The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-21 00:00:00

1870.

OUR COTEMPORARIES---This Morning.
THE WAR.

The Times observes that those who, like itself, could
find no words too strong to condemn the Governments
who got up this quarrel will find it difficult to withhold
their sympathy from the nations who are to fight it out.
The German cause may make the strongest appeal to our
hearts, for the French are the aggressors; but their feeling of
jealousy and emulation, which brooks no equality among
their neighbours, has its sources in a certain loftiness of
genius which qualifies a nation for high destinies. French
longing for glory can achieve wonders ; but much may
also be demanded of the German's sense of duty. The loud
cries " To the Rhine !" the crowds walking arm in arm on
the Boulevards singing the "Marseillaise" and the "Chant
du Depart," produced an addition of 19,000 Parisian volun-
teers to the French army ; but East of the Rhine, under
the empire of a law that makes every man a soldier, the
whole youth of every town and village are assembling
round the standard without waiting for the call of the
recruiting sergeant. There are on both sides the same
earnest zeal and devotion, though the clamour is not
equally loud; and if the war is only to terminate when
the hive of forty millions of people on either side is
exhausted, we may make up our minds to a struggle for
which the world's annals offer no precedents.
The Daily News considers that the varying reports
which arrive daily as to the intentions of neutral Powers
show how strongly the influence of this war is felt
beyond the theatre at present marked out for its opera- •
tions. Still at present it presents itself simply
as a great contest between France and Germany.
All the news froin South Germany shows that
the war will be one of unsurpassed magnitude.
The German people, forgetting their past disunion—or
rather remembering it for their instruction and warning
—are unitod, and will fight as one man. In the end this
union will prove a guarantee of peace, but for the
moment it extends the area of suffering and sacrifice.
We are on the eve of a struggle whose dimensions recall
the days of the First Napoleon, but which will be
made more terrific by the use of agencies and
facilities of which Napoleon knew nothing. The French
Army, like a wedge of steel, is to be driven, if that be
possible, as far as Berlin, and cleave Germany asunder.
Germany perfectly understands its adversary, and, taking
up the sword in sorrowful anger, vows not to lay it down
until it has established the peace of Europe upon a firm
foundation. Such a struggle cannot but assume Titanic
proportions.

Tne Telegraph says that, down to the present hour, the
outbreak of hostilities may be said to be equally welcome
on both sides of the Rhine. It is now certain that any
faint hopes of peace which may still have been enter-
tained by sanguine optimists must be definitely aban-
doned. The representation addressed by our Govern-
ment in favDur of mediation has met with no
success in either camp ; and, even if a sudden
desire for a pacific arrangement should seize
upon either of the belligerent Powers, it is
doubtful whether they could control the ardour of their
subjects. The Prussian Parliament has respon led to the
Royal Speech by an Address, stigmatising the " Bona-

partist lust for power," which would alone render war
inevitable. Count Bismarck explicitly denies the exist-
ence of any circular despatch to the Confederated Govern-
ments, corresponding to that on which M. 011ivier laid so
much stress ; and the diplomatic warfare between the
two statesmen is only an illustration of the intensity with
which this conflict is likely to be waged.