The Seven Weeks' War

by H M Hozier

  Appendix 3

  Appendix 4

  PRELIMINARIES OF PEACE AGREED UPON BETWEEN THE TWO GREAT BELLIGERENT POWERS.

  Their Majesties the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, after declaring that they are animated by a desire to restore to their peoples the blessings of peace, appoint as their plenipotentiaries—

  His Apostolic Majesty—Count Karolyi and Baron de Brenner; and the King of Prussia—Count Bismarck, who have agreed upon the following points:—

  The integrity of the Austrian monarchy, with the exception of Venetia, shall be maintained.

  The King of Prussia shall withdraw his troops from the Austrian territory as soon as a peace shall have been signed.

  The Emperor of Austria recognises the dissolution of the Germanic Confederation as it heretofore existed, and accepts the new organization of Germany without the participation of Austria; he undertakes to recognise the closer Federal relations (die engern Bundesbande) which the King of Prussia shall establish to the north of the line of the Maine; he also accepts the formation by the States of the South of a separate Confederation, and that the national connexion with the North shall be reserved for future arrangement between the two Confederations.

  His Apostolic Majesty transfers to the King of Prussia all the rights which he had acquired by the Treaty of Vienna of the 30th of October over the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, with the reservation that the population of Northern Schleswig, if they should express such a desire by a free vote, should be reunited to Denmark.

  The war indemnity is fixed at forty million thalers. From this sum fifteen millions shall be deducted as the equivalent of the amount which the Emperor of Austria, by virtue of the Treaty of 1864, would still be entitled to claim from the Elbe Duchies, and five millions as the equivalent of the provisioning of the Prussian troops which still continue to occupy the Austrian provinces until the conclusion of peace. There will, therefore, remain a sum of twenty million thalers to be paid in specie.

  The King of Prussia, at the request of Austria, consents to allow the kingdom of Saxony to retain its present territorial limits, but he reserves to himself the power of settling, by a special treaty to be concluded with the King of Saxony, the question of the war indemnities as well as the future position which Saxony shall hold in the Northern Confederation.

  The Emperor of Austria will recognise the new territorial arrangements effected by the King of Prussia in the north of Germany, and also any territorial changes which he may complete.

  The King of Prussia engages to obtain the adhesion of his ally of Italy to the preliminaries of peace and to the armistice as soon as the Emperor of the French shall have declared that the kingdom of Venetia is at the disposition of the King of Italy.

  The Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, after the exchange of ratifications of the present preliminaries has been completed, shall appoint plenipotentiaries, who shall meet at a place to be hereafter selected, in order to conclude a peace upon the bases of the present preliminary convention, and to negotiate upon questions of detail.

  For these purposes, after having agreed upon the present preliminaries, the high contracting parties shall conclude this armistice between the Austrian and Saxon military forces on the one part, and the Prussian military forces on the other part.

  The conditions of this armistice shall be settled immediately. “The armistice shall commence from August 2nd, and the present suspension of arms shall be prolonged until that date.

  There shall also be concluded at the present state of the negotiations an armistice with Bavaria, and General Baron de Manteuffel shall be required to conclude armistices, to commence also from the date of August 2nd, upon the bases of the military status quo, with Baden, Würtemberg, and Hesse-Darmstadt, as soon as these states shall require.

  Appendix 5

  Much was said and written at the time of the armistice on the state of the Prussian hospitals. While the headquarters of the fine army lay at Prague, the utter stagnation of affairs and a favourable opportunity induced the author to pay a visit to the line by which the crown prince advanced with the Second Army from Silesia to the Battle of Königgrätz. The train glided without stopping past the station of Königgrätz, which is a short distance from the advanced works of the fortress, and where a guard of the Austrian garrison were standing beside their piled arms, past Josephstadt, close under the guns of the bastions, and between the main body of the place and an outwork on which an Austrian sentry was pacing along the rampart, and Austrian soldiers were lying listlessly beside the big guns looming out of the embrasures.

  The line of railway was itself, by the conditions of the armistice, available for Prussian transport, but no Prussian was allowed to get out of the train either at Josephstadt or Königgrätz, nor did the trains stop at either place unless someone unconnected with the Prussian army wished to be put down or to get in, in which case a momentary halt was made at the station. On arriving at Königinhof, we found a large number of hospital tents filled with men who had been wounded at Nachod, Skalitz, or the great battle. Prussian and Austrian soldiers lay side by side, all under the care of Prussian surgeons, but tended and nursed by a large number of Prussian ladies, and by many sisters of charity. Many of the Austrian soldiers were Poles, many Italians who spoke no German, but relied upon the Prussian ladies to act as interpreters between them and the surgeons.

  Many of the men were on the road to rapid recovery, and were able to talk cheerfully and smoke, while with a piece of green bough they brushed away the flies which in this warm climate clustered thickly in the hospital tent, and tried to fix themselves upon the healing wounds. In one tent lay two or three who were considered hopeless cases; one poor fellow, an Austrian artilleryman, who had lost both legs, lay upon his mattress, moving his head feebly with a restless motion. “He must die,” whispered the surgeon; “he cannot get over it.” But going forward he stooped over the much-suffering man, patted his forehead, and spoke some words of consolation to him.

  As the doctor turned to leave the bedside, the man, who seemed to derive some hope from his presence, began to moan feebly, but a lady who was sitting near him came over to him, smoothed his pillow, and by a few kind words quieted him, and induced him to try to go to sleep. The sufferer, with a child’s obedience, closed his eyes, while his nurse sat down by his bed-head, ready to frighten away any fly that might threaten to disturb the fitful slumbers of the patient.

  In another tent were a number of convalescents, with bright eyes, very different from those which, dull and hazy, betokened more dangerous cases. Here Baroness Seydlitz was serving out plentiful portions of cigars and tobacco, which were eagerly accepted by the men who were still unable to leave their beds, and whose thinned white hands told how much pain and illness can be caused even by the tiny bullets of the needle-gun. This noble lady had two sons in the Prussian Army, both of whom had served during the campaign. At the beginning of the war she was made superintendent of one of the many companies of Prussian ladies who formed themselves into charitable bands for nursing the wounded, and was now with her division of benefactresses stationed in the hospital tents of Königinhof. Fortunately, her sons had passed unscathed through the actions; but if every wounded soldier who came under her care had been her own child she could not have shown more solicitude for them than she did. The Prussian wounded had made us acquainted with their love and estimation for her before we found her in the hospital tent, and every Sclave, Pole, or Italian-Austrian, when asked who had given him any little luxury which we saw by his bed-head, knew enough German to answer, “Du gute Fran von Seydlitz.”

  General von Löwenfeld, who was passing through Königinhof on his way to review the battlefield of Nachod, where he with six battalions repulsed the fierce attacks of the Austrians until his supports arrived, was visiting the hospitals, and with a wonderful power, not only of language but dialect, was talking kindly to every patient Many of the Austrians who were lying in the shaded tents of Kön
iginhof had fallen under his own guns or the deadly fire of his own infantry at Nachod or Skalitz, but they bore no ill-will to the Prussian general The Prussian krankenträgers, Prussian surgeons, and Prussian ladies had removed any animosity which they might at first not unnaturally have felt to not only an enemy but a conqueror.

  All were asked how long they had lain on the field of battle; some four hours, some ten, some said thirty-six; one now merry Austrian boy, about eighteen years old, told us that he had been wounded in the Maslowed Wood during the Battle of Königgrätz, and had lain there lost and hidden in the trees, and suffering fearfully from thirst and hunger, until found at the end of three days by some Prussian soldiers. An amputated foot showed that he had been badly wounded, but it is probable that suffering exaggerated to his mind the length of time he lay upon the ground, for the woods were searched by the Prussian krankenträgers the day after the battle, though it is quite possible that in such thick foliage a wounded man may have lain long undetected, and perhaps been missed altogether.

  No one who did not see the country in which the battles of the war were fought would realize the enormous exertions made by the Prussian krankenträgers to bring in wounded men. It must be remembered that every piece of rising ground was covered with thick wood or high standing corn; that down by the watercourses the long grass and the bulrushes rose tall in all their summer luxuriance. The wounded invariably, if possible, crawled under cover after Königgrätz, and sought by the brooks for water to quench their thirst, or in the trees and crops for shelter; the krankenträgers had to beat carefully over every yard of ground which lies between Horonowitz and Nechanitz, between the Bistritz and the Elbe—a space of nearly forty-five square miles, over which they had to search for and carry to the ambulances many thousands of wounded men, Austrians and Prussians alike; and there are but 1,900 of these men with the whole Prussian armies.

  The usual answer to the question, “Who first relieved you after the battle?” was that a Prussian soldier had given the speaker something to drink out of his water-bottle directly after the action had ceased, and that, after some time, two Prussian soldiers with a stretcher had lifted him up and carried him to the divisional hospital. A drive down the valley of the Elbe towards the mountains brought us to the Castle of Nachod, which lies at the entrance of the Nachod Pass, and about half a mile nearer to the main ridge than the hill upon which the action was fought. From every large country house waved the white flag with its red cross, which showed that the building was being used as a hospital, and that under its roof wounded men were being coaxed slowly to recover.

  The castle of Nachod, itself standing on a high spur of the mountain chain, and overlooking most beautiful scenery, was occupied by 800 wounded, under the voluntary superintendence of the Prince of Salm-Horstmar, who had left his beautiful property of Rheingraf to work for charity in the hospitals of wounded soldiers. Long lines of beds stretched on both sides of the oak banqueting halls and the tapestried chambers of the castle—beds occupied by suffering but patient men; Prussian ladies in black dresses were gliding about, noiselessly carrying medicines or medical comforts to their grateful patients; Sisters of Mercy were sitting by the bedsides reading to the listening occupant, or propping up a feverish head on a snowy white pillow; while in the corridors outside noble ladies, both in the dresses of the Prussian lady volunteers and in those of Sisters of Mercy, were preparing food for the sick, or tearing up linen and soiling cotton wool to assist the surgeons. Most of the patients were doing wonderfully well. The fine mountain air and the tender care of the nurses had a cheering effect upon them, which led them on to recovery.

  Many officers were in separate rooms, most of them Austrians, brave men who, undaunted even by pain, expressed their opinion that their defeat was due to the needle-gun alone, and showed no want of desire to fight the war over again with equal arms. All, fortunately, so nearly well that a few weeks more restored them to their regiments.

  There were still tenants of the castle hospital at Nachod and of the tents of Königinhof long after peace had been signed, and after the Prussian armies had marched out of Bohemia; but it was quite wonderful how many of the men who were wounded at Nachod and Skalitz had already been dismissed from hospital.

  After the action of Nachod, 3,000 wounded were brought into the castle and town of Nachod alone, besides many who were withdrawn by the retreating Austrians to Skalitz and Königinhof, and afterwards fell into the hands of the Prussians. Of the 3,000 brought to Nachod, 800 still remained; but the rest had been sent away as convalescent, for but few had died, defeating the cares of their nurses. The soldiers still in hospital could not find words to express their gratitude to the ladies, both Catholic and Protestant, who had been their constant attendants night and day, since they were lifted from the stretchers of the krankenträgers into their beds in the hospitals. Many of the recoveries must also be attributed to their care, for they, as all women by a bed of sickness, had a power to soothe suffering men which no surgeons or professional hospital attendants ever seemed to attain to.