by H M Hozier
About two hundred yards south of the village of Wagram lies the watercourse of the Roszbach rivulet. This world-known brook is about ten feet wide and fifteen feet deep. With sharp sides cut almost straight down, and the earth thrown up on either bank to form dykes which prevent its winter floods from inundating the surrounding country, it looks more like a huge artificial drain than like a natural rivulet. Along its banks grow rows of pollard willows, closely planted together, which formed a grateful shade from the burning July sun. The road which leads to Florisdorf crosses the brook by a slight wooden bridge which could be destroyed in a few minutes by the pioneers of a single battalion.
On the Wagram side of the bridge were two vedettes from Hohenlohe’s fine regiment of Uhlans, crouching for shade under the willow-trees, but steadily gazing out towards Florisdorf, though not an Austrian vedette could be seen, for they were all hidden by trees.
But, though no enemy was in sight, a view was there which well repaid the long ride, and which even the soldiers, accustomed as they had been to marching through fine scenery, were admiring to each other. On the right lay the rounded hill of the Bisamberg, studded with vineyards, cornfields, and woods, among which vain search with glasses was made to discover any signs of the hostile batteries. Beyond the Bisamberg could be seen the narrow gorge from which the Danube issues, and further still the rough rugged recess of the hills above Klosterneuberg, rising steeply up from the water’s edge, with their summits capped with heavy masses of dark green foliage, and their sides sprinkled over with fir-trees.
A little to the left, and at the foot of the hills, the city of Vienna lay sparkling in the sun; the tops of the steeples and the roofs of the houses glittered in the bright flood of light, but not too powerfully, for the air between Wagram and the town seemed converted by the heat into a heavy transparent ether, which spread a halo round the city. In the foreground, a little to the left, a high church spire, surrounded by tall poplar-trees, showed the situation of the village of Florisdorf; but no entrenchments could be seen, no working parties could be discovered; they were all hidden by a long gentle wave of the ground, which would not have been noticed except because it excluded from the view. Far away on the left front spread the Marchfeld, beyond which could be seen the dim blue line of hills which gird the valley south of the Danube, while directly to the left the dark Carpathians towered up to the sky, and the gap between the Theben-Berger and the main ridge showed where the road ran to Preszburg, and pointed, out the situation of the village of Blumenau, the scene of the combat of the 22nd.
After a long and fruitless search among the poplar-trees for any signs of entrenchments, during which heaps of earth were pointed out as redoubts, which may have been or may not, the officers turned to ride down the Roszbach. The brook was almost entirely dry; here and there for a few yards a thin sheet of water a few inches deep covered the soft muddy bottom, and gave a refuge to flocks of mud-bedaubed ducks, but in general the mud which forms the sole of the watercourse lay exposed to the sun, and was dried and broken into cracks and fissures, which ran into each other, forming a tracery not unlike hieroglyphic writing. All along the brook were constant vedettes, all hidden in the willows on the bank, which the conditions of the armistice had declared to be for the present Prussian ground The sound of horses’ feet coming along drew the sentries out of their ambush far enough to let them be seen, but as soon they saw the uniforms of the Prussian staff-officers they resumed their steady stare to the front, retiring into the shade, and let the officers pass them as if they were not aware of our existence; for outlying sentinels pay no compliments in the presence of the enemy.
The Prussian armies were by the 25th drawn close together, and, concentrated in one huge mass, lay like a crouching lion, ready to spring upon the Danube, should the negotiations for peace fail, and the orders for an advance be flashed by telegraph from Nikolsburg to the different commanders. The First Army, under Prince Frederick Charles, was close up to the Roszbach and the line of demarcation, with a strong corps on the left bank of the March to guard its flank or form its advanced guard as might be required, in case the signal should be given to move forward. General Herwarth, with the Army of the Elbe, was on the right, perhaps with the object of crossing the river at a lower point of its course. The crown prince was in rear of the first, ready to move in any direction which occasion might require.
On the 27th, at mid-day, the armistice would expire, and, in case that it should not be prolonged, or preliminaries of peace were not agreed upon by that hour, the Prussian troops were on the 26th held in readiness to march at the shortest notice. If an advance had been made, there can be no doubt, from the positions of the different divisions, that the great attack against the line of the Danube would have been made towards Preszburg; probably, at the same time, a demonstration might have been made towards the Prussian right, and a false attack directed on Florisdorf, in order to retain the garrison in their fortifications. The action of the 22nd, which at the moment of certain victory for the Prussians was interrupted by the armistice, had shown the Austrians where the chief attack could be made, and the Prussians thought that by the 27th the position of Blumenau would in all likelihood have been artificially strengthened, and the road by which Bose advanced and gained the rear of the villages would certainly be watched on a future occasion.
Yet, though there could be no hope of succeeding so suddenly as on the 22nd in gaining the command of the defile which leads to Preszburg, and though there was no chance, as would probably have been the case if the previous Sunday’s action had continued, of driving the enemy so quickly through the town as to prevent him from destroying the bridge, the advantages to be gained from attempting to pass the Danube at Preszburg were so great, that an attempt would probably have been made to force the defile and to secure that town. The fortifications of Florisdorf, a part of which could be seen from the church-tower of Wagram, shut out the access to such a broad piece of the river bank that very different measures had to be taken for securing the passage than would have been most expedient, if no entrenchments had covered the approach across the flat plain from Wagram and Aspern. The portion of the works which could be seen through the clear air from the church spire embraced four redoubts on the Bisamberg hill, and three on the flat ground between the Bisamberg and Florisdorf; there was also another work on the hill to guard the left flank of the position, which lying more towards the river could not be seen from Wagram.
The Prussian cavalry had gained much from the rest afforded by the armistice; fatigued by long marches through the Moravian highlands, and stinted for forage, it had a sufficiently long period of repose when the army halted at Brünn to restore it to the splendid condition in which it entered upon the campaign; but the long rest in the Marchfeld had done it an immensity of good, though even here forage had not been plentiful. Notwithstanding small rations, the horses had profited by their rest, for time had been given to replace their worn-out shoes, and to afford relief to chafed backs caused by the late long marches. The troopers were in high spirits, for they had overcome the famed Austrian cavalry in several encounters, and now claimed a higher reputation than that which for several years past had been accorded to their antagonists.
The failures of the Austrian cavalry in their encounters with the stronger and better-mounted horsemen of Prussia had not so much astonished the thinking officers of this army as had the singularly little use which General Benedek had made of his light horse. Although operations had been conducted in its own country, where every information concerning the Prussian movements could have been readily obtained from the inhabitants, the Austrian cavalry had made no raids against the flank or rear of the advancing army, had cut off no ammunition or provision trains, had broken up no railway communication behind the marching columns, had destroyed no telegraph lines between the front and the base of supplies, had made no sudden or night attacks against the outposts so as to make the weary infantry stand to their arms and lose their night’s rest, and
, instead of hovering round the front and flanks to irritate and annoy the pickets, had been rarely seen or fallen in with except when it had been marched down upon and beaten up by the Prussian advanced guards.
Yet the Prussian cavalry had in many cases lost severely in the campaign, especially the 3rd regiment of Dragoons. This regiment suffered fearfully from its rough hustle with the Austrian cuirassiers at Königgrätz, and now mustered but half the men and horses with which it entered upon the campaign. More than half the officers and quite half the men who followed across the Bohemian frontier the standard which has been cherished in their regiment since the year 1704 are now lying under the earth of Lipa, or were in the hospitals of Türnau and Görlitz, for this was the regiment which dashed against the heavy mass of cuirass horsemen who sacrificed themselves to cover the retreat of the Austrian battalions, and it supported its character for dashing courage at a tremendous cost. Very many of both the officers and men who were not now in the ranks were victims to terrible sword cuts, which, coming down upon the shoulder, cut clean through the shoulder-blade, and often deep down into the body—awful memorials of the strength of arm of the Austrian horsemen.
Much did the officers of this regiment complain of the absence of epaulettes, which they estimated would, by defending the shoulder, have saved half the men they had left behind them—a complaint which was to some extent borne out by the fact that the ultimate overthrow of the cuirass regiments of Austria was due to the arrival of some of Hohenlohe’s Uhlans, who took them in flank. Then, though the heavy horsemen turned upon Hohenlohe’s men, their swords were shivered upon the brass plates which lay upon the shoulders of the Uhlans, for these, unlike the rank and file of the rest of the Prussian cavalry carried epaulettes, and though the blows were aimed at the head, the smaller object was nearly always missed, and the sharp edge descended only to be dinted or broken upon the protected shoulder, while the Uhlans, with their lances held short in hand, searched out with their spear-heads unguarded portions of their antagonists’ bodies, or, dealing heavy blows with the butt ends of their staves, pressed through the thick ranks of the heavy horsemen, marking their track with great heaps of dead, dying, or wounded.
On the evening of the 26th, there was still no definite news from Nikolsburg, but every rumour which arrived from headquarters pointed more and more to peace; still the army was held in readiness to move, and the officiers d’ordonnance, or “gallopers” as they would be termed in the vernacular of Aldershot, were ordered to be prepared to start with orders to the different divisions at three in the morning.
The preliminaries of peace had been agreed upon at Nikolsburg on the evening of the 26th, and the war was certainly at an end as far as Austria and the North German States were concerned. Late on the night of the 26th, a courier arrived from the king’s headquarters at Nikolsburg, bringing a letter from General von Moltke to Prince Frederick Charles, which gave no details and no information as to the conditions of the peace, but said simply that a glorious peace had been arranged. The news spread in a moment, and suddenly all was changed. In the evening information was being obtained about the strength of the Austrian position at Florisdorf, the preparations to guard the defile which leads to Preszburg, the nature of the bridges over the Danube, or the chance of Edelsheim’s cavalry coming forward to break a lance in the Marchfeld.
On the morning of the 27th, these things were held of no account; no one would have cared to hear accurately where every battalion and every gun was posted in the Austrian lines; the number of Edelsheim’s sabres and of the Archduke Albrecht’s corps were alike disregarded; no one would have cared to hear how many of the regiments from Italy were actually in Vienna, and the entrenchments of Florisdorf were considered a matter of history. These who the previous night seemed to have no thought but of battle, promotion, and an entry into Vienna, could speak on the 27th of nothing but home, and hardly thought of anything except their speedy return to Prussia. Now and then a faint discussion arose on the subject of the conditions of peace, but so little was known in the army, and so many reports were flying about, that these soon subsided, and gave place to conversations about home and home friends.
Though peace had been actually decided upon, no one connected with the army was able to go across the two miles of neutral ground which separate the Prussian from the Austrian outposts, so that there was almost no communication with Vienna.
The great desire of marching into the Austrian capital had melted away under the genial influence of certain peace, and there had sprung up instead a feeling of satisfaction that it was not necessary to humiliate Austria so far; for of a sudden all the affection for their old comrades of the Danish war, which had lain latent in the hearts of the Prussian soldiers during the campaign, had again burst forth into life, and there were prevalent in this army almost a kindly pity for the misfortunes of those who but on the yesterday were regarded as deadly enemies. The soft, stout hearts of the Prussians were easily turned from anger to sympathy, as was so often shown by their tender treatment of the Austrian wounded.
During the armistice there was a feeling of suspicion that the Austrian diplomatists would be shifty, and break off the negotiations as soon as their troops were concentrated. This feeling, combined with a desire of mere glory, made the armistice very unpopular; but now that it had been proved that the Austrians were really honest, and that peace was really to be concluded, the memory of all the old grudges was obliterated, and had been replaced by a rapidly increasing feeling of friendship. If an Austrian officer had now come into the Prussian lines he would have been received by the officers with the same openhearted hospitality which they show to their own comrades; the day before he would have been treated with the most polite courtesy.
The troops were in excellent condition, both as to health and spirits, and quite prepared to march back to the frontier at the same rate as they advanced.
On the evening of the 26th the preliminaries of peace, (as mentioned later on in this chapter), were signed at Nikolsburg between Prussia and Austria; the terms which were agreed to were—that Austria should go out of the Germanic Confederation, should pay a contribution towards Prussia’s expenses in the late war, and should offer no opposition to the steps which Prussia might take with regard to Northern Germany: these steps were, to annex Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and the portion of Hesse-Darmstadt which lies on the north bank of the Maine; to secure the reversion of Brunswick on the death of the present duke, who has no children, to force Saxony to enter into the new North German Confederation headed by Prussia, and to hold the entire military and diplomatic leadership in that Confederation. The war contribution to be paid by Austria was fixed at 40,000,000 thalers, of which 15,000,000 were to be paid up, 15,000,000 were credited to Austria for the Schleswig-Holstein expenses, 5,000,000 for the support of the Prussian armies in Bohemia and Moravia, and 5,000,000 were to be paid at a future date to be afterwards settled. The Prussian armies were on the 2nd of August to retire to the north of the Thaya, but were to occupy Bohemia and Moravia till the signature of the final treaty of peace, and to hold Austrian Silesia until the war contribution was paid.
To allow time for the preparation and determination of the definitive treaty of peace, an armistice for five weeks was concluded, to commence on the 2nd August, to which day the five days’ suspension of hostilities was extended. The convention for the armistice determined as follows:—
That the line of demarcation during the armistice should run from Eyer by Pilsen, Neuhaus, Zlabings to the Thaya: then follow the course of that stream to its junction with the March, along the March to Napajedl, and in a straight line from Napajedl to Oderberg, on the Prussian frontier.
Round each of the Austrian fortresses lying within the territories occupied by the Prussians a space was to be left, in order that the fortress might draw provisions therefrom. Round Olmütz this space was to be ten miles, round Josephstadt, Theresienstadt, and Königgrätz five miles.
The Prussians were to
have the free use of all land and water communications within the ground occupied by their armies, and to have the right of transport by the railway from Prerau to Böhmisch-Trübau, which runs past the fortress of Olmütz.
The Austrian troops were not to advance from their actual positions until the Prussian troops were entirely beyond the Thaya.
The sick, who were left by the Prussians with doctors and attendants in their actual positions, were to be supplied by the Austrian Government, and no impediment was to be made to their removal to their homes as soon as possible by the Prussian Government.
The Prussian troops were to be rationed from the territories occupied. No money contributions were to be raised.
Negotiations were to be opened at Prague for the definitive conclusion of peace.
By some unfortunate misunderstanding, the garrison of Theresienstadt on the 28th July, although peace was agreed upon on the 26th, sallied from their fortress, destroyed the railway bridge near Kralup, north of Prague, broke the telegraph wires near the same spot, and captured two Prussian officers, two officials, and fifty soldiers. When the commandant of Theresienstadt directed this sally, he was unaware that the preliminaries of peace had been agreed to; but his inopportune vigour caused a great deal of inconvenience to the Prussian army, for the destruction of the bridge broke the line of communication with Türnau, which was a large depôt of stores. During the armistice, too, some Austrian hussars, unconscious of the existence of a truce, made an attack on a park of reserve artillery at Znaym, and did some damage, for, on account of the conclusion of the armistice, the guards bad not taken precautions against a surprise.