Theimer reached into his pocket, gave the assistant a few coins, and moments later was presented with the evening edition of the Tagesbote with it's fresh stamp pasted onto it's front page. A stamp duty was charged on each copy of each paper sold, and the stamp had to be affixed to the paper before it was handed to the customer. As a result, citizens could only buy papers from authorized dealers, or by subscription.

Theimer laid the paper out on his desk, and started to laugh. "Come and look at this, Brother Gregory." He pointed to the front page. All Mendel saw as a partial headline then a large white space with the word "Confiscated" in it.

"Our diligent censors have been at work again, I see," Theimer said, turning the pages of the paper, some of which had been more heavily censored than the rest. But then he came to a section that still contain some news. He bent over the paper, and read avidly.

"The fools," he spluttered at last. "In this morning's edition the censor had removed this article from the Tagesbote but the censor's assistant had not removed a similar article from a rival paper - which was allowed to print the full text. As a result, this evening, the Tagesbote is now printing a copy of the original article in the rival paper, that was censored from its own morning edition. How foolish can our government get!"

Theimer was commenting on the peculiar phenomenon of news censorship Austro-Hungarian Empire, where journalists submitted their articles to the censor's office every morning at 5:00 am. An army of assistants then read every word and removed any parts they found offensive or likely to embarrass important government officials. Unfortunately they all had different opinions and different criteria, so what Theimer was seeing in his paper that evening was a typical result.

An article removed from one paper's morning edition by one assistant would be allowed for publication in a rival paper by a different censor. Then, in the evening edition, the paper that had been censored, dutifully reported the full text of its rival, giving credit and describing all the circumstances that made the censor's office look foolish.

"This confirms it," Theimer almost shouted. He pointed at the article he had just been reading. "Bismarck has concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Italy. That means war!"

"Because of the two front issue," Mendel hazarded, remembering some of his earlier conversation with Rosenstauch. "Now we will have to fight Prussia here in the north and the Italians in Venetia?"

"Yes," Theimer agreed, "Bismarck has finally got his way. He has been provoking us and provoking us, but our Emperor has refused to rise to the challenge, until now. Bismarck has finally succeeded in manipulating us into a war, which he hopes Moltke will win for him."

"Because of the Holstein issue," Mendel guessed again.

"Not just that. Bismarck offered to buy us out of the Holstein issue in November last year, in 1865, almost at the same time that the Italians offered to buy Venetia for 400 million gulden. No, there have been many opportunities for our Emperor to resolve all Bismarck's provocations. Unfortunately His Majesty has missed every one of them. But even if he had not, Bismarck would have found something else. The real cause of this war lies deeper than a couple of duchies."

"But what?" Brother Gregory asked. He thought he had understood the issues during his talk with Rosenstrauch, but now Theimer was saying something different.

"It's all a matter of power," Theimer said with some force. "Austria is the natural leader of all the German States, and has been the obvious leader of the German Confederation since 1815. When the old Holy Roman Empire was smashed by Napoleon, any of the 39 German speaking states that replaced it could easily have fallen prey to their larger, more aggressive, neighbors. We have helped guarantee the external and internal peace of all of them. We also helped the smaller of these states to keep their independence, and pledged mutual aid if they were attacked, especially by the bullies in Prussia.

"During that time, we, the Austrians, always held the presidency of the Frankfurt diet, that in theory governed the Confederation. Even if," he added ruefully, "as most people say, it was a totally ineffectual body." He smiled at his own opinion, shook his head then added. "You know, the irony is that, for a time at least, Metternich enjoyed the support of Prussia. I remember it well. Then we had that horrible year, 1848; the year of the revolutions." It was clear that the pharmacist did not agree with the aspirations of the revolutionaries, who, in 1848 had helped topple the famous Metternich, and bring about a temporary liberalization.

"When the treaty of Olomouc was agreed in 1850," Theimer went on referring to the re-establishment of autocracy, "we again assumed leadership of the Confederation, but now Prussia became our rival, not our ally. Bismarck wants power for himself and leadership for his Monarch. Why else would he keep us out of the Zollverein?"

Brother Gregory could not answer this question, having some doubt as to the what the Zollverein was. Had Theimer been prepared to explain, he might have told Mendel about the customs union that comprised all the German states - but not Austria. Within the Zollverein zone there were no tariffs or custom barriers to impede trade, and a uniform custom tariff with outside countries, to encourage trade. This arrangement had benefited the Zollverein States considerably (and punished Austria), so every statesman from Metternich onwards had tried to get Austria included.

But Bismarck didn't, which was why he was preparing for war.