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252 All anxiety was, however, removed by news which came the next day. A report was spread throughout the papers that Italy had begun to mobilise, and that a band of Garibaldians had crossed the frontier. The report seems to have been untrue. How it originated we know not; when Roon heard of it he exclaimed, "Now the Italians are arming, the Austrians cannot disarm." He was right. The Austrian Government sent a message to Berlin that they would withdraw part of their northern army from Bohemia, but must at once put the whole of their southern army on a war footing. Prussia refused to accept this plea, and the order for the mobilisation of the Prussian army went out.

As soon as Austria had begun to mobilise, war was inevitable; the state of the finances of the Empire would not permit them to maintain their army on a war footing for any time. None the less, another six weeks were to elapse before hostilities began.

We have seen how throughout these complications Bismarck had desired, if he fought Austria, to fight, not for the sake of the Duchies, but for a reform of the German Confederation.

In March he had said to the Italians that the Holstein question was not enough to warrant a declaration of war. Prussia intended to bring forward the reform of the Confederation. This would take several months. He hoped that among other advantages, he would have at least Bavaria on his side; for the kind of proposal he had in his mind, though at this time he seems to have had no clear plan, was some arrangement by which the whole of the north