scale that is known in 1866. Even the greatest of
the engagements in our civil contest seem to shrink to small proportions
when compared with what took place last summer in Bohemia. The armies of
Grant and Lee, in May, 1864, probably were not larger than the Prussian
army at Sadowa. At the same time, Austria had a great force in Venetia,
and large bodies of men in other parts of her empire, and some in the
territory of the Germanic Confederation; and the Prussians were carrying
on vigorous warfare in various parts of Germany.

After their grand victory, the Prussians pushed rapidly forward toward
Vienna; and names that are common in the history of Napoleon's Austrian
campaigns began to appear in the daily journals,--Olmuetz, Bruenn, Znaym,
Austerlitz, and others. Nothing occurred to stay their march, and they
were in the very act of winning another battle which would have cut the
Austrians off from Hungary, when an armistice was agreed upon. It was so
in 1809, when the officers had to separate the soldiers to announce the
armistice of Znaym. It came out soon after that the cessation of warlike
operations took place not a day too soon for the Austrians, whose army
was in a fearfully demoralized condition. Vienna would have been
occupied in a week by the Prussians, had they been disposed to push
matters to extremities, and that without a battle; or, if a battle had
been fought, the Austrian force must have been destroyed, or would have
been literally cut off from any safe line of retreat. Probably the house
of Austria would have been struck out of the list of ruling families,
had the Austrians not submitted to the invaders. Count Bismark is a man
who would have had no hesitation in reviving the Bohemian and Hungarian
monarchies, had further resistance been made to his will. The armistice
was quickly followed by negotiations, and those were completed on the
23d of August, exactly seventy days after the Diet, at the dictation of
Austria, had given up Prussia to punishment, to be inflicted by the
Austrian sword.

The terms of the treaty of peace are moderate; but it should be
understood that what Austria loses is very inadequately expressed by
these terms, and what Prussia gains not at all; and what Prussia gains
at the expense of Austria, important as it is, is less important than
what she has gained from France. From Austria she has taken the first
place in Germany; from France, the first place in Europe, which is the
sa