tiers and after a very
brave resistance on the part of the Danes, occupied the two duchies. The
Danes appealed to Europe, but Europe was otherwise engaged and the poor
Danes were left to their fate.

Bismarck then prepared the scene for the second number upon his Imperial
programme. He used the division of the spoils to pick a quarrel with
Austria. The Habsburgs fell into the trap. The new Prussian army, the
creation of Bismarck and his faithful generals, invaded Bohemia and in
less than six weeks, the last of the Austrian troops had been destroyed
at Koniggratz and Sadowa and the road to Vienna lay open. But Bismarck
did not want to go too far. He knew that he would need a few friends in
Europe. He offered the defeated Habsburgs very decent terms of peace,
provided they would resign their chairmanship of the Confederation. He
was less merciful to many of the smaller German states who had taken the
side of the Austrians, and annexed them to Prussia. The greater part of
the northern states then formed a new organisation, the so-called
North German Confederacy, and victorious Prussia assumed the unofficial
leadership of the German people.

Europe stood aghast at the rapidity with which the work of consolidation
had been done. England was quite indifferent but France showed signs
of disapproval. Napoleon's hold upon the French people was steadily
diminishing. The Crimean war had been costly and had accomplished
nothing.

A second adventure in the year 1863, when a French army had tried to
force an Austrian Grand-Duke by the name of Maximilian upon the Mexican
people as their Emperor, had come to a disastrous end as soon as the
American Civil War had been won by the North. For the Government at
Washington had forced the French to withdraw their troops and this had
given the Mexicans a chance to clear their country of the enemy and
shoot the unwelcome Emperor.

It was necessary to give the Napoleonic throne a new coat of
glory-paint. Within a few years the North German Confederation would
be a serious rival of France. Napoleon decided that a war with Germany
would be a good thing for his dynasty. He looked for an excuse and
Spain, the poor victim of endless revolutions, gave him one.

Just then the Spanish throne happened to be vacant. It had been
offered to the Catholic branch of the house of Hohenzollern. The French
government had objected and the Hohenzollerns had politely refused to
accept the crown. But Napoleon,