Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-49.249.198.200-20140306144947

This article is based on illogical crap. France would never war against Italy, its near-ally. Austria was not influential over the western affair. Prussia mobilized much faster than Austria. The religious question would never gain priority (Austria and France were Catholic) as German Nationalism had substantially increased since 1848. Prussia would have taken advantage of minorities in the Austrian Empire to play them against the centre, with ingenious diplomats on their side. Besides, if the war did assume religious character, Britain would definitely intervene as it did before many times. France was not as powerful as mentioned. Here is some text from wikipedia about the situation of the SFE:

Thus Napoleon had to yet again disappoint the hopes of Italy, let Poland be crushed, and allow  Prussia to triumph over  Denmark in the  Schleswig-Holstein question. These inconsistencies resulted in a combination of the opposition parties, Legitimist, Liberal and Republican, in the  Union libérale. The elections of May–June 1863 gained the Opposition forty seats and a leader,  Adolphe Thiers, who at once urgently gave voice to its demand for "the necessary liberties".

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But though the opposition represented by Thiers was rather constitutional than dynastic, there was another and irreconcilable opposition, that of the amnestied or voluntarily exiled republicans, of whom  Victor Hugo was the eloquent mouthpiece. Thus those who had formerly constituted the governing classes were again showing signs of their ambition to govern. There appeared to be some risk that this movement among the  bourgeoisie might spread to the people.  