The Viennese declared that the Prussians could easily be driven off with a wet rag,[1] and Prince Metternich, Austrian ambassador in Paris, was busily occupied in composing a "triumphal march" to celebrate the entry of the Austrian troops into Berlin.
The Bohemian people did not view matters in the same light. In a country where the study of history is perhaps more general than in any other, no man underrated the indomitable courage and the iron tenacity of the German foes. The descendants of the Hussites, "men whose fathers braved the world in arms" against Bohemia, knew how dearly won and sanguinary some of the victories of their ancestors over the Germans had been. The Bohemians were now also prepared to defend their country. A short time previously gymnastic societies had been formed in most parts of Bohemia. The members of these societies soon became known as the "sokols," from the falcon (in Bohemian, sokol) feather which they wore in their caps. These men were eager again to meet in the field the ancient enemies of their nation. They begged to be allowed to organize the national defence, and to occupy and fortify the mountains and often narrow passes that lead from Prussia and Saxony into Bohemia, and which they—rightly as events proved—believed to have been left undefended.[2] A stern refusal was the only answer. The Vienna Government, still pursuing the foolish phantom of supremacy in Germany, wished the war—as the official proclamation stated—to be considered as a "war of Germans against Germans."
It is not my task to describe here the short campaign which, practically decided by the battle of Kralové Hradec (July 3, 1866),[3] was terminated by the peace of Prague on August 23. Austria lost no territory to Prussia by this treaty. The scheme of annexing the part of Bohemia situated on the right bank of the Elbe was soon abandoned by the Prussians. Prussia, however, obtained its principal object. The dominions of the House of Habsburg were entirely excluded from Germany; the link that bound the unwilling Bohemians to Germany was severed. During the
- ↑ "Mit einem nassen Fetzen."
- ↑ These facts have been told me by Professor Tilšer, who was one of the "sokols" of that time.
- ↑ I have given a short account of the battle of Kralové Hradec (better known under the German name of Königgrätz) in the Pall Mall Magazine for November 1904.
