Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-07-12
CAUSES OF THE WAR IN EUROPE.

From the Washington Chronicle.l
The causes of the war in which Prussia
and Austria have involved Germany may as
well be understood thus early. II has been
said that Prussia has begun to play the part
of ROBERT MACAIRE, the bold villain of the
drama, and that Austria has been cast for
that Of JACQUES STRAP, who was invariably
snubbed by his fellow-culprit whenever he
suggested a fair division of the spoil. 1t
was Prussia who conceived the plan of rob
bling Denmark, and of appropriating all the
plumber Austria had no purpose to serve
in robbing Denmark; Austria did not want
the Duchies of Scleswig- Holstein; Austria
did not desire to reduce the small kingdom
of Denmark; and when she was seduced into
a war had only the intention of erecting the
Elbe Duchies las Schleswig and Holstein
are called) into an independent State under
a German ruler. It is evident, from the re-
suit, that Prussia went into the attack upon
Denmark with the desire and design of con-
verting the coveted Duchies 10 her own use.
The German inhabitants of the Elbe
Duchies, at least tho richest, best educated,
and most intelligent of these inhabitants
desired to be freed from Danish rule They
may have found by this time what it is to
exchange King STORK for King Log; but
they were very earnest then, and the Ger
man nation, backing them up, resolved that
they should beemancipated from submission
to Denmark. They had not been harshly
governed but as Germans the people of the
Duchies were dissatisfied, were even hui
inflated by being governed by foreigners,
When the German Confederation decided
that the Duchies must be severed from Den
mark, Austria had to do one of two things:
either to abandon her position as head of
the Bund, or go in, as Prussia always pre-
tended to do as the protector of the Ger
mans, who, it was assumed, were ill-treated
by Denmark, Accordingly Austria sent an
army into the Duchies to cooperate with
another army which Prussia had sent thither.
There was some severe fighting, but the con-
test was not of long continuance, for Den
mark is a small and weak State and the
Elbe Duchies were wrested from Den
mark.
Instead of being transferred to the Duke
of Augustenburg, who claimed to be their
hereditary sovereign, "a claim which the in
habitants did not resist, Schleswig was oc-
cupied by Prussia, and Holstein by Austria.
There was great adroitness in this, for Hol-
stein, sandwiched between Sehleswig on the
north and Prussia on the south, lay COM
pletely at the mercy of the latter, and, at
the end, was tricked into a violation of the
letter of treaty both powers had signed at
Gastein, on the strength of which breach of
compact the Austrian army was coolly turn
ed out of Holstein, so that Prussia now
holds both Duchies, which, it may be safely
assumed, was her purpose from the first
The breaking out of the war was not the in
vasion of Saxony and Hanover, but the no.
tice given to General GABLESTz, on the
part of Prussia, that the sooner he took the
Austrian troops out of Holstein the pleas
anter it would be for all parties. That vir-
tually began war in which Germany is
now engaged in which Italy is also active;
in which France, Russia and England may
soon he involved