Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/344

302 house of Austria surround this sarcophagus, while the bronze statue of the Emperor himself is on the top of the sarcophagus.

The palace of Innsbruck built by Maria Theresa in 1770 stands close to this Church, and upon the site of the old palace of the great Emperor Charles V. Innsbruck is famous for glass painting,—and I visited one of the best houses where this industry is carried on, and orders for painted windows for Churches, etc., are executed.

On the day that I left Innsbruck for Italy I saw in the newspapers the announcement that Bismark had asked the German Parliament for an increase of the army on peace footing by over 40,000 men. The German army (on peace footing) was about 4,20,000, and the increase asked for will thus bring it to close upon half a million. Germany is immensely strong as all the world knows; but the Germans themselves know but too well that they need be strong. No other nation in Europe is so surrounded and hemmed in by powers more or less hostile as Germany is by the gigantic power of Russia on one side and by France on the other, calmly preparing herself for the hour of revenge. In this critical situation, Germany must needs be strong, feebleness or disintegration would be national death. The genius of Bismark has in our times welded together the scattered German speaking races into one united nation. He first annexed Hanover, Frankfort, Wurtemberg and other northern states into the kingdom of Prussia, (1866), and he then