GERMANY.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 192, 23 August 1859, Page 3

GERMANY.

At the sitting of the Federal Diet at Frankfort on May .26, the minor German States voted that in certain eventualities military measures should be taken. Prussia claimed thatin such cases the initiative should be accorded to her. A despatch in the Nord states that the military committee of the Federal Diet has approved the motion of Hanover to place an army on the Rhine, and that it will propose its adoption. The official JViener Zeitung of May 19, contained an imperial decree increasing the direct and the indirect taxes of the empire. The monopoly of tobacco arid the customs duties are not included. . ' Baron Kiibeck has been definitively appointed President of the Federal Diet. \. A government announcement was made at Berlin on June 1, stating the conditions under which the officially ordered new Prussian Loan at 5 per cent, is to be issued. A communication from Innsbruck states that an autogr^Bh! letter, addressed by the emperor1 to the: Archdake Governor of- the Tyrol, calls the Tyrolese^o arms. ; "The blockade of Venice," says the Vienna corresponddnt of 'the Times, "seriously inconveniences the Austrian government, as '■ it can no longer send troops from Trieste to that port j but fortunately the whole of the 9th corps d'armee, which is under the command of General Count Schaafgotsohe, was in Italy before the French cruisers entered the Adriatic. The. l«t corps d'armee, whioh is commanded by General Count Clam-Gallas, will in a few days go from Bohemia to Innsbruck, by way of Dresden, Hof, Bamberg, Nuremberg, and Munich. The corps consists or 40,000 men, with the customary number of guns. Sis oavalry regiments are also on their way from Galicia to Innsbruck. The Austrian army at present con^ sists of 12 corps d'armee, but an order to raise four new corps is likely to be issued. In a few days an imperial ordinance for a 'conscription' of 100,000 men will be published. The late Marshal Marmont used to. say that Austria could 'stamp armies out of the earth/ and Louis Napoleon will find that such is really the case. How Austria is to maintain such a vast host is a problem which wiser men than myself are unable to solve. There are now six Austrian corps, consisting of about 240,000 men, in Italy, and by the middle of the month of June the army willprohablybe 335,000 strong, with 75,000 horses, and from 850 to 900 guns. Thereare people who talk of the war being ended in one campaign; but Napoleon has an enemy to deal with whom he either will not be able to overcome at all, or only after a long and deadly struggle." M. StreubeV an officer of artillery/ gives in the German Quarterly, the following estimate of the forces which- France and Germany can bring into the field:—The whole force of France is 660,000 men, with 1200 guns (field artillery) ; Austria can raise 750,000 .or 800,000 men, with 1344 guns;; Prussia 540,000 (including the first and second levies of Landwehr), with 1004 guns. The other German States can, with their reserves, bring together an array of 350,000 men. According to the Army List of 1855,.the Federal army for that year consisted of. f 525,000 men, with 1112 guns. " The quality of the French army, as a whole," says the German officer, "is! first-rate1, but still it is inferior to tbat of the Germans and Austrians in two respects. Its Chasseurs and Zouaves canuot, as shots, compete with the Jagers, and its cavalry is not so good as that of the Austrians arid Prussians."