offered to disarm in Bohemia if Prussia would do so on its part, Bismarck demanded, in addition, disarmament in Venetia, a condition he knew to be unacceptable. On May 7, 1866, he declared he would not accept the diet’s intervention in the duchies question, and on the 8th ordered the mobilization of the Prussian army. Napoleon III at this juncture proposed the holding of a congress for settling the duchies question and that of federal reform. Thiers had warned him in vain, in an admirable speech delivered on May 3d, that France had everything to lose by aiding in bringing about the unity of Germany. The emperor obstinately persisted, proposing to tear up those treaties of 1815 which, two years before, he had childishly declared to be no longer in existence. His proposition of a congress, however, failed through the refusal of Austria and the petty states to take part in it. He next signed with Austria a secret treaty by which the latter promised to cede Venetia after its first victory and on condition of being indemnified at Prussia’s expense. By a strange inconsistency the French emperor proposed at the same time to make Prussia more homogeneous in the north. Bismarck acted in a far clearer manner than the French emperor. On June 5th, General von Gablenz, the Austrian governor of Holstein, convened the states of that country, Austria declaring that the object of this measure was to enable the federal diet to settle the question. A German force under General Manteuffel at once invaded the duchy and, having far superior forces at his disposal, took possession of it. On the 10th, Prussia asked the different German States to accept a new constitution based on the exclusion of Austria, the election of a parliament by universal suffrage, the creation of a strong federal power and a common army. The diet answered by voting the federal execution against Prussia. Thereupon the Prussian envoy, Savigny, withdrew, declaring that his sovereign ceased to recognize the Confederation.