ABSTRACT
Otto von Bismarck was at that memoirs time ambassador at St. Petersburg, and there Gortchakoff told him that if Prussia took sides against France, Russia would enter the field against both of the Germanic Powers. The Italian war, while it may have led Prussia to overestimate the military strength of France, had for her the inestimable advantage that its compelled Austria to reveal to the world for the first time her inherent weakness. Austria was to have Moldavia and Wallachia, Prussia Hanover and Oldenburg, Russia Constantinople, and France the Rhine frontier and Belgium. Prussia’s part in the Italian war has never ceased to afford material for controversy. In return for assistance against France, however, Austria offered to Prussia nothing at all save a fair prospect of disaster. Like the displaced King, the Regent was warmly attached to the Austrian reigning house, yet without any trace of his fantastic conception of the Empire and Emperor as sacrosanct institutions.
