by H M Hozier
On the 31st March, Count Mensdorf, the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs, announced to the Cabinet of Berlin that all movements of troops in Bohemia had really taken place only in consequence of the riots against the Jews, and that the Emperor Francis Joseph had never contemplated an attack on Prussia.
On the 6th April Prussia announced in answer that she had not been the first to arm, and that now she only had taken defensive measures. The Austrian Government replied on the following day that no overwhelming concentration of troops had taken place in Bohemia, in fact nothing to approach what the Austrian organisation could place in the field if a great war were in prospect; that no extraordinary purchase of horses had been made, and that the number of men who had been on furlough recalled to the ranks was not worthy of mention; that any discussion as to priority of armament was rendered superfluous by the declaration of the emperor, that he had never contemplated an attack on Prussia; that the Cabinet of Vienna desired only a similar declaration on the part of King William; and that, since no preparation for war had been made in Austria, it was only necessary that Prussia should repeal the armaments which had been decreed at the end of March.
On the 15th April, Count Bismark sent a note to Vienna, in which, without argument, he assumed that Austria had armed, and had commenced to arm before Prussia, and expressed his opinion that Austria should be the first to commence to disarm.
On the 18th Count Mensdorf replied, and promised that Austria would move the troops quartered in Bohemia from those positions in which Prussia had considered that they were intended for an attack upon Silesia.
Count Bismark, on the 21st April, remarked in reply that, on authentic news being received of the disarming of Austria, Prussia would follow step by step in the same course. Scarcely, however, had Austria named the 25th of April as the termination of all military proceedings which might be supposed to be intended against Prussia, than the promise of disarmament was stultified by the announcement that, although Austria would disarm in Bohemia, she was compelled to take decisive measures for the defence of Venetia against Italy.
Prussian partisans argue that the armament of Venetia was an equal threat against Prussia as the armament of Bohemia, but this was not necessarily the case. Six hundred thousand Austrian soldiers south of the Danube would require as long a time to be moved to Saxony as would suffice to mobilise the whole Prussian Army. But Prussia was allied with Italy, and although she chose to fancy that Austrian troops in the Tyrol might be intended to act upon the Elbe, in reality she saw in them the means given to Austria to crush an army allied to Prussia, after the defeat of which Austria might turn her undistracted forces against her German enemies.
There is no doubt that Italy had already armed, and was fully prepared to take advantage of the opportunity of a war between Prussia and Austria to attack Venetia. The open threat that Venetia would be assailed at the first favourable moment would alone have been ground sufficient for Austria to declare war against Italy, and to sweep away an army which was avowedly maintained only to strike her in the hour of trouble. On the 22nd April the soldiers of reserve and men on furlough were called up for the regiments in Venetia, and measures were taken to prepare for the field an army to act against the Italians.
These steps called forth a despatch from Count Bismark, in which Prussia took her new ally under her protectorate, and demanded that Austria should not only disarm in Bohemia and Moravia, but also in Venetia. To this Austria did not consent, and Prussia made an advance in her armaments. This was accelerated by the discovery that some of the minor States were secretly treating at Bamberg, which aroused the suspicion that a coalition was being formed against Prussia. On the 24th April, the infantry of five Prussian corps d’armée, as well as the whole of the cavalry and artillery, were increased to war strength, but as yet were not mobilised. (The term mobilisation is applied to the administrative acts which supply a collection of soldiers with the transport, commissariat, &c., which render them fit to be moved into and act in the field).
On the 26th April, Austria again reverted to the Schleswig-Holstein question, and proposed to submit the definitive decision of this question to the Germanic Confederation, and to hand over the duchies to the Prince of Augustenburg. Both these propositions were declined by Prussia on the 7th May, when Count Bismark remarked that the competency of the Confederation to decide in these international questions could not be recognised, and that the whole question could be most simply and easily settled by coming to an understanding with Austria, for the reform of the Constitution of the Confederation by the speedy assembly of a German Parliament, as had already been proposed by Prussia on the 9th April. (See beginning chapter 4).
Matters were daily approaching a crisis, and Prussia was determined to be ready for the conflict which would probably soon break out The King of Prussia, on the 4th May, had already ordered the five corps d’armée, which had been augmented to war strength, to be mobilised; and ordered the soldiers of reserve of the other four corps d’armée to be called in, (see Military Organisation, Book 3, chapter 1), so as to place these also upon a war strength. On the 7th May, these four corps also received orders to be mobilised; so that now the whole of the war army, as provided for by the regulations of the Prussian service, were called under arms. The mobilisation was effected with wonderful rapidity and precision. At the end of fourteen days, the 490,000 men who formed the strength of this army stood on parade, armed, clothed, equipped with all necessities for a campaign, and fully provided with the necessary transport trains, provision and ammunition columns, as well as field hospitals. The rapidity with which these trains were provided might almost be accepted as proof that, for several years, Prussia had foreseen that her policy would not, for any great length of time, conduct her along the paths of peace.
On the 19th May, the concentration of the Prussian Army might have commenced, and actually by the end of May the troops had taken up their positions in the frontier provinces, a triumph for the Prussian machinery of mobilisation. The rapidity with which this army was called together, equipped, and transported to its positions on the frontier cannot be too highly admired, especially when it is considered that more than 250,000 of the soldiers had been suddenly called in from the reserve and Landwehr. Prussian authors, with complacency, point to the army collected upon the frontier at the very beginning of June, and indignantly demand how Europe can suppose that Prussia incited the war, when, if she wished to make an attack upon Austria, she could have done so at this moment with such a great advantage. For, although the Austrian armaments had been commenced ten weeks earlier than the Prussians, they were still in a very backward state, and the Austrian army was still far from ready to open the campaign.
But was Prussia really so moderate as her advocates would have the world believe? Was it desire of peace or fear of failure which stayed her hand, and held her marshalled corps on the north of the mountain frontier of Bohemia? It may have been both, but the results of the war show that the latter entered into the calculations of those who planned the Prussian strategy. The army was ready, and might have attacked Austria, but it would in its advance have exposed its communications to the assault of the minor States, and, until forces were prepared to quell these, the main army could not assume the offensive. This appears to have been the probable cause why the troops were not at once concentrated, and pushed immediately into Bohemia.
As it was, at the very beginning the Prussian Army confined itself to taking up defensive positions to cover the provinces most exposed to attack, especially towards Bohemia. The Austrian Army of the North had commenced its concentration in Bohemia on the 13th May, and Feldzeugmeister (General of Artillery), Benedek had there taken over the command-in-chief of it on the 18th. The 1st, 5th, and 6th Prussian corps d’armée, (See Book 3, chapter 1), were posted in Silesia, the 2nd and 3rd corps in Lusatia, and the 4th corps round Erfurt. The Guards corps was still left at Berlin, and the 7th and 8th corps were retained in Westphalia and the Rhine provin
ces respectively.
Several of the minor States—such as Bavaria, Hesse Darmstadt, and Nassau—had also ordered their armies, and their contingents of Federal troops, to be mobilised during the month of May; others—as Saxony, Electoral Hesse, Würtemburg, and Hanover—had commenced the augmentation of the military peace establishments by the recall of men on furlough, or soldiers of the reserve.
Italy had early in the year commenced preparations for an attack against Venetia as soon as war might break out between Austria and Prussia. At the beginning of May the Italian armaments assumed a more definite form; and, in order to enlist more closely national feeling in the probable struggle, on the 8th of that month a decree was published at Florence for the formation of twenty volunteer battalions, to be placed under the immediate command of General Garibaldi All party contests, all political animosities, in Italy were silenced. The whole nation drew together for a common assault upon its traditional enemy when he should be encumbered by the heavy pressure of Prussia upon his northern frontier. The crowds of volunteers that flocked to Garibaldi’s standard were so great that, at the end of May, the number of battalions had to be doubled. On this Austria raised a compulsory loan in Venetia of twelve million gulden, which so embittered and excited Italian feeling that it seemed doubtful whether King Victor Emanuel would be able to keep his people in hand, or prevent excitable individuals from precipitating a contest for which the moment had not yet arrived.
Thus the nations were making ready for war, each, with its hand on its sword, moving heavy masses of troops to convenient positions near the frontiers of its probable antagonist. Before detailing the positions these masses assumed, or attempting to show how they were guided into the shock of battle, it is necessary to cast a glance over the diplomatic sparring which preceded the military conflict.
CHAPTER 4: Prussia’s Motion for Reform of Germanic Confederation
As was referred to in a previous chapter, Prussia brought forward, on the 9th April, in the Germanic Diet a motion for the reform of the confederation. The essence of this motion consisted in a desire that a German Parliament should be assembled by means of universal and direct suffrage, in order to introduce that unity into the central power which naturally must be wanting to the diet,—an assembly of delegates of the various States, who acted in accordance with the instructions of their cabinets. Prussia desired that the day for the assembly of this parliament should be at once fixed; and declared that when this point was settled she would bring forward special motions. She wished also to employ the time which must intervene before the assembly of this parliament in taking measures to secure the accord of the other governments to the measures which she would bring forward.
The Prussian motion was not very agreeable to the other governments; but it would not have been prudent to reject it altogether. The constitution of the Administrative Assembly of the Germanic Confederation was notoriously and avowedly imperfect, and few men in Germany, either among sovereigns or subjects, would not have rejoiced in its reform and reorganisation. But very few Germans desired that the ideas of this reform, and the projects for its completion, should emanate from Prussia, and still less from Count Bismark.
The diet, on the 21st April, decided that the motion should be referred to a specially-chosen committee. And on the 26th this committee was elected.
The object of many of the German Governments was now to put off indefinitely the calling together of the parliament Count Bismark, in a despatch of the 27th, recognised that this was the aim of many, and expressed his opinion that the step the diet had already taken in referring the motion to a committee could hardly have any other result than to postpone a solution of the question until the Greek Kalends. He said that at this time growing animosities required the completion of the work of reform; and that on this work depended the maintenance of peace, and the dissolution of the uneasiness which at present penetrated all minds.
On the 11th May the President of the Prussian Cabinet communicated confidentially to the committee of the diet the ground-plan of the changes which he considered ought to be made in the constitution of the confederation. These were: the completion of the central power by means of a German Parliament, extension of the legislative competency of the new central power, removal of all restrictions on trade and commerce of every sort which then separated the Germanic States from one another, the organisation of a common system for the guardianship of German trade abroad, the foundation of a German navy, an improved establishment of the German land-forces, so that their general efficiency might be improved, while the expenses of individual States might be diminished.
These proposals were, doubtless, good and worthy of regard; but there were too many interests which would be affected by their adoption to allow such measures to be immediately accepted by the diet Long time would have been required to pass a motion entailing such great alterations through the diet; and the demand of Count Bismark for a speedy reform of the constitution of the confederation, far from removing, aggravated the chances of war. While the steps for the reform of the Federal Constitution dragged slowly along, the preparations for war were rapidly developed, and, a few days after the despatch of Count Bismark’s confidential communication to the committee of the diet, the decree was issued for the mobilisation of the whole Prussian Army. (Rüstow, Der Krieg von 1866 in Deutschland).
CHAPTER 5: Breach of Convention of Gastein
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we venture to deceive.
It was after Prussia proposed a reform of the Federal Constitution that Austria reopened the Schleswig-Holstein question, after a long silence had been maintained on that subject between the two great powers. (See chapter 2).
On the 26th April, Count Mensdorf sent a despatch to Count Karolyi, the Austrian ambassador at Berlin, the contents of which were to be communicated to Count Bismark, which earnestly pressed Prussia again to turn her attention to the matter of the Elbe duchies. This despatch was naturally not agreeable to the Prussian Government, for in it Austria assumed that Schleswig-Holstein should be given over to the Prince of Augustenburg, which solution of the question would have been the most unfavourable of all to the interests and intentions of Prussia. In a letter of the 1st May, Count Bismark expressed anew his views on the question to Baron Werther, the Prussian ambassador at Vienna, and endorsed the contents of this letter by a note of the 7th May, in which he expressed the strong desire of Prussia to hold fast to the Treaty of Vienna and the Convention of Gastein, by which the introduction of any third party, as for instance of the Germanic Confederation, into the government of Schleswig-Holstein was prohibited.
Count Bismark further declared that Prussia had no intention to renounce the rights she had acquired over Schleswig-Holstein to a third party without consideration for her own interests, or for those of Germany in general: but that she was always ready to treat with Austria as to the conditions on which she would renounce the question of the rights to the duchies of the Elbe which she had acquired by the Treaty of Vienna. In conclusion, the Prussian minister added the wish that Austria might act in harmony with Prussia in the question of the reform of the Federal Constitution.
For the first time in the diplomatic proceedings Prussia had now openly repudiated the idea that her hold upon Schleswig was temporary or provisional She now insisted upon the right of conquest to that duchy, as sealed by the Peace of Vienna of October, 1864.
To this despatch Austria returned no answer. The din of armaments on all sides rose every day more loudly. All Germany, Austria, and Italy were hunting on their harness, and rapidly becoming great camps; and men foresaw that almost any attempt to secure peace would probably only precipitate a conflict.
Austria had, on the 4th May, entirely broken off negotiations with Prussia on the subject of disarmament, (See chapter 4), Count Mensdorf had declared that it was superfluous to argue the question of priority of argument; that it was impossible for Austria to disarm in Venetia, on account of the agit
ation in Italy; and that Austria, by preparing to resist an attack on her south-eastern frontier, was protecting not only her own individual interests, but those of all Germany, and that no German State should look askance at preparations made in such a cause.
The government of Saxony was much disturbed by the Prussian interrogation as to why that country was arming, and the concomitant demand that these armaments should cease. Fearful of an attack. Saxony, on the 5th May, proposed a motion in the Frankfort Diet, the object of which was that the diet should promptly decree, with reference to the proceedings of the Prussian Government, that the internal peace of the confederation was to be preserved.
On the introduction of this motion, the Prussian representative declared that Prussia had no intention to attack Saxony, and that all the armament which had taken place in his country had only been prompted by purely defensive considerations.
Nevertheless, on the 9th May, the diet passed the Saxon motion by a majority of ten over five votes.
The middle States, at the head of which stood Bavaria, under this threatening aspect of affairs, earnestly desired to effect a compromise. They felt that, since Prussia had not been the only State to arm, it would be unfair if she only were required to declare the object of her armament They therefore proposed a motion in the diet to the effect that all governments which had armed should be required to state their reasons for having done so. This motion was passed on the 24th May, and on the 1st June the statements were to have been received. The 1st June was an important landmark in the development of the diplomatic crisis; but, before reviewing its incidents, it is necessary to glance at external influences which were exerted in the vain, and perhaps only apparent, endeavour to preserve peace in Germany.