Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/397

 THE EUROPEAN POWERS FROM 1815 TO 1871 385 Hanover and Hesse as well as Schleswig and Holstein to the victors. A North German Federation comprising all the northern states was at once established, with the King of Prussia as hereditary president. Questions of peace and war The Nortll and the military control were left to Prussia. The German old confederation was abolished, Austria was with- Federatlon - drawn from all direct connection with the German states, and the southern states, without being admitted to the new Federa- tion, were associated with it for military purposes. A Zollverein or Customs Union had for some time past helped to develop the sense of a unity of interests. Italy was rewarded by the cession to her of Venetia. But the work of German unification was not yet finished. France was hankering after the Rhine provinces — Napoleon had expected to obtain them as the price of interven- France and tion for the salvation of Prussia. The emperor Prussia, had been losing ground in the country. He had been ignored in the Schleswig-Holstein affair, and by Russia in her merciless repression of Poland's last revolt. He had blundered con- spicuously over the Seven Weeks' War, and not less so in an attempt to restore an empire in Mexico, which had turned itself into a republic. Sooner or later, to protect himself and his dynasty, he would be forced to make war on Prussia; and, as with Austria, so with France, Bismarck meant the inevitable duel to be fought at his own time, and with plausible grounds for declaring that France was the aggressor. Spain provided the Prussian minister with his opportunity, when he was satisfied that he had brought the German military organisation up to the Prussian standard. The rule The Spanish of Queen Isabella was disastrous, utterly bad with- succession, out a redeeming feature. A revolution drove her from the country, and Spain wanted a king ; but she wanted none of the claimants who desired the crown, which was declined by more than one prince to whom it was offered. The Spanish selection of a far from zealous candidate, who belonged to the house of Hohenzollern, the royal house of Prussia, was resented by 2B