1-150-466 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'Rival Arbiters', 1866. The other Lion thought the First a Bore. Count Bismarck stands with his rifle at the ready, looking suspiciously at Napoleon III. The French Emperor, casually twirling his moustache, is studying a map of Europe. Count Bismarck of Prussia was becoming something of a force in European politics of the mid-Victorian period. After his carefully engineered war against Austria, the Austro-Prussian War, in which he had engaged the cooperation of the Italians; he had had to agree the terms for peace after the intervention of the Emperor Napoleon. In a despatch to the Prussian ambassador in Paris, he had written that he would rather have resigned than withdraw without winning land for Prussia. From Punch, or the London Charivari, July 28, 1866.