by H M Hozier
Prince Frederick Charles came in late in the afternoon at the head of General Manstein’s division. When he reached the Platz he halted, and drew on one side to see his men march past him. The soldiers had been on the road since two o’clock in the morning, but the regiments marched as if they had not come two miles. With steady tramp and all in step, with unbroken ranks and battalions undiminished by stragglers, they marched into the town. Dusty and worn boots alone showed that they had come across Bohemia, fought a great battle, and had been marching lately over twenty-five miles a day; for they had halted outside to brush their clothes, and they came in with cloaks well folded, knapsacks as well put on, and arms as clean, as if they had been in garrison at home.
The 60th, a regiment renowned for its marching, well sustained its reputation; the men, shoulder to shoulder, close as if linked together, moved forward like a solid wall, and notwithstanding their fatigue, for they had come over thirty miles, stepped in such perfect cadence from front to rear of the regiment that only one footfall was heard upon the pavement. The 24th, tall men and well-built, came along with heads well up and rifles carried as if they could not know fatigue, and were quite unaware that they bore a heavy knapsack on their shoulders. The other regiments also marched bravely, and their chief looked that day as proud of his troops as when he stood among them victorious on the summit of the Sadowa hill; and well he might, for the Prussian army had given proof of an endurance of fatigue and of a power of marching which have rarely been equalled in the annals of war; for the marches had not been made by small detachments or over open ground, but by large masses, along deep and heavy roads, encumbered with artillery and crowded with carriages.
The headquarters of the First Army halted at Brünn on the 13th July. The troops had marched their shoes off their feet, and no repairs could be made during the late rapid marches; the horses of the cavalry wanted rest and shoeing, the saddlery required looking to, reserves of ammunition had to be brought up, and it was necessary to establish depôts and hospitals. The advanced guard was, however, pushing on that morning to Medritz, about six miles beyond the town, on the road to Vienna. All daylong the remaining troops of the First Army were marching in. Regiment after regiment, with band playing and drums beating, tramped steadily along the pavement, drawing behind its long line of glittering bayonets the heavy waggons which carry reserve cartridges and hospital stores, and always follow close in rear of the battalions.
The townspeople had quite recovered from the panic caused by the approach of the Prussians. All the shops were open, the manufactories were at work, the market-place was studded with country women who sat among the piled arms or on the poles of the artillery carriages, making up nosegays or selling fruit, for which there was a great demand among the soldiers. These, for many days, had tasted little but black bread and commissariat meat, carried straight to the camp cooking-fire from the newly-killed ox; for, in order to save transport, the bullocks for food were marched in rear of the regiments, and on arriving at the halting-place were killed, to be immediately cooked and eaten. But here the men had good food, for the magistracy was held responsible that they should be supplied with their rations.
Every hotel, every restaurant, every café, was crowded with officers, who, having laid aside their dusty marching clothes, were dressed in uniforms as bright as would be worn in Berlin; but unshaven beards, close-cropped hair, and the absence of epaulettes, showed that they were still on a campaign.
Soldiers with cleaned and pipe-clayed belt, well-brushed coats, and smart white trousers, which had been carried, by some wonderful means, unsullied in the recesses of their knapsacks, crowded the streets, filled the beer-shops, and drove bargains with the proprietors of the tobacco and pipe stalls.
The lower class of inhabitants mixed freely among the soldiers, and under their guidance inspected, half timidly, half curiously, the wonderful needle-gun of which they had heard so much, and numbers of which, piled four together, were standing in long lines in the market-place.
Newspapers containing Imperial decrees dated from Vienna were freely hawked about the street One of these told officially that Field Marshal the Archduke Albrecht had been appointed commander-inchief of the whole Austrian Army, with Field Marshal von John as his chief of the staff; and another, that Austria was about to open a loan of 200,000,000 guldens. Cabs pushed about the town, through the crowded streets, conveying impatient staff officers, who had to find quarters for some general, or billets for some regiment which was just arriving—no easy task, for nearly the whole infantry of the First Army was in Brünn, and though the magistracy, anxious to please the Prussians, crowded the men upon the householders, accommodation was scarce.
Every house had twenty or twenty-five soldiers quartered upon it, but they did not give the inmates much trouble, for a couple of rooms with a few trusses of straw, and the use of the kitchen fire to cook their food, was all they wanted; and they did not stay much in their billets, but wandered about the town or sat in the beer-houses smoking with quiet enjoyment the long wooden pipes which, from want of tobacco, had been useless for some time past, but which had seldom been forgotten or left behind on the line of march, while some wrote long letters to their friends at home, and sent off to wives or mothers in Prussia all that they could save from their small pay.
The king arrived that afternoon, and established his headquarters in the town-hall. With him came Count Bismark and the Minister of War. Few people had collected to see him enter the town, and the populace made no demonstration of any kind; the magistrates received him with politeness, each with the white and red badge of neutrality bound broad round the left arm.
Many rumours of an armistice were flying about, for M. Benedetti, the French ambassador at Berlin, was there, and it was known that the Emperor of the French was bringing his influence to bear upon the Prussian Court in favour of peace. Count Bismark was for some time closeted with the ambassador in an upper room of the town-hall, where, undisturbed by the hum which rose from the crowded streets, they were supposed to be discussing the conditions of an armistice. The latest Austrian newspapers said that the Kaiser had determined that no attempt should be made to defend the capital itself, for it was thought better to let the town be occupied peaceably by an enemy than be exposed to the possibility of a bombardment But though at this time it might have been intended that the Austrian troops should abandon Vienna, preparations were being made to continue the war. The army from the Italian frontier was being brought up towards the Danube, to add 120,000 men to the troops at present round the capital.
While the army halted here, reserve troops were being advanced into Bohemia to secure the communications with Saxony, and to keep order in rear of the armies, where the peasantry, having possessed themselves with weapons from the fields of battle, had begun to plunder convoys and to attack small escorts or patrols. The first reserve corps occupied Bohemia. Prague and Pardubitz were garrisoned in force, and the second reserve corps had been organised at Leipzig to act against the flank of the Bavarians. General von Falckenstein was named Prussian Commandant of Bohemia, and General Manteuffel took his place in the command of the Army of the Maine.
But many considered that all these precautions were useless, and that the army would never move south of Brünn. The visit of the French ambassador, quickly reported from billet to billet, fell as a cold chill on the enthusiasm of the troops, for they longed to go to Vienna, and conclude the campaign by an entrance into the capital. But they also wished for the end of the war, and longed for home, so they hated the idea of delay, and anticipated with disgust an armistice, by the conditions of which the army might be retained at Brünn for a considerable time. A flag of truce was sent that day to the Austrian advanced guard, which lay beyond Medritz, and the staff officer who went with it carried a letter to be given to the Austrian commander-in-chief. The contents of the letter were known only in the king’s headquarters, but popular rumour did not fail to assert that the flag of truce carried with it a
despatch to open negotiations which would conclude a peace.
The railway communication with Saxony was all but restored, and was actually opened on the 15th.
When Prague was occupied by the Prussian troops on the 8th, thirty locomotive engines and some thousand railway carriages were found at the railway station, and with this supply of rolling stock the railway was soon opened for military purposes between Prague and Brünn. A broken bridge between Münchengrätz and Jung-Bunzlau required several days for its repair, and still prevented communication with Berlin, but as soon as this viaduct was restored the army was able to receive supplies by the route of Türnau, Prague, and Pardubitz. The line was long, because the shorter route through Josephstadt and Königgrätz was closed by those fortresses, and the guns of Theresienstadt prevented the line to Dresden from being used; but communication by it required much less time than by the rough roads over which the convoys had hitherto to travel, and as soon as it was open supplies arrived much more quickly than while they were carried for many long miles over rough hill roads, along which the waggons jolted slowly and painfully.
The Army of the Elbe, after the Battle of Königgrätz, formed the right wing of the general advance of the Prussians from Przelautsch and Pardubitz. It followed the most direct road southwards, and on the 10th July reached Iglau, and there crossed the boundary line between Bohemia and Moravia. Here it found detachments of General Edelsheim’s cavalry in its front, but they retired without making any resistance to its advance. The capture of the imperial manufactory of cigars at Iglau supplied Herwarth’s soldiers with plentiful rations of tobacco, the want of which is so much missed by German troops. In the neighbourhood of Iglau Herwarth captured one hundred transport waggons. He then moved forwards in the direction of Znaym.
CHAPTER 2: Tobitschau
When the Archduke Albrecht assumed the command of all the Austrian troops in the field, he could not retain Benedek’s army in Olmütz, unless he consented to sacrifice Vienna without a blow, for it was not strong enough to delay the advance of the Prussians by acting against their flank and communications. He might have determined to occupy the line of the March with the Army of the North and the troops from Italy, but he had not time to take up a strong position here before the Prussians would be upon him. The line of this river was also badly suited for a defensive position, as an army lying along it would have had a range of mountains, that of the Lower Carpathians, in its rear. An occupation of the line of the Waag, with his left wing supported on Komorn, his centre at Leopoldstadt, and his Army of the North posted along the hills on the left bank of that river, which entirely command the plain on the right bank, while his Army of the South held the Danube near Vienna, would have afforded the Archduke many advantages.
The Prussians could not have advanced against Vienna without exposing their flanks and communications to the Army of the North, nor could they have moved against this army without placing themselves in unfavourable circumstances. They would have been obliged to cross the March and the Lower Carpathians, to fight a battle where they would have had a river and a line of hills in front of them, a chain of mountains and a river in their rear. It appears, however, that the archduke feared that the Prussians, by seizing the passes of the Carpathians, might have neutralized the action of his Army of the North, and have pushed on against the capital, for he determined take up the line of the Danube from Krems to Pressburg, with his centre resting on the fortifications of Florisdorf, in front of Vienna.
Yet a battle lost here would have yielded up all Hungary to his enemy, and have placed Austria entirely at the mercy of Prussia. Benedek was ordered to send his army from Olmütz toVienna, and by the 14th July he had despatched his third, fourth, and sixth corps by railway to the capital On the 15th, while more of his troops were actually upon the line, the railway communications between Olmütz and Vienna was cut near Lundenburg, by the cavalry of the advanced guard of Prince Charles, which had been pushed forward from Brünn. (See chapter 3).
Benedek could send no more troops by rail; he resolved, with the first, second, and eighth corps, which still remained at Olmütz, to march by road to the Danube. One brigade of the eighth corps, followed by a large proportion of artillery, moved by way of Tobitschau and Kremser, on the right bank of the March. The main body, accompanied by Benedek in person, moved on the left bank of the March, by way of Prerau; while a garrison of twenty-five thousand men was left in Olmütz. This movement of the Austrian general brought on the
ACTION OF TOBITSCHAU
The army of the crown prince, after leaving Pardubitz, was directed, as has been already seen, in the direction of Olmütz. On the 14th July, the advanced guard of the first corps d’armée reached Prossnitz, about twelve miles to the southward of Olmütz. This advanced guard consisted of General Buddenbrock’s brigade, which had been reinforced by some additional artillery, and was accompanied by the first regiment of hussars. Near Prossnitz some detachments of hostile cavalry made their appearance, advancing from Wrahartz. These were Saxon dragoons, which, after a slight skirmish, the Prussian hussars drove back to Kralitz and Biskupitz, on the River Blatta. On the 12th the crown prince determined to leave only one corps to mask Olmütz and the Austrian entrenched camp. With his other corps he resolved to lean towards his right, and keep open his communications with Prince Frederick Charles.
On this day the Guards were at Könitz, the fifth corps at Plumenau. Orders were issued that on the 15th the cavalry reserve by way of Plin, and the first corps from Prossnitz, should make an attack on Prerau, and there cut the railway between Olmütz and Lundenburg. Thus on the 15th, while the main body of the crown prince’s army was moving southwards by Urtschitz and Ottaslawitz, General Malotki’s brigade of the first corps, consisting of six battalions and a 4-pounder battery, was at daybreak to march to the east of Plumenau, to seize Tobitschau and Traubeck, thus to secure the passages over the Blatta, the March, and the Beczwa, and to hold them until General Hartman’s division of reserve cavalry could reach Prerau, destroy the railway and return. From Plumenau, by way of Prossnitz, to Hrubschitz is ten miles. Malotki reached the heights of Hrubschitz soon after six o’clock in the morning. From this position he could see a part of the road from Olmütz to Tobitschau, and on it a heavy Austrian column moving towards the latter place. This was Rothkirch’s brigade, in rear of which Benedek, either ignorant of the proximity of the Prussians, or anxious to have a strong force of artillery to cover his left flank, had caused a considerable portion of his artillery train to march.
******
The accounts of the object with which Rothkirch’s brigade moved along this road are varied. Some say that he was intended to occupy a position on the rivers which unite near Tobitschau, in order to cover the march of the main body. Others that Benedek moved him along this route ignorant that the crown prince was so close at hand, and committed the artillery train on it because of its being the better road.
******
At this time the Prussians were ignorant of what Austrian force still remained at Olmütz, although it was calculated, as was afterwards proved correctly, that forty thousand men could have been moved to Vienna before the railway was broken.
The Austrian troops in front of Malotki, under Rothkirch’s command, consisted of the 25th Hungarian regiment, the 7th Hungarian regiment, and one Jäger battalion: in all, seven battalions, which were accompanied by a squadron of Uhlans and three field batteries.
Malotki deployed his brigade on the east of Hrubschitz towards Wiklitzer Hof and Klopotowitz, with the 44th regiment in the first line, the 4th in the second, and posted his artillery on the left flank of his infantry, just south of Klopotowitz.
The Austrian general brought up twenty-four guns to the hills between the Blatta and the March, and smote with them upon the Prussian flank.
These guns were engaged, but at much disadvantage, by the Prussian battery which was attached to Malotki’s brigade. After a short time, however. General Hartman’s division of Prussian
cavalry arrived on the ground, and reinforced Malotki’s guns with two batteries of horse artillery, which took up a position more to the north, and gradually advancing to the Blatta, in about an hour’s time succeeded in somewhat silencing the Austrian pieces.
Already, before the artillery on either side had opened fire, the 44th regiment, which formed the first line of Malotki’s infantry, began to advance. The fusilier battalion of this regiment moved against Wiklitzer Hof, the second battalion on its left towards Klopotowitz, and the third battalion between the two others. Without coming into collision with the enemy, these battalions gained the western bank of the Blatta. The river was so deep and broad in consequence of the late heavy rain that it could only be crossed at Wiklitzer Hof, where there were two bridges. Had the enemy occupied these passages, the advance of the brigade would have been exceedingly difficult, perhaps prevented altogether. The fusilier battalion of the 44th, which first passed the stream, came on the further side upon two Austrian companies, which had been thrown out to cover Rothkirch’s right flank.
These, on account of some undulations in the ground, had as yet seen nothing of the Prussian advance. They now threw themselves into a small plantation which lay on the south of Tobitschau, and a musketry fight commenced between them and the fusiliers, during which the first and second battalions of the 44th deployed to the left of the fusiliers. Each battalion threw two companies forward in skirmishing order, and retained its two others as reserves in close column of companies. The 4th regiment, which formed Malotki’s second line, crossed the stream after the 44th, with its fusilier battalion leading. Two companies of this battalion were directed to occupy Tobitschau, seize the passage over the March, and to bear upon the Austrian left flank. The rest of the regiment followed the first line.