After his visit to Plombieres, Cavour had hurried across the frontier and spent two days at Baden-Baden, where he met the Prince of Prussia, Manteuffel, who was still Minister, and other German statesmen.  Bismarck had been at Baden-Baden in the previous week and returned a few days later; he happened, however, on the two days when Cavour was there, to be occupied with his duties at Frankfort; the two great statesmen therefore never met.  Cavour after his visit wrote to La Marmora saying that he had been extremely pleased with the sympathy which had been displayed to him, both by the Prince and the other Prussians.  So far as he could foresee, the attitude of Prussia would not be hostile to Italian aspirations.  In December, however, after the change of Ministry, he writes to the Italian Envoy at Frankfort that the language of Schleinitz, the new Foreign Minister, is less favourable than that of his predecessor.  The Cabinet do not feel the same antipathy to Austria as that of Manteuffel did; German ideas have brought about a rapprochement.

“I do not trust their apparently Liberal tendencies.  It is possible that your colleague, Herr von Bismarck, will support us more closely, but I fear that even if he is kept at Frankfort he will not exercise so much influence as under the former Ministry.”

Cavour’s insight did not deceive him.  The Italian question had for the moment re-awakened the old sympathy for Austria; Austria, it seemed, was now the champion of German nationality against the unscrupulous aggression of France.  There were few men who, like Bismarck, were willing to disregard this national feeling and support the Italians.  To have deliberately joined Napoleon in what after all was an unprovoked attack on a friendly prince of the same nation, was an act which could have been undertaken only by a man of the calibre of Frederick the Great.  After all, Austria was German; the Austrian provinces in Italy had been assigned to the Emperor by the same authority as the Polish provinces to Prussia.  We can imagine how great would have been the outcry had Austria joined with the French to set up a united Poland, taking Posen and West Prussia for the purpose; and yet this act would have been just of the same kind as that which would have been committed had Prussia at this time joined or even lent diplomatic support to the French-Italian alliance.  It is very improbable that even if Bismarck had been Minister at this period he would have been able to carry out this policy.

The Prussian Government acted on the whole correctly.  As the war became more imminent the Prince Regent prepared the Prussian army and eventually the whole was placed on a war footing.  He offered to the Emperor of Austria his armed neutrality and a guarantee of the Austrian possessions in Italy.  In return he required that he himself should have the command of all the forces of the German Diet.  Had Austria accepted these terms, either the war would have been