by H M Hozier
Another the division of General von Manteuffel, which had formerly garrisoned the duchy of Schleswig; it consisted of the 25th, 36th, 11th, and 59th regiments of Infantry, and the 5th and 9th Dragoons,—in all thirteen thousand men, with thirty guns. The command of this division was shortly afterwards given to General von Flies. To the Army of the Maine were also attached two battalions of the duchy of Saxe-Coburg, one of Oldenburg, and one of LippeDetmold, which numbered together about two thousand five hundred combatants. General von Falckenstein had thus under his orders as nearly as possible fifty thousand men, with ninety-six guns. (Later five fourth battalions, a newly-raised rifle battalion, and three newly-raised Landwehr cavalry regiments, as well as the Oldenburg-Hanseatic brigade, consisting of seven battalions, six squadrons, and two batteries, reinforced this army). The battalions of Landwehr and the depôt troops which had fought at Langensalza were not retained with the army, but were dismissed to rejoin the garrisons of those fortresses from which they had been taken.
Opposed to the Prussian Army of the Maine stood, after the capitulation of the Hanoverians, the seventh and eighth corps of the Germanic Confederation. The seventh Federal corps consisted of the army of Bavaria, which was under the command of Prince Charles of Bavaria, who was also commander-in-chief of the two corps. The Bavarian Army was divided into three divisions, each of which consisted of two brigades. A brigade was formed of two regiments of infantry of the Line, each of three battalions; a battalion of light infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and a battery of artillery. There was also a reserve brigade of infantry, which consisted of five line regiments and two battalions of rifles. The reserve cavalry consisted of six regiments, the reserve artillery of two batteries. The first division was under the command of General Stephan, the second under General Feder, the third under General Zoller. The infantry of the reserve was commanded by General Hartmann, the cavalry by a prince of the House of Thurn and Taxis. The whole army numbered over fifty thousand sabres and bayonets, with one hundred and thirty-six guns.
******
Each battalion of the line mustered on paper 950 men; each rifle battalion 668; and each regiment of cavalry 591 horsemen. This would give a total of 58,036 combatants; but from this number several deductions have to be made for sickness and incomplete battalions. The number stated in the text has been carefully compiled from the comparison of many authorities. Theoretically, Bavaria possessed a large force of Landwehr; but as the cadres of the Lanawehr battalions were not maintained in peace, and no arrangements made for their clothing or armament in case of the outbreak of a war, these auxiliary troops never paraded during the earlier operations of the war, except upon paper; and only once during the whole of the campaign, near Bayreuth, did a detachment of these troops take a part in any action.
******
The chief of the staff of Prince Charles was General von der Tann, who was a tried commander of a division.
The Bavarian Army in the middle of June was posted along the northern frontier of its own kingdom in positions intended to cover that country from an invasion from the north or east Its headquarters were at Bamberg, its extreme right wing at Hof, and its extreme left wing near the confluence of the Franconian Saale with the Maine, between Schweinfurt and Gemünden.
The eighth Federal corps, under the command of Prince Alexander of Hesse, consisted of the Federal contingents of Würtemberg, Baden, Hesse, and a combined division; which included the Austrian auxiliary brigade and the troops of Nassau. The whole corps mustered forty-nine thousand eight hundred sabres and bayonets, with one hundred and thirty-four guns. (See table following). Prince Alexander assumed the command of this corps on the 18th June, and established his headquarters at Darmstadt.
The elector of Hesse-Cassel had sent his troops to the south as soon as the Prussians invaded his territory. By a decree of the diet of the 22nd June, they were placed under the orders of the commander of the eighth Federal corps. On account of their rapid retreat from Cassel, their preparations for war were interrupted, and little could as yet be expected from them in the open field. On the 29th June, when Prince Alexander received orders for an advance of his corps, he directed the Hesse-Cassel contingent, on this account, to retire to Mainz, there to cover the Rhine, and the country in the immediate vicinity of that fortress. Two squadrons of hussars alone he retained as the divisional cavalry of his fourth division. These, as well as the troops of Hesse-Darmstadt, were ready for action. The troops of Würtemberg and Baden still wanted time; those of Baden particularly: for their duchy entered only unwillingly into the war against Prussia. Würtemberg had sent an infantry brigade, a regiment of cavalry, and two batteries on the 17th June, to Frankfort These were intended to unite with the troops of Hesse-Darmstadt already assembling there, and to form a guard for the Rump Diet which still held its sittings at that town.
The next Würtemberg brigade joined the corps only on the 28th June, the last brigade on the 5th July. On the 17th June the government called up its furlough and reserve soldiers, and organised its division. The first Baden brigade reached Frankfort on the 25th June, where the Austrian brigade had arrived only a few days before. The rest of the troops and the transport trains did not come in till the 8th July. The 9th July can be considered to have been the first day on which the eighth Federal corps was first ready to take the field. While these minor governments were still assembling their small contingents, the troops of Prussia had long been in possession of Saxony and Hesse, had caused the surrender of the Hanoverian Army, and already inflicted a crushing defeat on the main forces of Austria.
The Bavarian Army lay along the Maine, with its first division towards Hof, its fourth towards Gemünden. The Bavarian Government was anxious to make an advance upon Berlin, by way of Hof; but the general strategical movements of all the allies of Austria were, in virtue of a convention concluded between Austria and Bavaria on the 14th June, directed from Vienna, The directing genius decided against any offensive movement in a north-easterly direction: and insisted strongly on a junction of the Bavarian and eighth Federal corps between Würzburg and Frankfort, in order to then move against the Prussian provinces, on the north-west. The aim of Austria was to compel Prussia to detach strong bodies from her troops engaged with Benedek, and so to weaken her main army. The Bavarian and eighth corps when united were to have the name of the West German Federal Army.
On the 21st June, Prince Charles of Bavaria heard that the Hanoverians had moved from Göttingen. On the 23rd he knew certainly that they had marched to Mühlhausen and Langensalza. On the 25th for the first time he made any movement of importance. On that day the Bavarian army was set in motion towards the north. That evening the advanced guard of the first cavalry brigade entered Meiningen: the main body reached that town in the night between the 26th and 27th. Communications with the Hanoverians had been cut off and Prince Charles, uncertain of their exact position, on the 28th had ordered his columns to move towards Fulda. News reached him, however, of the commencement of the battle of Langensalza, and, changing the direction of his march, he moved towards Gotha.
The same evening a despatch arrived from Vienna which urged a rapid advance of the Bavarians. Forced marches were ordered, and the troops, to raise their enthusiasm, received double pay for the first two days. On the 29th, the first division, followed by the second, reached Hilburghausen; the fourth, followed by the third, pushed past Meiningen. It was only when the advanced guards had reached Zella, in the Thuringian Forest, that they received counter-orders: for Count Ingelheim, the Austrian ambassador at the court of King George, had arrived with the intelligence that the Hanoverians had laid down their arms. Thus the forced marching of two days had been lost, and the Bavarian army had commenced its campaign without result or glory, on account of too tardy an assumption of the initiative.
On the 29th the riflemen and light horsemen who formed the advanced guard of the first division reached Schleusingen; on the 30th the main column entered that place. The forced marches of the 29t
h and 30th had fatigued the troops. The constant succession of orders and counter-orders had wearied them, for they saw that all their exertions were neutralized by altered commands, or by changes in the direction of the line of march. Before the commencement of actual war their confidence in their leaders had waned, for the men saw no grounds for the fatigues laid upon them. The capitulation of the Hanoverians dispirited them, the more so as it was popularly attributed to the vacillation, the cowardice, sometimes indeed to the treachery, of the Bavarian Army. Still the prince hoped to unite with the eighth Federal corps by a flank march to his left, along the roads which lead by Giessen to Hünfeld, and by Hildern to Fulda. The success of this movement was however prevented, as will be afterwards seen, by the sudden appearance of the Prussians.
The eighth Federal corps had, by the 27th June, assembled about 39,000 men, with eighty guns:
Since another Würtemberg brigade, another cavalry regiment, and two more batteries were expected to come in on the following day, it considered itself strong enough to assume the offensive, and the following orders were issued for the 28th June:—
The troops of Hesse-Darmstadt were to form the advanced guard, with two brigades of infantry, two rifled 6-pounder batteries, a regiment of cavalry, and a bridge train. The first and fourth divisions formed the main body: each consisted of two brigades of infantry; the first division had three batteries of artillery and a regiment of cavalry attached to it; the second had two batteries of artillery, a regiment of cavalry, and two squadrons of Hesse-Cassel hussars attached. The reserve consisted of five battalions of the Bavarian brigade of La Roche, six regiments of cavalry, and thirty-four guns, of which sixteen were rifled. The advanced guard on the 29th June took up a position around Friedberg, about eighteen miles north of Frankfort, with its right on the River Nidda.
On the 30th the commander-in-chief broke up his headquarters at Frankfort, and ordered a general advance. He intended to move upon Alsfeld, a town which, on the Schwalen, still in the territory of Hesse-Darmstadt, lies close to the frontier of Hesse-Cassel. Prince Alexander considered himself secure from any attack on his left flank by Prussian detachments from the Rhine provinces because of the troops of Hesse-Cassel in Mainz. The division of Baden on the 1st July occupied Giessen, and paid a short visit to the Prussian town of Wetzlar, and on the 2nd July Prince Alexander held a position from Giessen eastwards to Grünberg, on the road to Alsfeld.
Here he received a despatch from Prince Charles of Bavaria, which had been sent from Meiningen on the evening of the 30th June. This altered the direction of the march of the eighth Federal corps.
It does not appear clear whether Prince Alexander, in his design of an advance to Alsfeld, was acting in compliance with an order from Prince Charles of Bavaria, or whether on his own responsibility he moved forward to cover the territory of Hesse-Cassel from invasion. The direction of the movement shows, however, that he who ordered it, be he who he may, was singularly ill-furnished with intelligence of his enemy’s movements. By making for Alsfeld Prince Alexander not only would have exposed his right flank and his line of communication to the head of Falckenstein’s columns, but would have increased the difficulties of his junction with Prince Charles.
As it was, at the time that Prince Charles sent to change the line of march of the eighth corps, these difficulties were already formidable enough. An interval of between eighty and ninety miles separated the two bodies: and not only did the valley of the Fulda as well as that of the Werra intervene, but rugged hills rose between them, such as the Vogels-Berg and the Hohe Rhön. It did not need such a keen general as Falckenstein to perceive the advantages he would derive if he drove the Prussian Army as a mighty wedge between these separated corps, and hurled himself with full force on the nearest ere the other could arrive to its assistance.
In his own immediate command Prince Charles showed vacillation and uncertainty. He did not strive with all energy to liberate the Hanoverians, and unite them with his own force. Nor when he found himself too late to achieve this object did he take rapid measures for a concentration with the eighth corps. On the contrary, instead of making towards his left, he drew away to his right, apparently with the object of crossing another difficult mountain country, the Thuringian forest, and placing that obstacle also between himself and his allies, while he left the valley of the Werra open to his antagonist as a groove down which to drive the wedge that should separate the Bavarians entirely from Prince Alexander.
On the evening of the 30th June he for the first time appears to have decided upon a concentrative movement. He then issued orders that both corps should seek to unite at Fulda. To accomplish this, the Bavarians were to move in a westerly, the Federals in an easterly, direction. The latter began to move with this object on the 3rd July. Prince Alexander moved with his first and third division that day to Ulrichstein, a small town on the northern issues of the Vogels-Berg. With his second division he occupied Giessen and Wetzlar to secure his line of communication with Frankfort, and sent his fourth division to Friedberg. His cavalry was sent out to scour the country towards Alsfeld and Marburg. He evidently expected his enemy by the railway from Marburg, and took these precautions to cover his flank march. On the 4th July headquarters remained inactive at Ulrichstein, and some patrols alone pushed forward. Here again was a lack of energy and clear-sightedness. Portions of any army which are separated, and desire to concentrate in the presence of an enemy, should exert all their powers to do so, and not waste a single hour, far less halt on the second day of the march.
How false these news were became soon apparent. On the 4th July news came to the headquarters of Prince Alexander, that strong Prussian columns were moving on Fulda from Hünfeld and Gerza, towns which lie between the Werra and the Fulda. An advance of the eighth corps prepared for battle, and with all precautions, was ordered for the next day. During this, however, the Prussian and Bavarian troops had come into contact.
General Falckenstein had, after the capitulation of the Hanoverians on the 29th of June, concentrated on the 1st July his three divisions at Eisenach. To this united corps was given the name of the Army of the Maine. On the 2nd July, Falckenstein took the main road which leads from Eisenach by Fulda to Frankfort, and reached Marksahl that day. His intention was to press the Bavarians eastwards. These occupied a position at that time with their main body near Meiningen, on the west of the Werra. Two divisions were posted on that river, near Schmalkalden, to cover the passage of that stream against a Prussian corps which was expected from Erfurt. The cavalry was intended to open communications with the eighth corps in the direction of Fulda.
On the night of the 2nd July, the same night that the troops of Prince Frederick Charles in Bohemia were moving towards the field of Königgrätz, a Bavarian reconnoitring party fell in with one of Falckenstein’s patrols. On the 3rd July the Prussian reconnoitring officers brought in reports that the Bavarians were in force round Wiesenthal, on the River Felde. It was clear to Falckenstein that this position was held by the heads of the Bavarian columns which were moving to unite with the eighth corps. The Prussian general could not afford to permit the enemy to lie in a position so close and threatening to the left flank of his advance. He ordered General Goeben to push them back on the following morning, by forming to his left, and attacking the villages on the Felde in front, while General Manteuffel’s division should move up the stream, and assail them on the right flank. The third division, that of General Beyer, was in the meantime to push its march towards Fulda.
ACTION OF WIESENTHAL
The Bavarian general, on the 3rd of July, having obtained information of the vicinity of the Prussians, concentrated his army. That evening he occupied the villages of Wiesenthal, Neidhartshausen, Zella, and Diedorf, with considerable strength. His main body bivouacked round Rossdorf, and in rear of that village.
At five o’clock in the morning of the 4th July, General Goeben sent Wrangel’s brigade against Wiesenthal, and Kummer’s against Neidhartshausen. The
latter village, as well as the neighbouring heights, were found strongly occupied by the enemy. They were carried only after a long and hard battle, the scene of which was marked by numbers of Prussians killed and wounded. Towards noon the Bavarian detachments which had been driven from Neidhartshausen and Zella received reinforcements. Prince Charles determined to hold Diedorf. He ordered a brigade to advance beyond this village, and take up a position on the hills on the further side. The Prussians opened a heavy fire of artillery and small arms from Zella upon the advancing Bavarians. Under this fire the latter could not gain ground, and no change in the positions of the combatants took place at this point, until the termination of the action.
In the meantime a severe combat had been fought at Wiesenthal. At the same time that General Kummer left Dermbach, he detached two battalions to his left, which were to occupy the defile of Lindenau, while Wrangel’s brigade advanced against Wiesenthal. Wrangel’s advanced guard consisted of a squadron of cavalry and a battalion of infantry, which moved along the road in column of companies. Hardly had it reached the high ground in front of the village, when it was sharply assailed by a well-directed fire of bullets and shot. The heavy rain prevented the men from seeing clearly what was in their front, but they pressed on, and the enemy was pushed back into the barricaded village, and up the hills on its southern side. Before the Prussian advanced guard reached Wiesenthal the rain cleared up. The Bavarians could be seen hurrying to evacuate the place, and taking up a position with four battalions, a battery, and several squadrons at the foot of the Nebelsberg.