The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-07-16
The War in Western Germany.

From the Herald.
The unconditional surrender of the King and
the army of Hanover leaves Prussia without an
enemy of Importance in Northern Germany, and
opens to her arms the road to the important
Federal fortress OF Mayence Together with the
news of the serious opening OF the campaign
in Bohemia the Persia brought us the lntelli.
gence that the Prussian commander in the
provinces of the Rhine had formally notified
the people of Nassau Of the intention of his
Government to treat that duchy as hostile
territory. This is bad news for Nassau which
cannot very well put on foot more than TO- 900
troops and whose Federal contingent numbers
but 6642 men; and the gracious assurance of the
Prussian general that Prussia will be only too
happy to find that the inhabtanUs OF Nassau are
wiser than their Duke, whose action in the Diet
Las brought the Northern host upon them is
more likely to give Limbourg and Wesbaden
lively visions of annexation than to make them
ieel secure IN their small nationality.
Jbe Duke OF Nassau ought TO be o potentate
in the world for he controls those springs of
settler water which, since the days of Lord
Byron, have become essential 10 the welbeing
OF civilized men. but when the double.headed
eagle of the HohpnZollerns once fastens its
talons upon the hereditary lion OF his house,
neither Duke Adolphus' seltzer waters, nor his
lineage, going to back to Charlemagne, nor his
MARRIAGE with a Grand Duchess of Russia, will
be likely to save him. Like the Electol of Hesse
and the four Saxon Dukes, and their cousin, the
Saxon King, Duke Adolphus las miscalculated
the DRIFT OF things; and Nassau Is marked for
absorption into that Germany of the future"
which Prussia has now set herself in earnest to
constitute.
A glance at the map of Europe win show the
reader that rapid military occupation OF Mas
sau will bring the Prusslsns directly down upon
the Federal fortress of Mayence. This fortress
and the considerable city OF the same name sit.
uated at the confluence of the Rhine and the
Nam, command the Federal capital, Frankfort,
from the west. The ioriIdcations are very ex-
tensive and could only be properly held by a
very considerable army. Atthe latest advices,
the Austro-Prussian garrison established at Nav.
ence in time OF peace had beeu replaced by q
Federal war garrison OF troops drawn from the
contingents OF Anhalt. the Saxon Duchles, Wur.
temberg and Hesse-Darmstad, to the number,
however, of less than thIrty-tve hundred men.
Held by such a force aS this. Mayence NAV be
carried with little difficulty by powerful coup
de main, and the Prussians occupying Nassau
and sallying forth irom their own formidable
stronghold OF Ehrenbreitstein, calei 'the
Gibraltar Of the Rhlne," may very well afford to
throw against Mayence the twelve or fifteen
thousand men necessary to take II.
1t is certainly preposterous, as a Lordon
Journal sagely observes, Tor writers who are no
strateglsts 10 furnish forth Campaigns and plans
OF campaigns Tor readers who are no geo-
graphers. But it is important for all persons
who wish to keep abreast OF the age in which
they live, to inform themselves as accurately as
may be OF the actual and probable progress of
war which threatens or which promises, as the
reader pleases, to revoutlonize the whole poiti
cal system Of central Europe. To-day, our chief
interest centres on those remote regions OF
Eastern Saxony and Bohemia in which the
main armies OF Prussia and of Austria are ar
rayed and manouvrng against each other
towards collision which can hardly be long
deferred, and which, when it comes, must pe
indeed tremendous. But in the western regions
OF Southern Germany there is another formida-
Bile army with which Prussia sooner or later
will be called on to measure herself The Joint
army OF Bavaria and of the Federal Diet, in
numbers more nearly approaching two than one
hundred thousand men, and commanded by
Prince Charles of Bavaria, soldier formed in
the wars against the first Napoleon, and vigor-
Gus enough still in his green old age to give the
Prussian generals abundant occupation. A
movement against Mayence would be move
ment against this antagonist; and if it should
be made, it may be regarded as the beginning
of a conflict in Western Germany hardly inferior
in interest and importance to that which Prus-
sia is now waging in the East.