NEWS OF THE WEEK.
ALL eyes are still directed to Germany. The interest is not diminished by the daily changing tone of the accounts. If the
main tenour of what appears in those accounts is tolerably truth- ful, it would seem to be impossible to be nearer a tremendous European struggle.
-With the Count Brandenburg had passed away the single will in the Berlin Cabinet that could dare not to fight—that was above the fear of coward repute. While he was on his deathbed, there had arrived Austrian demands that could be brooked by no Prussian,-L-- Prussia must evacuate Hesse-Cassel entirely, and must give a way across her territory to Austrian troops marching for the Danish Duchies. Within a few hours after the death of the soldier-minister, his policy in the Cabinet had been reversed. M. Radovritz had been recalled into counsel; his rejected order for drawing out the whole military force of the kingdom recanvassed, and unanimously adopted. " God grant tha blessing thereto," ejaculated tht pious King, when he signed the order. The flaming brand had appeared at the door of every head of a family in the kingdom ; and the Prussian people, who would not move a finger in support of a Cabinet policy, were rushing to their standards to vindicate national honour.
The last news from Berlin was the most threatening of all. It announced that the Austrian Ambassador, Baron Prokesch, had presented an ultimatum, insisting that Prussia should evacuate Electoral Hesse within eight days, withdraw her garrisons from Hamburg and Baden in six weeks, and formally renounce the Erfurt League. Baron Prokesch was to demand his passports in- stantly if these terms were not accepted. The Austrian ultima- tum was at once enforced and interpreted by the concurrent news that the Kings of Saxony and Wirtemberg had dissolved their re- fractory Chambers and thrown all the military resources of their respective states into the Austrian scale. But, on the other hand, the King of Hanover, after a phase of hesitation, had veered to- wards the Prussian side; professing neutrality, and protesting against the passage of Austrian troops across the Hanoverian ter- ritory into Holstein. The Duchy of Darmstadt also ranged with Prussia, after having lately been ascribed to Austria. The Austrian and Prussian armies had come face to face in Electoral Hesse ; blood had actually flowed ; the Prussians had retreated from Fulda, which they seized last week at a cavalry gallop ; and their commander had intimated to the Austrian com- missary his intention to withdraw the Prussians to the military roads. The town of Cassel is on one of these roads ; and the Prus- sians could hardly yield the custody of the Elector's millions of dollars, without a serious struggle. The campaign on a small scale seems to have been accompanied by diplomatic interchanges, which deprive the Prussian movements of the character of compulsory retreat, and the collision which occurred was but a trivial affair of outposts ; but the two armies viewed each other with deadly glare, and the next news that we get may be that of a general battle.
From any immediate influence on these immensely important complications, Great Britain remains excluded. Without reference to the causes of this exclusion public feeling is growing very acutely sensible of the fact. The Leading Journal founds on it telling attacks on the foreign policy which it opposes' the Minister himself is understood to be fretfully uneasy at his humiliating position ; the Cabinet organs denounce the arrogance of Austria as intolerable, and raise anew the cry of sympathy with German Constitutionalism, in peril of extinction by brute force.
