It was therefore necessary to get rid of her as gently and as politely as possible.

After the crushing victory at Koeniggraetz, Bismarck treated Prussia's ancient foe with extraordinary leniency; for he had already planned the Dual Alliance in his mind; knowing as he did that, though in Germany Austria might be an inconvenient rival to Prussia, in Europe she was the indispensable ally of Germany.

And so, though the ramshackle old German imperial castle was divided in two, and the northern portion, at any rate, brought thoroughly up to date, the neighbours still lived side by side in a "semi-detached" kind of way.

It would be a mistake then to call the war of 1866 a war of deliverance.

Indeed, since the defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig, Germany has had no such war.