a substantially correct report had been sent to the North German envoys at several Courts. The declaration of war reached Berlin on the 19th.
The faults of the triumphant war party had isolated France. She was without allies ; but it was confidently expected that South Germany could be detached from the Northern Confederation. The French agents held out no such prospect. They wrote black, but their Government would read nothing but white. France had done nothing involving offence to the South Germans, and would not believe that they would spend their blood and treasure in a quarrel which was not their own. The opposition to Prussia was strong in the South. But the Bavarian Government declared that to shrink from their engagement at a time when Prussia was attacked would be a shameful breach of faith. The Prime Minister, Count Bray, had signed the treaty of alliance himself in 1866. He told the Chamber that they might turn him out of office, but that he would never consent to betray his conviction or to deny his signature. After a close struggle the proposal of neutrality was defeated ; and the day after the declaration of war was delivered at Berlin, 38,000,000 of Germans were united to meet it. The adherence of the South added 150,000 men, brave but not highly disciplined, to the armies of Prussia. It added infinitely more to her moral force, for it closed the door against French influence beyond the Rhine. Among the greater Powers England alone wished to favour neither of the combatants. Austria was the natural ally of France, for she wished her defeat in 1866 to be avenged, and Prussia at first set an army to watch the Bohemian frontier. But Russia calculated on deriving relief for her Eastern policy from the defeat of the French, and made it known from the first that she would ensure the neutrality of Austria. The Emperor Napoleon invited succour from Italy, by recalling his troops from Rome ; and he drew encouragement from the warlike tone of Victor Emmanuel. There was a French party at Florence, who thought that the interference of South
