The Seven Weeks' War

by H M Hozier

  The Austrian and Saxon troops engaged amounted to about two hundred thousand men, with six hundred guns. (This estimate of the Austrian force is based on an able letter written from Olmütz after the battle by the special correspondent of the Times, in which that writer states that Benedek had then collected one hundred and sixty thousand of the defeated army at Olmütz. This with the Austrian loss would give the above figure).

  The Prussian Army in the field mustered in round numbers two hundred and sixty thousand combatants, with eight hundred and sixteen guns, but of them the fifth corps, one brigade of the sixth corps, and all but the advanced guard of the first corps, in all about sixty thousand men, never fired a shot. Thus the number of casualties were about one thirteenth of the number of men actually engaged.

  ******

  The following list of the proportion of casualties to combatants, in some of the most famous battles of the last two centuries, is extracted from a careful essay written for the professional papers of the Royal Engineers by Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke, R. E.

  ******

  The highest proportionate loss of the Prussian Army fell upon Franzecky’s division, which lost two thousand out of a little over fourteen thousand men. The greatest loss on the Austrian side was incurred by the troops who attempted to retake Chlum, and by those who had to retire out of the Lipa and Sadowa woods after the crown prince had developed his attack. The artillery on both sides appeared to fail in causing such numerous casualties as might have been anticipated from so large a number of rifled guns. Nor did the infantry fire tell except at close quarters. Whether this was due to the inferior shooting power of the needle-gun or to the practical disadvantage of aiming under fire seems to be uncertain.

  The number of cartridges fired by the Prussian Army in the battle barely exceeded one per man on the ground. Hardly any soldier fired so many as ninety, and few more than sixty. (At the Battle of Borodino, one of the most sanguinary contests on record, the French are said to have fired 1,400,000 cartridges, which would be at the rate of about 10 per man). The average number of rounds fired by the artillery of Prince Frederick Charles’s army, was forty-two per gun, and no gun of that army fired more than eighty rounds. In the artillery of the Guard, the thirteen batteries engaged fired one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven rounds, being an average of twenty-three per gun; one battery fired eighty-one rounds per gun.

  On the evening of the battle, an officer of the Ziethen hussars, who were forward in the pursuit, rode as far as the gates of Königgrätz, and, finding there were no sentries outside, rode in; the guard, immediately on seeing him in his Prussian uniform, turned out and seized him, when, with a ready presence, he declared he had come to demand the capitulation of the fortress. He was conducted to the commandant, and made the same demand to him, adding that the town would be bombarded if not surrendered within an hour; the commandant, unconscious that he was not dealing with a legitimate messenger, courteously refused to capitulate; but the hussar was conducted out of the town, passed through the guard at the entrance, and got off safely without being made a prisoner.

  That night the Prussian Army bivouacked on the field, where the main body remained the next day in order to allow the troops time to rest after their great fatigues.

  The appearance of the field of battle the next morning showed the severity of the fight. The wounded had all been removed, but few of the dead had been buried, for the number of wounded was so great that every man who could be spared from duty was required to look after them. All night long the krankenträger had been at work, and had been assisted by a large number of soldiers. Every village near the field of battle had all its standing houses converted into hospitals, and all the surgeons in the army had been busy all night long. In the woods and in the broken ground the bodies of Austrians and Prussians were tolerably equal in number, generally lying in groups of four or five of either nation together, marking the spot where a shell had burst; but in the open ground and down the reverse side of the Chlum hill the Austrians lay terribly thick, and hardly a Prussian uniform was to be seen.

  Wherever the Austrians fought unprotected by cover, and wherever the Prussian riflemen, armed with needle-guns, could see their enemies, the disproportion of the dead became immediately apparent The corn was trodden down all over the field as flat as if it was straw laid on a stable floor, and the ground was ploughed up and dug into holes with shells.

  On the top of the hill of Chlum, and near the village, stood a large number of the captured guns, with all their waggons and carriages beside them, and on the slope away from Sadowa the rest were placed under the charge of the corps of the Guard. Everywhere about the field, fatigue parties were digging large trenches in which the Austrian and Prussian killed were laid side by side, clothed in their uniforms. No other tombstone was put to mark each grave than a plain wooden cross, on which was written the number of each regiment that lay below. The officers were placed in single graves near the men. But here and there a few were seen silently carrying some comrade to a more retired spot.

  On one part of the field a Prussian general with his staff was burying his son, who had fallen in the attack on the Austrian right. Close by, the wife of a private soldier who had found her husband’s body on the field had had it buried by some soldiers, had hung some oak branches on the little wooden cross at the head, and was sitting on the freshly-turned earth, sobbing her heart out, with his shattered helmet in her lap. She had followed his regiment, in order to be near him, from the beginning of the campaign, through all the long marches the army had made.

  The less severely wounded were moved to Höritz, from which, on the approach of the Prussians, the inhabitants had nearly all fled. The vacated houses were converted into hospitals, and at nearly every window and every door men were hanging about listlessly, with heads or arms bound up, with a half stupefied look, as if they had not yet recovered from the stunning effects of the blow which had disabled them. Many were Austrians, and prisoners of war; but the greatest liberty seemed to be accorded to them, for they were allowed to wander about the streets, and to mix freely with the Prussian soldiers.

  Long columns of unwounded prisoners were being marched continually through the town on their way to the rear. The Austrians looked dejected and unhappy, yet marched stolidly and silently along; but the prisoners from the Italian regiments laughed and talked cheerily, and on them their imprisonment sat lightly.

  Here and there an Austrian officer, prisoner on parole, strolled moodily about, stopping every now and then to return the courteous salutations of the Prussian officers who passed by. To ease the anxiety of their friends at home, they wrote letters to announce that they were not killed, but taken, and these were sent with a flag of truce to the Austrian lines. The greatest courtesy and kindness were shown by the Prussian officers to their unfortunate prisoners, and every attempt was made to make them feel their position as little as possible. Several Austrian officers wounded mortally on the field requested Prussian officers to send their last message to their families, requests which it is needless to say were readily complied with.

  Field-Marshal Gablenz came to Höritz the day after the battle from the Austrian headquarters, to ask for an armistice as a preliminary to peace. It was impossible that Prussia could grant an armistice at this moment, when the Austrian Army was still in the field, and any pause in the operations of the campaign would be used to collect troops from the Italian frontier and from the distant provinces of the empire in order to oppose the Prussian armies. Nor could peace be concluded by Prussia without the concurrence of Italy, for a treaty existed between the Cabinets of Berlin and Florence, by which neither could make peace without the sanction of the other.

  The field-marshal accordingly returned to his own lines without obtaining any result from his mission.

  The actual junction of the two armies of the crown prince and of Prince Frederick Charles was effected on the battlefield of Königgrätz, and the Austrians had now lost the chance they ha
d of falling upon each army separately.

  As the consequence of the defeat of Königgrätz, Austria on the 4th July ceded Venetia to the Emperor of the French, who was nominally to hold the province, although it was virtually then, and practically in the following October, given to the kingdom of Italy.

  OBSERVATIONS ON THE BATTLE OF KÖNIGGRÄTZ

  The details of a great battle are, as a general rule, less perfectly known the more closely the time at which they are criticised approaches to the date of the action. While the men are still living on whom disclosures would draw an inconvenient censure, the government of a country which has suffered a great reverse in war is naturally unwilling to gratify the curiosity of the world by the publication of information which can only be certainly found in its own official archives. Without such information it is impossible to make any observations on the causes or conduct of incidents in war with an assured certainty. It is necessary to attempt to lift the veil which shrouds such events during the lifetimes of the principal actors with only a hesitating and a faltering touch, and to acknowledge that any conclusions based upon a crude knowledge of facts are enunciated with diffidence. If correct they are fortuitous, if incorrect their fallacies will be exposed by future information.

  The position taken up by Feldzeugmeister Benedek in front of Königgrätz has been severely criticised It does not, however, appear that the river in his rear was any disadvantage to him, although his army was defeated, and had its flank turned by a strong force. The Austrian commander took the precaution to throw bridges over the river. With plenty of bridges a river in rear of a position became an advantage. After the retreating army had withdrawn across the stream, the bridges were broken, and the river became an obstacle to the pursuit. Special as well as general conditions also came into play. The pursuing Prussians could not approach with impunity the heads of the Austrian bridges.

  The heavy guns of the fortress scoured the banks of the river both up and down stream, and, with superior weight of metal and length of range, were able to cover the passage of the Austrians. The position was otherwise acknowledged on all sides to be a good one, carefully chosen; and though the villages were not completely barricaded and loopholed, this omission was probably due to the extreme rapidity of the movements of Prince Frederick Charles. A great disadvantage was the fact that the presence of two opponent armies acting from divergent bases against the Austrian position caused, as all such conditions always must cause, Feldzeugmeister Benedek to fight with his army drawn along two sides of an angle. One side was from Prim to Maslowed, the other from Maslowed to Lochenitz. By such a formation a defeat or even a repulse of either wing must necessarily allow the successful enemy to penetrate into the rear of the other. Or a success and advance of one or both wings must leave a gap at the salient angle.

  Two questions have attracted more notice with reference to the battle than others. These are, first—Why did Benedek allow the crown prince to come down so heavily upon his right flank? and secondly, How did the first division of the Prussian Guard manage to get into Chlum unobserved? The answer to the first question appears to be that the Austrian general was deceived as to the position of the crown prince. (This theory is entirely based on hypothesis, and must be accepted only for what it is worth).

  On the 30th June he knew that the crown prince was on the Elbe, because from the heights above Königinhof the Prussians were that day cannonaded by an Austrian battery. Between the 30th and the 2nd, the crown prince pushed troops across the river at Arnau and Königinhof, and directed the heads of their columns towards Miletin. On the afternoon of the 2nd, two of Prince Frederick Charles’s divisions occupied Miletin. Late on the night of the 2nd, one of these divisions of Prince Frederick Charles’s army was ordered to move to Milowitz, while the other moved to Cerekwitz. It seems probable that these movements were reported to Benedek by his spies, but erroneously.

  It would appear that he was told that the main body of the crown prince’s army had joined Frederick Charles at Miletin, and that the mass of the united armies on the night of the 2nd was moving towards its own right to make a concentrated attack against Benedek’s left near Nechanitz, with the object of driving in his left, and of cutting him off from Pardubitz and the railway to Vienna. The spies would not fail to notice that some of the crown prince’s troops were still at Königinhof, and near Gradlitz. Their presence there would be accounted for by the supposition that they were left to watch Josephstadt, to hold the line of the Elbe, and prevent a raid against the crown prince’s line of communication with Silesia until he had changed that line for the one by which Frederick Charles communicated with Saxony.

  This ideal cause of the Austrian conduct on the 3rd July appears to be borne out by the following general order which, as it is said, Benedek issued late on the night of the 2nd: so late that it only reached his second corps on the Trottina at four o’clock on the morning of the day of the battle. This order would seem to have been dictated when the feldzeugmeister heard that the Prussians were moving to their own right from Miletin. It was as follows:—

  The Saxon corps will occupy the heights of Popowitz and Tresowitz, the left wing slightly refused and covered by its own cavalry. To the left of this corps and somewhat to the rear, the first light cavalry division will take post, on the extreme left flank of Problus and Prim. On the right of the Saxons the tenth corps will take its position; on the right of the tenth the third will occupy the heights of Chlum and Lipa. The eighth corps will serve as immediate support to the Saxons. The troops not named above are only to hold themselves in readiness while the attack is confined to the left wing. Should the hostile attack assume greater dimensions, the whole army will be formed in order of battle.

  The fourth corps will then move up on the right of the third to the heights between Chlum and Nedelitz; and on the extreme right flank next to the fourth the second will take post.

  The second light cavalry division will take post in rear of Nedelitz, and there remain in readiness. The sixth corps will take post on the heights near Wsetar; the first near Rosnitz. Both these corps will be in concentrated formation. The first and third cavalry divisions will take post at Sweti. In the event of a general attack the first and sixth corps, the five cavalry divisions, and the reserve artillery of the army, which will be posted in rear of the first and sixth corps, are to serve as the reserve of the army.

  The retreat, if necessary, will be made by the high road to Hohenmauth, without disturbing the fortress of Königgrätz.

  The second and fourth corps must at once cause pontoon bridges to be thrown across the Elbe. The second corps will throw two between Lochenitz and Predmeritz. The first corps will also throw a bridge.

  As a digression it may be noticed in passing that these bridges mentioned in this order were ready by mid-day. The organisation of the Austrian Army cannot have been so very bad as some are now fain to suppose.

  By the general tenor of this order, it appears that the feldzeugmeister fully expected to be attacked on his left, for much the same reason as Wellington at Waterloo fully expected to be assailed on his right. The part of the order which relates to the fourth and second corps shows that he contemplated the possibility of an attack on his right; but not from a very large force. Probably the reports of the spies induced him to believe that the first corps and the Guards at least of the army of the crown prince had joined Prince Frederick Charles, and that only two corps, or sixty thousand men, were at the most on the Elbe. He knew that the two main bodies of these latter two corps must defile over the river, and march fifteen miles over very bad roads and an extremely difficult country, before they could feel his right In the meantime he might have disposed of the adversaries in his front The conduct of the Austrian general during the action seems also to confirm this. Had he known that at ten o’clock Prince Frederick Charles sent only four divisions across the Bistritz, he would hardly have failed to bear down upon them with greatly superior numbers, and crush them at once, before the arrival
of their assistants.

  From the time of the attack on Benatek until the arrival of the crown prince, Franzecky was exposed across the Bistritz, separated by a wide interval from Horne’s division in the Sadowa wood The country favourable for the action of cavalry. Franzecky had with him only one regiment of hussars. The Prussian reserve cavalry could not have crossed the stream, on account of its marshy banks, to his assistance. Twenty thousand Austrian horsemen were at Benedek’s command. He held them inactive. Yet the hero of San Martino was not the man to miss to strike a blow if he thought he could do so with safety. He must have imagined Franzecky much stronger than he really was. Probably the Austrian staff imagined that the crown prince’s corps, which here joined Frederick Charles, were the assailants of Benatek.

  If there is any ground for the above supposition, how much must the conclusion reflect upon the Austrian system of reconnaissances and patrols. From the high bank above Königinhof, a staff officer lying hidden in the fir-wood could, almost with the naked eye, have counted every Prussian gun, every Prussian soldier that the crown prince moved towards Miletin. The eyes of the Austrian Army on more than one occasion during the campaign failed. Their patrol system was very much inferior to that of the Prussians. Its inferiority seems to have been due to the want of military education among the officers to whom patrols were entrusted.

  In the Prussian Army special officers of high intelligence were always chosen to reconnoitre. Properly so, for the task is no easy one. An eye unskilled, or a mind untutored, can see little, where a tried observer detects important movements. A line of country, or a few led horses, will tell the officer who is accustomed to such duty more than heavy columns or trains of artillery will disclose to the unthinking novice. The Prussian system never failed, never allowed a surprise. The Austrians were repeatedly surprised, and taken unprepared. Yet the outpost system of the latter during the Italian war of 1859 merited the praise of the Emperor of the French, and was by him pointed out to his own army as a model of superiority. (General Order of the emperor after the Battle of Solferino.) The military development of Prussia had not yet been fully appreciated.