The statesmen of Vienna, fearing that the terms of their bargain with Russia were now forgotten in the intoxication of her triumph, determined to compel the victors to lay their spoils before the Great Powers.

In haste the Austrian and Hungarian troops took station on the great bastion of the Carpathians, and began to exert on the military situation the pressure which had been so fatal to Russia in her Turkish campaign of 1854.
But though everything betokened war, there were forces that worked slowly but surely for a pacific settlement.

However threatening was the attitude of Russia, her rulers really desired peace.

The war had shown once again the weakness of that Power for offence.

Her strength lies in her boundless plains, in the devotion of her millions of peasants to the Czar, and in the patient, stubborn strength which is the outcome of long centuries of struggle with the yearly tyrant, winter.