The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-06-29


| this vast booty is. the stake for which
| the HapsburgS and HohenZollerns are
gaming. Prussia is powerful, but un-
popular; Austria is extremely popular
with the reigning houses, but weak in
! finance, and also weak in its diversity
of subject races, and in its Italian rela-
tions. Austria never abandons a show
/ OF respect for the Federal Diet; Prussia
/ laughs at it. Austria, whose natrimo-
nial arms, like the tentacles of the
devil-fish, grasp everything, has bound
| the secondary houses to its interest;
Prussia, less devoted to Venus than to
Mars, has few such attachments. The
| result is that Prussia is dreaded and
| hated; Austria is respected and dis
| trusted. Yet the indications are that in
the approaching conflict IL Is Austria
| that will enlist the Diet and its minor
members in its favor; and that while
Hanover and Saxony will affect neu-
| trality, and submit, If need be, to be
fought over, Wurtemburg and Bavaria
will take the field by the side of Aus
| tria. All understand that the war is to
select their master, and that bayonets
i are toyote.
THE GERMAN BATTLEFIELD.
This strife for the imperial crown of
Germany must have n theatre distinct
| ly traced by the necessities of the case.
Each combatant must strike, ifpossible,
mortally; its blow must therefore be at
the heart; and he will be the victor
whose blow first falls. Already we
hear of an nAustrian corps recalled from
Holstein; there they would be beyond
the chances of support, or supplies, or
recall. 1t is along the frontier OF Silesia
and Saxony, under the shadow of the
"Giant Mountains" which form the
natural northern boundary of Bohemia,
and within days ride by rail of Dres-
den, that Field Marshal Benedeck has
Il II FV-fa
as is to do the German campaign; in
other words, the high road to Berlin is
the objective point of Austrian strategy.
To repel this movement, and to make
good an advance upon Vienna, is the
| business that brings the Prussian in
fantry with their needle-guns face TO
face with the Austriansi and there for
the moment they stand.
If the Austrians make good their en-
trance into SaXony, and over the fertile
hills and valleys of that happy king
dom, a paradise as it is, and attain and
pass the strong positions fortified and
held by Prussia on the Saxony from
tier, the march to Berlin will be a pa
rade. For Prussia is not a paradise;
has no hills or valleys worth the name;
| is but deSolate plain without natural
| facilities for defence. The narrow ter
ritories of Saxony are therefore the
| lists where the possibility of an Aus
| trian occupation of Prussia is to be de-
| termined; and it is within the bounds
of probability TINT Jena may second
time decide the fate of the Branden-
burgs. The student of this interesting
| field must not, however, found his
speculations on maps which show
| where Gustavus Adolphus fought and
| fell, where Charles XII. pursued the
| flying Augustus, where Napoleon won
Jena and lost Leipsic. Modern engi-
| neering has created II new art of war;
i "a tn nFnlint the mnVnmnnE of armies
and select the scenes of future conflict
| upon data furnished by pre-railroad
era, would be rs absurd as TO calculate
results with confidence, omitting from
the problem ritled cannon and needle
guns. Ls-
Vienna and Berlin are bound together
| by rail; to the protection of either capi-
| tai troops may in n few hours be drawn
| from the eXtremitleS OF either empire,
or be thrown into the intermediate ter
parties be disposed to take hand atthe
play, we must bear in mind that the
| locomotive from Paris TO Petersburg
goes directly over the ground.
AUSTRIA AND ITALY.
The other adversary with whom the
| Austrian has to contend is Italy. OF
the causes of the forthcoming struggle
in Lombardy 1t is superhuous to speak
| to generation which remembers Ma
genta and SoIferino, and with which
| the names of Garibaldi and Victor
| Emanuel are the synonyms of hero
ism. Suffice it to say that, after ages of
agony under Austrian rule, the Ital-
| ians, encouraged by the Bonaparte on
| the throne of France, arose in 1859, and
with splendid gallantry began the too
long-deferred task of expelling the ha-
| ted 1tTedeschih from the peninsula Be-
fore the task was completed, the Bona
parte who had promised thorough work
| from the Alps to the Adriatic paused at
| the Mincio; made at Villafranca II peace
| with the enemy, which was delusion
| and snare, inasmuch as it professed
| to liberate Venetia and give it to an
| Italian confederation, over which the
| Pope should preside; whereas Nenetia
was left to the uncovenanted mercies
| of her foreign and enraged master, and
the confederation was an impossibility;
and SO Italy was betrayed.
| To acquire Yenetia has been the single
| idea of the Italians from July, 1859, to
this moment. To sell it, to exchange ii
| for other territory, to part with foot of
| it on any terms but of the direst neces-
sity, Austria has incorrigibly refused;
| and its redemption has only been pos
| sible through ways of war. The Schles-
/ wig gembroilment has offered the Italian
King an opportunity he could not de-
| cline. Minister Won Bismark has not
| failed to stimulate the hesitating ambi-
ton of King Victor; the Court of Wen
ma asserts, and events Justify the belief,
| that secret treaty compels Prussia
and Italy to assume the offensive SIM
4 ultaneously. Such hus been the intense
feeling of the Italians on the Venetian
| question that the postponement of ac-
tive hostilities thus long has put the
popularity of their King in peril; and
1 to disband his enormous standing army
without a blow would be to encounter
\ the risk of popular outbreak.
On the other hand, IL has been next to
ruin for a newly emancipated people,
with industries Just springing into life,
/ to sustain a force of half million of
men under arms. The finances of the
| Court of Florence have been going from
/ bad toiworse; without the stimulus of a
patriotic war, the taxability of the ma
| ton seemed TO be exhausted; the ulter-
native of the government is to fight, or
to perish iEglOriously of mere impecu-
nofsity. So as all mankind, and sub
stantially Austria herself. admit the
Justice OF the cause, the Italians are
about to fight.
THE SITUATION IN ITALY.
i Austria has assigned some three hum
dred and fifty thousand men, comman-
ded by the Arch duke Albert, to the de-
fence of Yenetia. The Italians have
about an equal number or regular
troops confronting them, commanded
in chief by Gen. Della Marmora, with
the veteran generals Cialdini and Dur
ando as subordinates. But the most
effective part of the peninsular army is
the volunteer force, headed by
Garfbaldi, numbering already 100,OO0
Of the Italian vouth- drawn from