a. Their combined influence
was sufficiently strong by a majority of one to carry through the Diet
execution instead of occupation; though there was appended to the motion
a rider that the question of succession was not thereby prejudiced.

The execution took place. During the month of December the Hanoverians
and Saxons occupied Holstein; the Danes did not resist but retreated
across the Eider. At the end of the year the occupation was complete. In
the rear of the German troops had come also the Prince of Augustenburg,
who had settled himself in the land of which he claimed to be ruler.

What was now to be done? The Augustenburg party wished at once to press
forward with the question of the succession; let the Diet decide this
immediately; then hand over Holstein to the new Duke and immediately
seize Schleswig also and vindicate it from Christian, the alien usurper.
Bismarck would not hear of this; he still maintained his policy that
Prussia should not denounce the London Convention, should recognise the
sovereignty of Christian, and should demand from him as lawful ruler of
all the Danish possessions the repeal of the obnoxious November
Constitution. In this he was still supported by Austria; if the Danes
did not acquiesce in these very moderate demands, the Germans should
enter Schleswig and seize it as a security. Then he would be able when
he wished to free himself from the Treaty of London, for war dissolves
all treaties.

The advantage of this plan was that it entirely deprived England of any
grounds for interference; Prussia alone was now defending the London
Convention; Prussia was preventing the Diet from a breach of treaty; the
claim of Denmark was one in regard to which the Danes were absolutely
wrong. Bismarck had therefore on his side Austria, Russia, probably
France, and averted the hostility of England. Against him was German
public opinion, the German Diet, and the Prussian Parliament; everyone,
that is, whom he neither feared nor regarded. So long as the King was
firm he could look with confidence to the future, even though he did not
know what it would bring forth.

With the Parliament indeed nothing was to be done; they, of course,
strongly supported Augustenburg. They refused to look at the question
from a Prussian point of view. "On your side," Bismarck said, "no one
dares honestly to say that he acts for the interests of Prussia and as a
Prussian." They feared that he proposed to hand back the