by H M Hozier
Nor was the Prussian Government disposed to look on calmly while the duchy of Holstein was permitted the right of free opinion and free discussion, the tide of which invariably seemed to set against the idea of incorporation with Prussia. On the 30th January, 1866, Count Bismark despatched a note to Vienna, in which he pointed out to the Austrian Cabinet how the conduct of its administration in Holstein must infallibly complicate the general relations between the two governments. This note was hardly despatched when a monster meeting of the Schleswig-Holstein Unions, (Vereine), at Altona gave the Prussian minister occasion to despatch a second, which is of peculiar interest.
In this note Count Bismark recalled to mind the happy days of Gastein and Salzburg, and expressed his belief, that Austria would be united with Prussia, not only in a conviction of the necessity of withstanding revolutionary ideas, but also in the plan of the campaign against such ideas; that affairs were now assuming a very serious aspect; that the bearing of the government of Holstein must be regarded as directly aggressive; and that the Austrian Government ought not to carry on against Prussia in the provinces the same agitation which it had united with the Prussian to quell at Frankfort The note went on to say that the Convention of Gastein had treated of the administration of the two duchies as only a provisional measure; but that Prussia had the right to advance that Austria, during the epoch of the provisional government, should maintain in Holstein the status quo in which she had received the province, in the same manner as Prussia felt herself bound to preserve this status in Schleswig.
The Prussian Government requested the Austrian to ponder upon the matter, and then to negotiate. Were a negative or evasive answer returned, Prussia would be forced to adopt the conviction that Austria, prompted by a traditional antagonism, no longer wished to act harmoniously in union with her. This conviction would be painful, but Prussia must finally see her way clearly. If it were made impossible for her to act in concert with Austria, she must obtain full freedom for her own policy in order to contract closer alliances in other directions for the advancement of her own immediate interests.
The negative and evasive answer was returned in a note from Count Mensdorf, on the 9th of February, in which this minister, in the name of Austria, declined the responsibility for the national assemblies, because the duchies were only under a provisional government The count added, that Austria was well aware she did not occupy Holstein as an acquisition, but that so long as the provisional government might last, she considered herself perfectly free in the administration of the duchy, and could admit no control from any quarter.
This despatch from Vienna was the first step towards the development in a crisis of the political circumstances which now followed rapidly, one after the other. Austria saw in the Prussian declaration a hidden threat of war, and an open reference to an intended alliance with her mortal foe, Italy, and believed that she was threatened with an imminent and simultaneous attack on both her northern and southern frontiers. This belief was strengthened by the apparent fact, that a council was held at Berlin, on the 28th of February, under the presidency of the king, to which the chief of the staff of the army. General Von Moltke, and the military Governor of Schleswig, General Von Manteuffel, were summoned.
Austria accorded no faith to the most pacific assurances on the part of Prussia that these fears were groundless. Nor was her confidence m the peaceful intentions of her rival established by the denial of a rumour which had gained public credence, and which asserted that the question discussed at this council had been whether, under the aspect of political circumstances, Prussia ought to prepare herself for the war which might be the result of their development; nor by the assertion that no preparations for war of any kind had been made in Prussia. Austria, anxious at the same time for her position in Germany and Italy, full of mistrust and anger against Prussia, badly directed and counselled, perhaps also instigated by the embittered enemies of Prussia in Germany, began early in the month of March her preparations not only for a war, but also for a struggle of which the intended object was to support the Germanic Confederation against Prussia.
CHAPTER 3: Commencement of the Preparations for War
Open antagonism between Prussia and Austria was declared by the exchange of notes which was mentioned towards the end of the last chapter.
Prussia had acquired full freedom for her own policy by the Austrian answer to her declaration of the 26th of January, and men in Germany looked around anxiously to see what use Count Bismark would make of this liberty. For a time the wary minister gave no signal of what he was about to do. Many expected that, face to face with the strong military power of Austria, and with the sentiment of all Germany hostile to him, he would be obliged to treat with Vienna.
The solution of a conflict between different States depends ultimately always upon strength. Prussia, therefore, naturally desired to reinforce her strength, and to replace the alliance which had been broken by some new alliance.
But where to turn for the new alliance? In Germany there was no hope of finding friends among the governments, for these were all interested in the maintenance of small States, and naturally antagonistic to national community. Nor were the people of Germany at this time at all disposed to regard Count Bismark as their champion, or accept him as the leader of a national party. The late quarrels between the Prussian minister and the Prussian Commons, the press prosecutions in Prussian territory instigated by the Government over which he presided, the conservative tendencies of his views on taxation, marked him out more as the enemy than the harbinger of a free national unity. The people of Germany were at this time no allies of the counsellor of the head of the House of Hohenzollern.
As no alliance could be found in Germany, the Prussian minister looked abroad, and there saw, in the south-western frontier of the territories of the Kaiser, a natural ally to join hand-in-hand with Prussia against Austria. This was the newly formed, hardly consolidated kingdom of Italy. This ally could boast no long list of victories borne on the banners of its soldiery, its traditions did not reach seven years back, its army was composed of raw levies; but its people were feverish, eager, and covetous to gain Venetia, and to inflict a blow upon the detested Austrian.
Before the conclusion of the Convention of Gastein, in the middle of the year 1865, when at that time a rupture of the alliance between Austria and Prussia appeared possible, the latter power had drawn near to the young kingdom of Italy, and had entered into negotiations for the conclusion of a commercial treaty between the Zollverein and that kingdom. The larger number of the minor States which belong to the Zollverein, (See chapter 1), had not yet recognised the kingdom of Italy, and their rulers had no desire now to do so, for the recognition of a sole sovereign of the united peninsula would be tantamount to a recognition of the advantage of the concentration of the small States which had, previously to 1859, been independent portions of Italy, and of the superfluous character of their reigning dynasties. On the other side, Italy would not enter into negotiations with a confederation of which most of the component States still denied her title-deeds of kingdom. Prussia stepped in as mediator. Italy was happy to be recognised The small States of the Zollverein were forced into agreement with the proposals of Prussia. Count Bismark threatened to dissolve the Zollverein. The mere threat drove a probe into the mercantile classes of all Germany; the interests of the monied aristocracy was brought to bear on the governments; and on the 31st December, 1865, a commercial treaty between the newly recognised kingdom of Italy and the Zollverein was signed.
When the prospect of a war between Prussia and Austria arose in the spring of 1866, came Italy’s opportunity to complete the work which had been commenced at Magenta, to secure and unite to herself the only province which, still under the rule of the foreigner, prevented her from being free from the Alps to the Adriatic. Italy naturally drew as close to Prussia as she possibly could. Austria requires a long time to mobilise her army, and had begun her preparations for war in the middle of February. Public attention
was directed to them by a council of war held at Vienna on the 10th March, to which Feldzeugmeister Benedek was summoned from Verona. At this council the party in favour of war was strongly predominant; and decided that Austria was strong enough to take the field against Prussia and Italy at the same time, provided that measures were taken to isolate Prussia in Germany, and to draw the States of the confederation to the Austrian side.
At this council too high an estimate appears to have been formed of the strength of Austria, and far too low a calculation made of the powers of Prussia; for the opinion of the council seems to have been that Austria could only emerge from such a war as a decisive victor. Italy was so detested, that all Austrians wished for an Italian war; and, with justice, among the Austrian soldiery a proud contempt was entertained for the Italian Army. It was considered that Prussia, weakened by an internal political conflict, could not unite her contending parties in a common ‘foreign policy. Nor was a high opinion entertained of her military resources and organisation. The professional papers and periodicals of Austria ingeniously demonstrated that Prussia, however hardly pressed, could not place her normal army on a complete war-footing, because trained men would be wanting. The writers of these articles calculated that the battalions of infantry could only be brought into the field with a muster-roll of eight hundred men; no consideration was paid to the Landwehr,—in fact, doubts were in some cases thrown upon the existence of Landwehr soldiers at all, and those who believed in their existence entertained no doubts of their certain disloyalty.
It was also calculated that the Prussian Army would have to make such strong detachments for the garrisons of fortresses that a very small force would be left for operations in the field. These false calculations, the first step and perhaps the most certain to the bitter defeat which ensued, were due to defective information, and to the absence from the War Office of Vienna of those detailed accounts of foreign military statistics, deprived of which any country that undertakes a military measure of any kind necessarily gropes in the dark. To isolate Prussia from Germany, and to entangle her in a strife against overwhelming numbers, the plan of Austria was to draw the Germanic Confederation into a decisive action against Prussia, in order that the confederation might be implicated in the question in dispute between Austria and Prussia concerning Schleswig-Holstein. Austria was certain of gaining, by the vote of the minor States, a majority in the Germanic Diet against the aims and objects of Prussia, If Prussia bowed to the decision of this majority, her position of power in the Confederation would for a long time be shaken, but if she refused to accept this decision, then would arise a favourable opportunity to declare Federal execution against Prussia, and to crush her with the whole forces of the confederation.
After this council of war, the Austrian preparations were secretly pushed forward. The fortresses, especially Cracow, were strengthened and prepared for defence, and the troops in Bohemia were reinforced. These armaments and military movements excited the attention of Prussia. Questions were asked: Austria answered that the population of Bohemia had broken out in riots against the Jews, and that the Imperial Government was necessarily obliged to send troops into the disturbed districts for the protection of its Jewish subjects. The Prussians averred that, by a singular coincidence, the care and protection of the Jewish subjects drew the troops suspiciously dose to the frontier, while the Jews chiefly resided in Prague, the capital and almost the central point of the province of Bohemia.
The Austrian Army in a mobilisation, before the war of 1866, had to be increased from the 269,000 men, whom it mustered on a peace footing, to 620,000. (The Austrian Army, in consequence of the disastrous results of the campaign of 1866, has been reorganised, the text alludes to the former organisation of the army). It therefore required the recall of over 350,000 men on furlough, or soldiers of reserve, to complete its strength. This increase of force could only conveniently be made in the recruiting districts of each regiment, because the men who were called in for each regiment must be clothed and armed by the fourth battalion, which was always stationed in time of peace as a weak depôt in the recruiting district.
In March, 1866, the quarters of many regiments of the Austrian Army were changed, so as to bring the battalions into the vicinity of their recruiting depôts; and several regiments from Italy, Gallicia, and Hungary, which could conveniently receive their full complement of men only in Bohemia, Moravia, or Austrian Silesia, were moved into those provinces. By these means the Austrian forces in Bohemia were, by the end of March, reinforced by about twenty battalions of infantry and several regiments of cavalry, which were, however, to avoid suspicion, still retained upon a peace footing; while the purchase of horses, and the completion of fourth battalions to full strength, commenced in various parts of the Imperial dominions.
At the same time the Austrian Government took steps to strengthen the fortresses in Italy, and to protect, in case of war, the coasts of Istria and Dalmatia. In the same month an extraordinary but very secret military activity commenced in Würtemburg and Saxony. All ideas of armament were officially denied by Austria, but the Prussian agents did not fail to observe their existence. The King of Prussia had already taken action, and issued a decree by which the authors of any attempts to subvert his own authority or that of the Emperor of Austria in the Elbe duchies, were threatened with imprisonment This decree was published by General Von Manteuffel in the duchy of Schleswig on the 13th March, and gave occasion for the Austrian ambassador at the Court of Berlin to ask Count Bismark, on the 16th March, whether Prussia seriously intended to break the Convention of Gastein. Count Bismark answered No, and added that he could make no further answer by word of mouth, as oral conversations were easily liable to be misunderstood, and that, if the Austrian ambassador desired any further information on the subject, it would be better that he should put his interrogations in writing. This was not, however, done.
Directly after the council of war at Vienna, on the 10th, March, Austria had taken steps to array the minor States against Prussia, and to secure their co-operation. In a circular despatch of the 16th March, the States of the Germanic Confederation which were inclined towards Austria were warned of the warlike attitude of Prussia, and were cautioned to take heed to the armament of their contingents and to their completion to war strength, since Austria had an intention to soon bring before the Germanic Diet a motion for the mobilisation of the Federal Army.
The movement of troops in Bohemia daily excited the apprehensions of Prussia. There still rankled in that country, the memory of 1850, when she, unprepared, suddenly found herself opposed to Austria fully armed, and was forced to submit to the terms dictated to her at Olmütz. Count Bismark had, however, provided that no such fate should befall her in 1866.
Although he knew well the position in which he stood with regard to the minor States, he considered it advisable to force from them a declaration of their policy. In a despatch of the 24th March he declared that, on account of the armaments of Austria, Prussia was also at last obliged to take measures for the protection of Silesia; for, although Austria at present spoke in peaceful terms, it was to be feared that these would alter as soon as her preparations for war were completed.
Prussia, he added, could not, however, remain content with measures calculated for her momentary safety alone; she must look into the future, and seek there guarantees for that security which she had in vain anticipated from her alliance with Austria. Prussia, of course, under these circumstances, looked in the first place towards the other German States; but her perception ever became clearer that the Germanic Confederation in its present form did not fulfil its aim, not even did it do so when Austria and Prussia were united, much less would it when these two powers were disunited.
If Prussia now were attacked by Austria, she could not expect the support of the Germanic Confederation: she could only rely upon the goodwill of the single States which had promised her their help without reference to the bonds of the confederation. In this despatch, there
fore, Prussia wished to ask with what feelings she was regarded by individual States; and, that she might prove their sincerity towards her, she would in any case desire a reform of the political and military constitution of the confederation.
This despatch of Count Bismark, which was really only a question to the minor States of how they would act in case of a war between Prussia and Austria, was answered by their respective governments in almost identical terms. With one accord they pointed to the Eleventh Article of the Charter of Constitution of the Germanic Confederation, by which all States members of the confederation bound themselves never to make war against each other, but to bring their differences before the Germanic Diet, which was to be the mediator and arbiter between the disputants. How worthless any such article can be to restrain physical by moral force was never more clearly demonstrated than in the late struggle, when the Germanic Confederation was shivered to pieces in the shock of battle of its contending members.
Prussia now saw it was time to make her preparations for war. Austria had earlier begun to arm, but the more elastic military organisation of Prussia, the constant attention—sprung from the knowledge of her statesmen that, sooner or later, a German war would take place—which had for many years been devoted to her army, more than compensated for the start of a few weeks which Austria had gained.
By decrees of the 27th and 29th of March the first armaments were ordered in the provinces most exposed to attack from Austria. The battalions of the five divisions which garrisoned the provinces contingent with the Austrian and Saxon frontiers were placed on the highest peace footing, but not yet increased to war strength. Five brigades of field artillery were, however, fully completed; and the armament of the fortresses of Glatz, Cosel, Neisze, Torgau, Wittemberg, Spandau, and Magdeburg commenced. Prussia, confident in the rapidity with which her whole army could be mobilised, was able to limit herself to these purely defensive augmentations, which entailed an increase of only about 20,000 men to the army always maintained in time of peace. She deferred till the last necessary moment the raising of the army to war strength, in order as long as possible to leave the men, who must be called into the ranks, to their trades, professions, and labours. Of this increase of the army no secret was made; the decree which ordered it was openly published and commented upon in the daily press.