by H M Hozier
The Oldenburg artillery joined to Kummer’s two batteries, fired heavily upon their slowly retreating columns. The allied batteries, halting at every favourable spot, came into action, and it was not till nightfall that the cannonade ceased. By that time the Prussians had occupied and passed beyond Gerscheim. On the same day, Beyer advanced against the Bavarians, who were in position near Helmstadt, by way of Bottingheim and Neubrunn. In front of Bottingheim he fell in with some cavalry patrols. At Neubrunn some infantry made its appearance. This was the advanced guard of the Bavarian main body, which was about to advance against Werbach. This infantry Beyer attacked sharply, and drove back towards Helmstadt. In rear of Neubrunn the retiring Bavarians were reinforced, and halted in a swelling plateau, much dotted over with plantations. The battle now began in earnest.
The Prussian advanced guard moving towards Mädelhofen found an unoccupied plantation on the Bavarian left. Pivoted on this it wheeled up to its left, and moved against Helmstadt At the same time Beyer’s main body moved straight upon that village. The Bavarians could not maintain themselves in that place, but their artillery, which drew off towards Utingen, took up a position beyond Helmstadt, from which their guns rained a hot fire of shells upon the heads of the Prussian columns. The Prussian artillery, covered by numerous skirmishers in the plantations, engaged the Bavarian guns. About three hours after the beginning of the fight the enemy’s artillery drew off to Utingen, and so left the road to Mädelhofen, the most direct route to Würzburg open to Beyer’s left wing. The Prussian division then made a concentrated attack against a wood near Mädelhofen, under cover of which heavy masses of Bavarian infantry were preparing for an attack towards Neubrunn.
At the same time, Beyer’s two regiments of cavalry dashed against the Bavarian horse, which in front of the wood were covering the formation. A severe hand to hand combat took place. The Bavarian horsemen were finally, however, overcome, and forced to quit the field. While the cavalry were engaged, some of the Prussian infantry pushed the Bavarian battalions back to Waldbrunn. The whole of Beyer’s division then moved against the plantations near Mädelhofen and Waldbrunn, but the enemy drew off so quickly that Beyer concluded the action had terminated, and ordered his troops to bivouac.
It was not so, however. Hardly had the Prussian regiments taken up their positions for the night, than an attack opened upon their left rear in the direction of Helmstadt. A part of the Bavarian Army had, unperceived, advanced in this direction from Utingen, and now opened a second action with a heavy cannonade. Beyer quickly changed his front left back, forming a reserve of the two regiments which had previously been upon his right. His artillery, as soon as it had taken up its new position, opened fire against the line of Bavarian guns, which was continually pushing more and more in the direction of Neubrunn, in order to outflank the Prussian position. This fire, however, did little towards silencing the Bavarian batteries.
The Prussian reserve, which had a long distance to travel, was far from the left wing. Every moment the attack of the enemy’s infantry might be expected. Matters seemed very critical. But the Bavarians did not attack. After a time his reserve reached Beyer’s left. He then ordered a general advance, which was successful. Prince Charles of Bavaria was forced back to Roszbrünn, where he halted. General Beyer bivouacked near Helmstadt Goeben’s division halted for the night on the road between Gerscheim and Würzburg, with its outposts at Kist. When Prince Charles’s attack against Beyer, near Helmstadt, was developed, General Flies moved forward from Wertheim to support Beyer. He did not arrive on the field before the termination of the battle, but he took a position for the night at Utingen, and patrolled towards Roszbrünn.
This action cost the Prussians about three hundred and fifty officers and men, who were placed hors de combat. The Bavarians lost seventeen officers and two hundred and thirty-nine men killed and wounded, besides three hundred and sixty-three prisoners, who for the most part were wounded.
Prince Alexander, on the evening of the 25th, withdrew his corps to Würzburg, and took up a position under shelter of the fortress. Prince Charles appears to have received no information of this retreat, for on the morning of the 26th, he not only held his position at Roszbrünn, where his rear and his communication with Würzburg were already threatened by Goeben, but he also advanced against Utingen to attack Flies. He must in so doing have believed that the eighth Federal corps still covered his left, and held the road from Tauberbischofsheim to Würzburg. As soon as the Bavarian attack on Flies was announced by their cannonade, Beyer detached some of his regiments to act against Prince Charles’s flank. This attack, supported vigorously by a simultaneous advance of Flies against his front, forced the Bavarian commander to retire; not, however, without inflicting very severe injury on the Prussians.
Goeben, on the 26th, pushed his advanced guard towards Würzburg, and soon discovered by his patrols that Prince Charles, after leaving only a few light troops in front of the town, and a strong garrison in the houses on the left bank of the river, had drawn the mass of his troops across the Maine, and posted them in the town on the right bank, and in the citadel.
On the 28th, the Bavarian and the eighth Federal corps concentrated, and took up a position at Rottendorf, a village which lies in the angle of the Maine, five miles east of Würzburg. General Manteuffel that day drew his whole army together in front of Würzburg, with Goeben’s division in advance, so that Kummer’s brigade was opposite Marienberg, Wrangel’s on its right, and the Oldenburg contingent on its left. Kummer pushed his skirmishers close up to Marienberg, and with them forced the enemy to quit some earthworks which they had begun to throw up. The whole artillery of the Army of the Maine was then posted on the right and left of the road, and opened a cannonade on the houses, to which the enemy’s guns actively replied. The arsenal and the castle of Marienberg were set on flames, after which the batteries ceased firing.
The day after that cannonade a flag of truce was sent from the Bavarians to General Manteuffel, who announced that an armistice had been concluded between the King of Prussia and the Bavarian Government. The cessation of hostilities rescued the allied army from a very precarious position in the elbow of the Maine, where it was all but cut off from the territories which it had been intended to defend.
General Manteuffel had gained a free scope for action over the whole of Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden, because the River Maine was placed between those countries and the troops of Prince Charles. This general, to defend those countries, would have required to cross a swift river in face of a strong and already victorious enemy, no easy task for an army which had already lost confidence in its leader.
OBSERVATIONS
The most interesting manoeuvre of the Prussian Army of the Maine, after it had occupied Frankfort, was the movement by which General Manteuffel advanced against the Tauber. The army marched southwards in the formation A. As soon as certain information was received that the enemy was on the Tauber, the division wheeled to the left, and stood opposed to the enemy in the formation B. The right wing (2), Flies’ division, had then Goeben’s division (1) as a reserve, and could with great strength urge the enemy back towards the Maine, while Beyer’s division at Wertheim prevented him from pushing out in that direction. As long as General Manteuffel could prevent the allies from marching up the Tauber he held an advantage over them, for the second reserve corps was coming down to Nürnberg against their rear. If the enemy did move up the Tauber in spite of his dispositions, General Manteuffel, by wheeling division C to the right, restored the order of march, in which he had advanced from Frankfort, for further operations.
It is difficult to perceive with what object Prince Charles, after the action on the Tauber, withdrew in the direction of Wurzburg, and afterwards took up a position in the bend of the Maine. He could hardly have wished here to fight a pitched battle, while General Manteuffel on one side of him, and the second Prussian reserve corps on the other, were not separated by more than sixty miles, and when he left the i
nitiative of attack in the hands of his adversaries. Nor could he have the intention of conveying his troops by railway by way of Bamberg, Nürnberg, and Regensburg to Vienna. His road in that direction was threatened, and before he could have moved half his army, the remainder would have been waylaid by the second reserve corps.
The strength of the Bavarian and eighth Federal corps, which mustered together at least one hundred thousand men, was frittered away in isolated conflicts, instead of being concentrated for a great battle. Such conflicts could have had no important result, even if they had been successful. On the Tauber, the eighth corps fought alone, unsupported by the Bavarians. On the 25th, the whole right wing of the Bavarians came under fire, only in the evening, for the first time; and there was no harmony of either conduct or action between the Bavarians and the troops of the eighth corps. On the 26th, Prince Charles made an offensive movement without any support from Prince Alexander, and apparently without any idea that the latter had withdrawn to Würzburg.
CHAPTER 5: Occupation of Franconia by the Second Reserve Corps
On the 18th July the Grand Duke Frederick Franz of Mecklenburg-Schwerin assumed the command of the second Prussian reserve corps at Leipsic On the same day he ordered this corps to move upon Hof, in Bavaria, On the 23rd, the third battalion of the fourth regiment of the Guard crossed the Bavarian frontier, and captured a detachment of sixty-five Bavarian infantry. This battalion was pushed by forced marches from Leipsic to Werdau, thence by railway to Plauen. At the latter place waggons were raised by requisition from the country people, and the battalion conveyed in them by night to within, two miles of Hof. Two companies rushed into the town, while the others, making a circuitous march, sought to gain the exit on the further side, and thus to surround and capture the whole of the Bavarian garrison. The greater part of these, however, made their escape by a railway train which happened to be ready, and an outlying detachment of sixty-five non-commissioned officers and men were alone taken prisoners.
On the 24th July, the headquarters of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg reached Hof. Here he published a proclamation to the inhabitants of Upper Franconia, in which he informed them that his invasion of their country was only directed against their government, and that private property and interests would be perfectly respected by his troops. In consequence, he was able to draw from the inhabitants the means of supplying his men with rations.
The head of the Prussian advanced guard reached on the 28th, the provincial capital Baireuth. The Bavarian garrison of this town had been withdrawn by telegraphic orders from Munich: and wisely so. Its numbers were far too small to have fought an action with any chance of success, and any resistance against the invaders could only have served to imperil the lives and property of the inhabitants. Nürnberg had also, from fear of the fate with which it was threatened, solicited the Bavarian Government to allow it to be declared an open town.
On the 29th July, the grand duke in person reached Baireuth, and there reviewed his troops. Bavaria, which had always aspired to a special consideration in the Germanic Confederation, because she claimed to be the leader of the Middle States, displayed no military force at all proportionate to her pretensions. No force worthy the name opposed this invasion of Franconia. One only of four brigades of reserve which were in course of formation, but, as yet, were hardly clothed in uniform, badly equipped and miserably organised, had been despatched from Munich towards the Saxon frontier. For any efficient protection of the country it was much too weak, and the Landwehr, which had so much been vaunted by the Bavarian press, as a strong defensive organisation, barely existed upon paper, and was practically of no account The second reserve corps advanced unmolested, as if in time of profound peace, and was received by the people always with friendship, sometimes with tokens of lively sympathy. The Bavarian brigade of reserve retired to Kemnath.
A false telegraphic despatch, which announced that an armistice had been concluded between Prussia and Bavaria, led the reserve battalion of the regiment of the Bavarian guard to again advance, on the 28th, towards Baireuth. This advance was made without any precaution. As soon as it approached near the town it was told by the Prussian officer who commanded the advanced guard of the second reserve corps that the intelligence of an armistice was unfounded. It did not, however, by a forced march, attempt to withdraw itself beyond the reach of danger, but retired to St Johann’s, barely three miles from Baireuth, and there calmly took up its quarters for the night As could hardly otherwise happen, it was there fallen upon, and fled during the night to Seidenburg, and on the 29th to Seibottenreuth.
Here it was overtaken by the fusilier battalion of the 4th regiment of the Prussian Guard, which, in company with some Mecklenburg cavalry and Jägers, had been despatched from Baireuth in pursuit, and was totally routed. Of the nine hundred and fifty men, of whom the battalion had been composed, hardly five hundred succeeded in escaping from their pursuers, and, by the sacrifice of their knapsacks and many of their arms, gaining a railway station between Seibottenreuth and Nürnberg. This was the only opportunity which the second reserve corps had of being engaged.
On the 31st July, the Prussian advanced guard moving forwards occupied the ancient city of Nürnberg, from which the dynasty of the Hohenzollerns was originally transferred to Brandenburg. On the first August, the main body reached the same place. Here the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg was only separated from Würzburg by a distance of sixty miles, and could insure his junction with General Manteuffel without any danger from the eighth Federal corps or the Bavarian army. Other reinforcements were also on the way to General Manteuffel, for on the 27th July the first Prussian reserve corps had been despatched from Bohemia, by way of Pilsen, into Bavaria, and had already occupied Weiden and Waldsassen. The armistice, however, which commenced on the 2nd of August, and which had been granted by Manteuffel, on the 30th July, to Prince Alexander and Prince Charles, put an end to all further operations, and, in all probability, prevented both the army and the capital of Bavaria from falling into the hands of the Prussians.
The Prussian troops were everywhere victoriously pressing forward, and every day their enemies were more paralysed, and daily the total disruption of the Germanic Confederation became more complete.
On the 28th July, Baden received a new ministry, which declared that, after the 31st July, the grand duchy would no longer consider itself as belonging to the late confederation. The grand ducal representative at the spectral phantom of the diet was recalled, and the fortress of Rastadt was declared to belong to the Baden Government The troops of Weimar, which formed its garrison, were dismissed to their homes.
On the 1st August, Heidelberg and Mannheim, Ludwighofen, Mergentheim, and Erlangen, were occupied by Prussian detachments. The South-German Governments lost all hope, and sought by negotiations for an armistice. Lines of demarcation between the armies were agreed upon, and the war on the western theatre was finally put an end to by settled conventions.
Bavaria at first gained merely a purely military suspension of hostilities, but Herr von der Pfordten, who had been despatched to the King of Prussia at Nikolsburg, (see Book 9, chapter 3), by the Bavarian Government, obtained one for three weeks, which was to date from the 28th July. Within that time peace was concluded at Berlin.
Before the definite conclusion of the armistice, the Prussian troops had occupied the Bavarian territory at three points, they had also crossed the frontiers of Baden and of Würtemberg. Darmstadt had long held a Prussian garrison. Würzburg, as one of the conditions of the suspension of hostilities, received a Prussian corps of four thousand men on the 2nd August; the fortress on the Marienberg alone remained in the hands of the Bavarians. On the 1st August, General von Manteuffel, at Würzburg, concluded an armistice with General von Hardegg, for Würtemberg; on the same day he also concluded one for Hesse-Darmstadt, and on the 3rd a plenipotentiary from Baden came to Würzburg, and there obtained one from Manteuffel for the Grand Duchy. The headquarters of the Army of the Maine were established
at Würzburg during the truce, where they remained until the 22nd August.
The King of Prussia despatched, on the 1st August, the following telegram to the Army of the Maine, through General Manteuffel:
I charge you to express to the troops of the Army of the Maine my entire satisfaction with their valour and behaviour. I thank the generals, the officers, and all the soldiery. With me the armies in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austria send to their Prussian and German comrades greeting and goodwill.
At the same time the order of “Pour le Mérite” was sent by the king, with an autograph letter to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg.
The end of the struggle was notified by General von Manteuffel to his army, in the following general order:—
Headquarters, Würzburg,
August 2nd, 1866.
Soldiers of the Army or the Maine!—By the victories of the arms of Prussia, the enemy has been compelled to seek for an armistice. His Majesty the King has granted it. I do not speak to you of the hardships which you have cheerfully suffered, nor of the bravery with which you have everywhere fought. But I recall to your memory the days of actions and the results of your victories. After that, under your skilful and esteemed leader, General von Falckenstein, you had seized Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and all the broad territories as far as Frankfort-on-the-Maine; had compelled the Hanoverian army to capitulate; had defeated the Bavarians on the 14th July at Zella and Weisenthal, on the 10th July at Hammelburg, Kissingen, Friedericshall, Hansen, and Waldaschach; on the 11th July the troops of Hesse-Darmstadt at Oerlenbach; on the 13th these again at Laufach, and on the 14th the Austrians at Aschaffenburg, you made your victorious entry into Frankfort.
After a short rest, again you sought the foe; on the 23rd you defeated the troops of Baden at Hundheim; on the 24th, the Austrian, Würtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau division at Tauberbischofsheim, and the troops of Baden at Werbach; on the 25th, the whole concentrated eighth Federal Corps at Gerscheim, and the Bavarians at Helmstadt, the latter on the 26th, also at Roszbrünn; and today, after twenty victorious greater or minor combats, have entered Würzburg as conquerors. The result of those victories is that not only the countries north of the Maine have been won, but that the power of your arms has smitten heavily on Hesse-Darmstadt, and deep into Baden and Würtemberg, and has freed a portion of our land, which could not be directly protected by our army from the presence of an enemy.