The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-12 00:00:00

PRUSSIA AND AUSTRIA

(From the limes' Special Correspondent)
DRESDEN, SEPT. 7.
I have stated in several of my letters from Ham-
burg and Hanover that there is at this present mo-
ment no political movement of any kind, either
among the people or among the minor Governments
in liermany. Something like a great revolution is,
nevertheless, in progress, and it has in a great mea-
sure been already accomplished. Your great Ger-
man revolutionists are M. von Bismark, his col-
leagues in the Prussian Government, and that aria.
tocratic party among their supporters who, strange
to say, make so vast a parade of their conservative
principles.
Those who have read the history of Germany
to some purpose are well aware that the German
Empire was a huge body without a head till the
House of Austria contrived for several generations
to monopolise the Imperial Crown. What secured
the vote of the electors in behalf of so many suc-
cessive members of the same family was, not so
much the valour or wisdom of the Hapsburgs, as
the circumstance that, together with their here-
ditary German possessions, those Princes extended
their sway over vast tracts of Magyar, Slavonian •
and Italian lands, which became a wide field for
general German enterprise. The Germans were,
at all times, an expansive migrato-y race, and, so
long as Austria and Germany were identical, the
lower banks of the Danube were to the Teuton
what the far west is now to the American
Anglo-Saxon, the common inheritance of those who
had no birthright of their own at home. Notwith-
standing this immense advantage, and the liberal
patronage extended to all German talent in every
branch of the eivil and military organisation of the
Austrian State, the Hapsburgs became daily more
and more unequal to the task of holding the mem-
bers of the Empire under subjection, and, at the end
of the Seven Years' War, they had to acknowledge
the existence of a rival State, which did away for
ever with their Imperial supremacy, and split Ger-
many into two separate and more or less hostile
fields.

The great fact of a German dualism had hardly
been accomplished, and the world was hardly aware
of it, when the episode of the French Republic and
Empire came to demolish what was already a mere
ruin, and in 1815 Germany was reorganised into
a Confederacy, which was neither more nor lees
than the former Austro-Prussian dualism, with,
besides, a knot of small States which should per-
petually vibrate between the two large ones, and
cluster, no w to the one, now to the other, seeking
their safety in the perpetual antagonism of the two.
The aim of Prussia to place herself instead of
Austria at the head of the German nation never was
more apparent than at this present moment, since

the invasion of Schleswig.noistein promised to
afford her the means for naval as well as for mili-

tart' aggrandisement. M. von Bismark and his
Government aspire to supremacy over German
affairs, not only out of purely Prussian ambition,
but also with a view to crush that democratic ele•
ment which has now been sufficiently snubbed, but
which yet allows them no easy slumbers. The
Schleswig.Holstein business has so far turned out
favourable to them that it has almost utterly anni-
hilated the Frankfort Diet and this small knot of
minor States, which had given the movement so
dangerous en initiation. But now there remains to
settle accounts with Austria; and with all the inter-
views of Ministers and meetings of Sovereigns M
von Bismarck finds the Vienna statesmen a harder
set of customers than be had bargained for.
The drift of M. von Bismarck, we are told, would
be not txictly to oust Austria from Germany, bur
only to bring her to accept a subordinate position
in the Confederacy, allowing Prussia the full
exercise of supreme ascendancy. "Austria," he is
tepresented as saying, " should look for her sphere
of activity in the south east and south. She has
much to win on the Danube. She has much to
keep, if not to regain, en the Mincio. Should she
be able to depend on the j Ant support of Prussia
and Germany, how could Russia or Turkey ivith-
stand her in the Eist, or what could Italy and
France have to say to her in the West ? Austria,
Prussia, and Germany combined are more than
match for the world, and that this combination
should be thcrough—that the good understanding
b4tween Berlin, Vienna, and Frankfort should be
cordial, what else is needed except that Austria
should desist from a bcotless antaginism in 13 r-
many, and, seeking her new centre at Prcsburg.
at Buda, or still further east, she should aLow
Prussia so to thwart the ambition of the miner Ger-
man Princss, and so to curb the restless aspirations
of the german people, as to bring all the elements
of German power under her control, and make them
in any case of need sub:ervient to Austrian no less
than to common German interests:.
This Prussian policy, aiming at politely bowing
Austria out of Germany, has been prettyconsistently
and adroitly followed at various times since 1815
But now this matter of Schleswig-Holstein hasgiven
an opportunity for its practical development, and,
no doubt, the slowness of the transactions of that
illistarred Vienna Conference is to be chiefly ac
counted for by the fact that M. von Bismark is
strongly endeavouring to induce Austria to make
over to Prussia her own share of the benefits of the
enterprise, and that he finds M. de Rechherg less
disposed to fall in with his wishes than his own
sanguine temperament had led him to expect.
His mission at Vienna, it begins to be whispered,
has not been crowned with success. Although Aus-
tria has, no doubt, one eye to the Danube, and one
to the Mincio, she is not by any rneansayd,ismpoosreedshtoe
play second fiddle in Germany. Nay,
thinks that the Danube and the Mincio in her
hands are as great a means of obtaining, preserv-
ing, and increasing her ascendancy in Germany at
the present time, as they ever were during the three
centuries of connection between the Hapsburgs and
the Imperial Crown, from Maximilian I. to Francis
I. Every step made by Austria into the lower
Danube, the Germans conceive, is so much ground
gained for all Germany ; and, for what concerns
Italy, there is hardly an elementary book that
does not teach German children " that the defence
of the Rhine is to be sought on the Po."
So long as Austria holds those great out-
lets of German industry and enterprise,
the Danube and the Adriatic, she enjoys iu
German eyes a consideration which would scarcely
be counterbalanced by Prussia, were even Scbles
wig-Holstein to give her the key of the Baltic.

THE CAPTAIN OF THE TALLAHASSEE.—Captain
J. T. Wood, whose name has lately been brought
before the public in connection with the exploits of the
Tallahassee, has acquired for himself a conspicuous place
in the annals of this war, on account of the daring and suc-
cessful enterprises in which he has been engaged. He is a
grandson, on the maternal side of the late General Taylor,
President of the United States. Since the war broke out ho
has been naval aide to President Davis, but from time to

time he has disappeared from Richmond, on services boldly
conceived and brilliantly executed. With small boats, by
surprises and by boarding, he has captured several Federal
gunboats and transports, and, on one occasion, cut out a
gunboat, the Underwriter, on the Neuse River, from under
the guns of the enemy's works. For these distinguished
services, the Congress of the Confederate States passed the
following unanimous vote of thanks :—" Resolved by the
Congress of the Confederate States of America—That the
thanks of tha Congress of the Confederate States aro duo,
and are hereby tendered, to Commander John Taylor Wood,
Confederate States navy, and to the officers and men under
his command, for the during and brilliantly•executed p 1 ins
which resulted in the capture of the United States trans-
port schooner Elinore on the Pototnao River, of the ship
Alleghany, and the United States gunboats Satellite and
Reliance, and the United States transport schooners
Golden Rod, Coquette, and Two Brothers, on the Chesa•
peake, and, mere recently, in the capture from under the
guns of the enemy's works of the United States gunboat
Underwriter on the Neuss River, no it Nu-'bern, North
Carolina, with tho afloer, and crews of the several vessels
Irroight elf as prisoners. Approved February 15, 18.A."
Index.

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