Notes on the War in Germany (June-July 1866)

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No. I Strengths of the Opposing Forces

Written: between June 19 and July 5, 1866; First published: in The Manchester Guardian, No. 6190, June 20, 1866

The following notes are intended to comment impartially, and from a strictly military point of view, upon the current events of the war, and, as far as possible, to point out their probable influence upon impending operations.

The locality where the first decisive blows must be struck is the frontier of Saxony and Bohemia. The war in Italy can scarcely lead to any decisive results so long as the Quadrilateral remains untaken, and to take that will be rather a lengthy operation. There may be a good deal of warlike action in Western Germany, but from the strength of the forces engaged, it will be altogether subordinate in its results to the events on the Bohemian frontier. To this neighbourhood, therefore, we shall, for the present, exclusively direct our attention.

In order to judge of the strength of the contending armies it will suffice, for all practical purposes, if we take into account the infantry only, keeping in mind, however, that the strength of the Austrian cavalry will be to the Prussian as three to two. The artillery will be, in both armies, in about the same proportion as the infantry, say three guns per 1,000 men.

The Prussian infantry consists of 253 battalions of the line, 83 1/2 depot battalions, and 116 battalions of the Landwehr (first levy, containing the men from 27 to 32 years of age). Of these, the depot battalions and Landwehr form the garrisons of the fortresses, and are intended, besides, to act against the smaller German states, while the line is massed in and around Saxony to oppose the Austrian army of the north. Deducting about 15 battalions occupying Schleswig-Holstein, and another 15 battalions--the late garrisons of Rastatt, Mainz, and Frankfurt, now concentrated at Wetzlar--there remain about 220 battalions for the main army. With cavalry and artillery, and such Landwehr as may be drawn from the neighbouring fortresses, this army will contain about 300,000 men, in nine army corps.

The Austrian army of the north counts seven army corps, each of which is considerably stronger than a Prussian one. We know very little at present of their composition and organisation, but there is every reason to believe that they form an army of from 320,000 to 350,000 men. Numerical superiority, therefore, seems assured to the Austrians.

The Prussian army will be under the command-in-chief of the King--that is to say, of a parade soldier of at best very mediocre capacities, and of weak, but often obstinate, character. He will be surrounded, firstly, by the general staff of the army, under General Moltke, an excellent officer; secondly, by his "private military cabinet", composed of personal favourites; and, thirdly, by such other unattached general officers as he may call to his suite. It is impossible to invent a more efficient system for ensuring defeat at the very headquarters of an army. Here is, at the very beginning, the natural jealousy between the staff of the army and the Cabinet of the King, each of which sections will struggle for supreme influence and will concoct and advocate its own pet plan of operations. This alone would render almost impossible all singleness of purpose, all consistent action. But then come the interminable councils of war, which are unavoidable under such circumstances, and which, in nine cases out of ten, end in the adoption of some half measure--the very worst course in war. The orders of to-day, in such cases, generally contradict those of yesterday, and when matters become complicated or threaten to go wrong, no orders at all are given out, and things take their own course. "Ordre, contre-ordre, desordre," as Napoleon used to say. Nobody is responsible, because the irresponsible King takes all responsibility upon himself, and, therefore, nobody does anything until distinctly ordered to do so. The campaign of 1806 was commanded in a similar way by the father of the present King; the defeat of Jena and Auerstadt, and the destruction of the whole Prussian army within three weeks, was the consequence. There is no reason to suppose that the present King is superior in mettle to his father; and if he has found in Count Bismarck a man whose Political direction he can implicitly follow, there is no man of sufficient standing in the army to take exclusive charge, in a similar way, of military matters.

The Austrian army is under the unconditional command of General Benedek, who is an experienced officer and who, at least, knows his mind. The superiority of supreme command is decidedly on the side of the Austrians.

The Prussian troops are subdivided into two "armies"; the first, under Prince Frederick Charles, composed of the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 7th, and 8th corps; the second, under the Crown Prince, of the 5th and 6th corps. The Guards, forming the general reserve, will probably join the first army. Now this subdivision not only breaks the unity of command, but it also induces, very often, the two armies to move on two different lines of operation, to make combined movements, to lay their mutual point of junction within the reach of the enemy; in other words, it tends to keep them separated whereas they ought, as much as possible, to keep together. The Prussians in 1806, and the Austrians in 1859, under very similar circumstances, followed the same course, and were beaten. As to the two commanders, the Crown Prince is an unknown magnitude as a soldier; and Prince Frederick Charles certainly did not show himself to be a great commander in the Danish war.

The Austrian army has no such subdivision; the commanders of the army corps are placed directly under General Benedek. They, are, therefore, again superior to their opponents as far as the organisation of the army goes.

The Prussian soldiers, especially the men of the reserve and such Landwehr men as had to be taken to fill up vacancies in the line (and there are many) go to war against their will; the Austrians, on the contrary, have long wished for a war with Prussia, and await with impatience the order to move. They have, therefore, also the advantage in the morale of the troops.

Prussia has had no great war for fifty years; her army is, on the whole, a peace army, with the pedantry and martinetism inherent to all peace armies. No doubt a great deal has been done latterly, especially since 1859, to get rid of this; but the habits of forty years are not so easily eradicated, and a great number of incapable and pedantic men must still be found, particularly in the most important places--those of the field officers. Now the Austrians have been fundamentally cured of this complaint by the war of 1859, and have turned their dearly-bought experience to the very best use. No doubt, in organisation of detail, in adaptation for, and experience in, warfare, the Austrians again are superior to the Prussians.

With the exception of the Russians the Prussians are the only troops whose normal formation for fighting is the deep close column. Imagine the eight companies of an English battalion in a quarter-distance column, but two companies instead of one farming the front, so that four rows of two companies each form the column, and you have the "Prussian column of attack". A better target for rifled fire-arms than this could not be imagined, and, since rifled cannon can throw a shell into it at 2,000 yards range, such a formation must render it almost impossible to reach the enemy at all. Let one single shell explode in the midst of this mass, and see whether that battalion is fit for anything afterwards on that day.

The Austrians have adopted the loose open column of the French, which is scarcely to be called a column; it is more like two or three lines following each other at 20 or 30 yards distance, and is scarcely, if anything more exposed to losses by artillery than a deployed line. The advantage of tactical formation is, again, on the side of the Austrians.

Against all these advantages the Prussians have but two points to set off. Their commissariat is decidedly better, and the troops will therefore be better fed. The Austrian commissariat, like all Austrian Administration, is one den of bribery and peculation scarcely better than in Russia. Even now we hear of the troops being badly and irregularly fed; in the field and in the fortresses it will be worse still, and the Austrian Administration may happen to be a more dangerous enemy to the fortresses in the Quadrilateral than the Italian artillery.

The second set-off the Prussians have is their superior armament. Although their rifled artillery is decidedly better than that of the Austrians, this will make very little difference in the open field. The range, trajectory, and accuracy of the Prussian and Austrian rifles will be about on a par; but the Prussians have breech-loaders, and can deliver a steady well-aimed fire in the ranks at least four times in a minute. The immense superiority of this arm has been proved in the Danish war, and there is no doubt the Austrians will experience it in a far higher degree. If they, as it is said Benedek has instructed them to do, will not lose much time with firing, but go at the enemy at once with the bayonet, they will have enormous losses. In the Danish war, the loss of the Prussians was never more than one fourth, sometimes only one tenth, of that of the Danes; and, as a military correspondent of The Times a short time ago very correctly pointed out, the Danes were almost everywhere beaten by a minority of troops actually engaged.

Still, in spite of the needle gun, the odds are against the Prussians; and if they refuse to be beaten in the first great battle by the superior leadership, organisation, tactical formation, and morale of the Austrians, and last, not least, by their own commanders, then they must certainly be of a different mettle from that of which a peace army of 50 years' standing may be expected to be.

No. II The disposition of the Opposing Sides

Written: between June 19 and July 5, 1866; First published: in The Manchester Guardian, No. 6194, June 25, 1866

People begin to grow impatient at the apparent inactivity of the two great armies on the Bohemian frontier. But there are plenty of reasons for this delay. Both the Austrians and the Prussians are perfectly aware of the importance of the impending collision, which may decide the result of the whole campaign. Both are hurrying up to the front whatever men they can lay their hands on; the Austrians from their new formations (the fourth and fifth battalions of the infantry regiments), the Prussians from the Landwehr, which at first was intended for garrison duty only.

At the same time, there appears to be on either side an attempt to out-manoeuvre the, opposing army, and to enter upon the campaign under the most favourable strategical conditions. To understand this, we shall have to look at the map and examine the country in which these armies are placed.

Taking it for granted that Berlin and Vienna are the normal points of retreat of the two armies, and that therefore the Austrians will aim at the conquest of Berlin and the Prussians at that of Vienna, there are three routes by which they might operate. A large army requires a certain extent of country from the resources of which it has to live on the march, and is compelled, in order to move quick, to march in several columns on as many parallel roads; its front will, therefore, be extended on a line which may vary between, say, sixty and sixteen miles, according to the proximity of the enemy and the distance of the roads from each other. This will have to be kept in mind.

The first route would be on the left bank of the Elbe and Moldau, by Leipzig and Prague. It is evident that on this route each of the belligerents would have to cross the river twice, the second time in the face of the enemy. Supposing either army to attempt to turn, by this route, the flank of its opponent, the latter, having the shorter, because straighter road, could still anticipate the turning force on the line of the river, and if successful in repelling it, could march straight upon the enemy's capital. This route, equally disadvantageous to both parties, may therefore be dismissed from consideration.

The second route is on the right bank of the Elbe, between it and the Sudetic mountain chain which divides Silesia from Bohemia and Moravia. This is almost on the straight line from Berlin to Vienna; the portion now lying between the two armies is marked out by the railway from Lobau to Pardubitz. This railway passes through that portion of Bohemia which is bounded by the Elbe to the south and west, and the mountains to the north-east. It has plenty of good roads, and if the two armies were to march straight at each other, here would be the point of collision.

The third route is that by Breslau, and thence across the Sudetic Chain. This chain, of no considerable elevation, on the Moravian frontier, where it is crossed by several good roads, rises to greater elevation and abruptness in the Riesengebirge, which forms the boundary of Bohemia. Here there are but few roads across; in fact, between Trautenau and Reichenberg, a distance of forty miles, the whole north-eastern portion of the range is not traversed by a single military road. The only road in existence there, that from Hirschberg to the valley of the Ires, stops short at the Austrian frontier. It follows, then, that this whole barrier of forty miles in length, is impassable, at least for a large army, with its innumerable impediments, and that an advance upon or by Breslau must pass the mountains to the south-west of the Riesengebirge.

Now, what are the relative positions of the two armies, with regard to their communications, if engaged on this route?

The Prussians, by advancing due south from Breslau, lay open their communications with Berlin. The Austrians might, if strong enough to command the almost absolute certainty of victory, leave them to advance as far as the intrenched camp of Olmutz, which would stop them, while they themselves could march upon Berlin, trusting to re-open any temporarily-interrupted communications by a decisive victory; or they might meet the Prussian columns singly as they debouch from the mountains, and, if successful, drive them back upon Glogau and Posen, whereby Berlin and the greater portion of the Prussian states would be at their mercy. Thus an advance by Breslau would be advisable for the Prussians in case of a great numerical superiority only.

The Austrians are in a far different position. They have the advantage that the bulk of the monarchy lies south-east of Breslau; that is, in the direct prolongation of a line drawn from Berlin to Breslau. Having fortified the northern bank of the Danube near Vienna, so as to shelter the capital from a surprise, they may, temporarily and even for a length of time, sacrifice their direct communication with Vienna, and draw their supplies of men and stores from Hungary. They can, therefore, with equal safety operate by way of Lobau and by way of Breslau, to the north or to the south of the hills; they have far greater freedom in manoeuvring than their opponents.

The Prussians, moreover, have further reasons to be cautious. From the northern frontier of Bohemia, the distance to Berlin is not much more than half of that to Vienna; Berlin is so much more exposed. Vienna is sheltered by the Danube, behind which a beaten army can find protection; by the fortifications erected to the north of that river; and by the intrenched camp of Olmutz, which the Prussians could not pass unnoticed with impunity, if the mass of the Austrian army, after a defeat, were to take up a position there. Berlin has no protection of any kind, except the army in the field. Under these circumstances, and those detailed in our first number, the part destined for the Prussians appears to be clearly marked out as a defensive one.

The same series of circumstances, and strong political necessity besides, almost compels Austria to act on the offensive. A single victory may ensure to her great results, while her defeat would not break her power of resistance.

The strategical plan of the campaign in its fundamental features is necessarily very simple. Whichever of the two attacks first, he has only this alternative: either a false attack north-west of the Riesengebirge, and the true attack south-east of it, or vice versa. The forty-mile barrier is the decisive feature of the seat of war, and round it the armies must gravitate. We shall hear of fighting at both its extremities, and a very few days afterwards will clear up the direction of the true attack, and probably the fate of the first campaign. Yet, with two such unwieldy armies opposed to each other, we feel inclined to think that the most direct route is the safest, and that the difficulty and danger of moving such large bodies of troops in separate columns on different roads through a difficult mountain country, will almost naturally draw both opposing armies on the route Lobau-Pardubitz.

The actual movements which have taken place are as follows:--The Prussians, in the first week of June, massed their army of Saxony along the Saxon frontier, from Zeitz to Gorlitz, and their Silesian army from Hirschberg to Neisse. By the 10th June they drew nearer together, having their right wing on the Elbe near Torgau, and their extreme left near Waldenburg. From the 12th to the 16th, the army of Silesia, now consisting of the 1st, 5th, and 6th corps and the Guards, were again extended to the east, this time as far as Ratibor, that is to say, into the extreme south-eastern corner of Silesia. This looks like a feint, especially the parading of the Guards, which are supposed to be always with the main army. If it be more than a feint, or if measures have not been taken to move these four corps back towards Gorlitz at the shortest notice and in the shortest time, then this massing of more than 120,000 men in a remote corner is a palpable mistake; they may be cut off from all possibility of retreat and certainly from all connection with the remainder of the army.

Of the Austrians we know little more than that they were concentrated around Olmutz. The Times correspondent in their camp states that their sixth corps, 40,000 strong, arrived on the 19th from Weisskirchen at Olmutz indicating a movement to the westward. He adds that on the 21st headquarters were to be shifted to Trubau, on the frontier between Moravia and Bohemia. This move would point in the same direction, if it did not look exceedingly like a canard sent on to London with the intention of being thence telegraphed to the Prussian headquarters in order to mislead them. A general who acts with such secrecy as Benedek, and who has such objections to newspaper correspondents, is not likely to inform them on the 19th where his headquarters will be on the 21st, unless he has his reasons for it.

Before concluding, we may be allowed to cast a glance at the operations in North-western Germany. The Prussians had more troops here than was at first known. They had 15 battalions disposable in Holstein, 12 in Minden, and 18 in Wetzlar. By rapid Concentric moves, during which the troops showed a quite unexpected capability of supporting forced marches, they took Possession in two days of all the country north of a line from Coblenz to Eisenach, and of every line of communication between the eastern and western provinces of the kingdom. The Hessian troops, about 7,000 strong, managed to escape, but the Hanoverians, 10,000 or 12,000, had their direct line of retreat towards Frankfurt cut off, and already on the 17th the rest of the 7th Prussian army corps, 12 battalions, together with the two Coburg battalions, arrived in Eisenach from the Elbe. Thus the Hanoverians appear to be hemmed in on all sides, and could escape only by a miracle of stupidity on the part of the Prussians. As soon as their fate will be settled, a force of 50 Prussian battalions will be available against the Federal army which Prince Alexander of Darmstadt is forming at Frankfurt, and which will consist of about 23,000 Wurttembergers, 10,000 Darmstadters, 6,000 Nassauers, 13,000 Badeners (only mobilising now), 7,000 Hessians, and 12,000 Austrians, now on the road from Salzburg; in all about 65,000 men, who may be possibly reinforced by from 10,000 to 20,000 Bavarians. About 60,000 men of these are now reported as already concentrated at Frankfurt, and Prince Alexander has ventured upon a forward move by re-occupying Giessen on the 22d. This, however, is of no consequence. The Prussians will not advance against him until they are well concentrated, and then, with 70,000 men of all arms, and their superior armament, they ought to make short work of this motley army.

No. III The First Battle

Written: between June 19 and July 5, 1866; First published: in The Manchester Guardian, No. 6197, June 28, 1866

The first great battle has been fought, not in Bohemia, but in Italy, and the Quadrilateral has again given the Italians a lesson in strategy. The strength of this famous position, as indeed of all fortified positions of any value, consists, not so much in the high defensive capabilities of its four fortresses, but in their being so grouped in a country with strongly-marked military features that the attacking force is almost always induced, and often compelled, to divide itself and attack on two different points, while the defending force can send its whole combined strength against one of these attacks, crush it by superior numbers, and then turn against the other. The Italian army has been induced to commit this fault. The King stood with eleven divisions on the Mincio, while Cialdini with five divisions faced the Lower Po, near Ponte Lagoscuro and Polesella. An Italian division counts 17 battalions of 700 men each; consequently, Victor Emmanuel would have, with cavalry and artillery, at least 120,000 or 125,000 men, and Cialdini about half that number. While the King crossed the Mincio on the 23d, Cialdini was to cross the Lower Po and act upon the rear of the Austrians; but up to the moment we write, no certain news has arrived of this latter movement having been effected. At all events, the 60,000 men whose presence might, and probably would, have turned the scale on Sunday last at Custozza, cannot, so far, have obtained any advantage at all commensurate to the loss of a great battle.

The Lake of Garda lies encased between two spurs of the Alps, forming, to the south of it, two clusters of hills, between which the Mincio forces its way towards the lagoons of Mantua. Both of these groups form strong military positions; their slopes towards the south overlook the Lombard plain, and command it within gun-range. They are well known in military history. The western group, between Peschiera and Lonato, was the scene of the battles of Castiglione and Lonato in 1796, and of Solferino in 1859; the eastern group, between Peschiera and Verona, was contested during three days in 1848, and again in the battle of last Sunday.

This eastern group of hills slopes down on one side towards the Mincio, where it ends in the plain at Valeggio; on the other side, in a long are, facing south-east, towards the Adige, which it reaches at Bussolengo. It is divided, from north to south, in two about equal portions by a deep ravine, through which flows the rivulet Tione; so that a force advancing from the Mincio will have first to force the passage of the river, and immediately afterwards find itself again arrested by this ravine. On the edge of the slope, facing the plain, and east of the ravine, are the following villages: Custonza, on the southern extremity; further north, in succession, Somma Campagna, Sona, and Santa Giustina. The railway from Peschiera to Verona crosses the hills at Somma Campagna, the high road at Sona.

In 1848, after the Piedmontese had taken Peschiera, they blockaded Mantua and extended their army from beyond that place to Rivoli, on the Lake of Garda, their centre occupying the hills in question. On the 23d July Radetzky advanced with seven brigades from Verona, broke through the centre of this overextended line, and occupied the hills himself. On the 24th and 25th the Piedmontese tried to re-take the position, but were decisively beaten on the 25th, and retreated at once through Milan beyond the Ticino. This first battle of Custozza decided the campaign of 1848.

The telegrams from the Italian headquarters about last Sunday's battle are rather contradictory; but, with the assistance of those from the other side, we get a pretty clear insight into the circumstances under which it was fought. Victor Emmanuel intended his 1st corps (General Durando, four divisions or 68 battalions), to take up a position between Peschiera and Verona, so as to be able to cover a siege of the former place. This position must, of course, be Sona and Somma Campagna. The 2d corps (General Cucchiari, three divisions or 51 battalions) and 3d corps (General Della Rocca, of the same strength as the second) were to cross the Mincio at the same time, to cover the operations of the 1st. The 1st corps must have crossed near or south of Saliongo, and taken the road of the hills at once; the 2d seems to have crossed at Valeggio, and the 3d at Goito, and advanced in the plain. This took place on Saturday the 23d. The Austrian brigade Pulz, which held the outposts on the Mincio, fell slowly back on Verona; and on Sunday, the anniversary of Solferino, the whole of the Austrian army debouched from Verona to meet the enemy. They appear to have arrived in time to occupy the heights of Sona and Somma Campagna, and the eastern edge of the ravine of the Tione before the Italians. The struggle then would principally be fought for the passage of the ravine. At the southern extremity the two corps in the plain could co-operate with the 1st Italian corps in the hills, and thus Custozza fell into their hands. Gradually the Italians in the plain would advance more and more in the direction of Verona, in order to act upon the Austrian flank and rear, and the Austrians would send troops to meet them. Thus the front lines of the two armies, which were originally facing east and west respectively, would wheel round a quarter circle, the Austrians facing south and the Italians north. But, as the hills retreat from Custozza to the north-east, this flank movement of the Italian 2d and 3d corps could not immediately affect the position of their 1st corps in the hills, because it could not be extended far enough without danger to the flanking troops themselves. Thus the Austrians appear merely to have occupied the 2d and 3d corps by troops sufficient to break their first impetus, while they launched every available man upon the 1st corps, and crushed it by superior numbers. They were perfectly successful; the first corps was repulsed, after a gallant struggle, and at last Custozza was stormed by the Austrians. By this, the Italian right wing advanced east and north-east beyond Custozza, appears to have been seriously endangered; consequently a new struggle for the village took place, during which the lost connection must have been restored, and the Austrian advance from Custozza checked, but the place remained in their hands, and the Italians had to re-cross the Mincio the same night.

We give this sketch of the battle, not as a historical account--for which every detail is as yet wanting--but merely as an attempt, map in hand, to reconcile the various telegrams relating to it amongst each other, and with military common sense; and if the telegrams were anything like correct and complete, we feel confident that the general outline of the battle would appear to be not very different from what we have stated.

The Austrians lost about 600 prisoners, the Italians 2,000, and a few guns. This shows the battle to have been a defeat, but no disaster. The forces must have been pretty equally matched, although it is very probable that the Austrians had less troops under fire than their opponents. The Italians have every reason to congratulate themselves that they were not driven back into the Mincio; the position of the 1st corps between that river and the ravine, on a strip of land between two and four miles wide, and a superior enemy in front, must have been one of considerable danger. It was undoubtedly a mistake to send the main body of the troops into the plain; while the commanding heights, the decisive points, were neglected; but the greatest mistake was, as we pointed out before, to divide the army, to leave Cialdini with 60,000 men on the Lower Po, and to attack with the remainder alone. Cialdini could have contributed to a victory before Verona, and then, marching back to the Lower Po, have effected his passage much more easily, if this combined manoeuvre was to be insisted upon at all hazards. As it is, he seems no further advanced than on the first day, and may now have to meet stronger forces than hitherto. The Italians ought, by this time, to know that they have a very tough opponent to deal with. At Solferino, Benedek, with 26,000 Austrians, held the whole Piedmontese army of fully double that number at bay for the whole day, until he was ordered to retreat in consequence of the defeat of the other corps by the French. That Piedmontese army was much superior to the present Italian army; it was better schooled, more homogeneous, and better officered. The present army is but of very recent formation and must suffer from all the disadvantages inherent to such; while the Gustrian army of to-day is much superior to that of 1859. National enthusiasm is a capital thing to work upon, but until disciplined and organised, nobody can win battles with it. Even Garibaldi's "thousand" were not a crowd of mere enthusiasts, they were drilled men who had learnt to obey orders and to face powder and shot in 1859. It is to be hoped that the staff of the Italian army, for their own good, will refrain from taking liberties with an army which, if numerically inferior, is intrinsically superior to theirs, and, moreover, holds one of the strongest positions in Europe.

No. IV The Prussians open with a strategic blunder

Written: between June 19 and July 5, 1866; First published: in The Manchester Guardian, No. 6197, July 3, 1866

Suppose a young Prussian ensign or comet, under examination for a lieutenancy, to be asked what would be the safest plan for a Prussian army to invade Bohemia? Suppose our young officer were to answer,--"Your best way will be to divide your troops into two about equal bodies, to send one round by the east of the Riesengebirge, the other to the west, and effect their junction in Gitschin." What would the examining officer say to this? He would inform the young gentleman that this plan sinned against the two very first laws of strategy:--Firstly, never to divide your troops so that they cannot support each other, but to keep them well together; and, secondly, in case of an advance on different roads, to effect the junction of the different columns at a point which is not within reach of the enemy; that, therefore, the plan proposed was the very worst of all; that it could only be taken into consideration at all in case Bohemia was quite unoccupied by hostile troops; and that, consequently, an officer proposing such a plan of campaign was not fit to hold even a lieutenant's commission.

Yet, this is the very plan which the wise and learned staff of the Prussian army have adopted. It is almost incredible; but it is so. The mistake for which the Italians had to suffer at Custozza, has been again committed by the Prussians, and under circumstances which made it ten-fold worse. The Italians knew at least that, with ten divisions, they would be numerically superior to the enemy. The Prussians must have known that if they kept their nine corps together they would be at best barely on a par, as far as numbers went, with Benedek's eight corps; and that by dividing their troops they exposed the two armies to the almost certain fate of being crushed in succession by superior numbers. It would be completely inexplicable how such a plan could ever be discussed, much less adopted, by a body of such unquestionably capable officers as form the Prussian staff--if it was not for the fact of King William being in chief command. But nobody could possibly expect that the fatal consequences of kings and princes taking high command would come out so soon and so strong. The Prussians are now Sighting, in Bohemia, a life-and-death struggle. If the junction of the two armies at or about Gitschin is prevented, if each of the two, being beaten, has to retire out of Bohemia, and, by retiring, to get further away again from the other then the campaign may be said to be virtually over. Then Benedek may leave the army of the Crown Prince unnoticed while it retires towards Breslau, and follow up, with all his forces, the army of Prince Frederick Charles, which can hardly escape utter destruction.

The question is, Will this junction have been prevented? Up to the moment we write we have no news of events later than Friday evening, the 29th. The Prussians, beaten out of Gitschin (the name of the place, in Bohemian, is spelt Jicin) on the 28th by General Edelsheim, claim to have stormed the town again on the 29th, and this is the last information we possess. The junction was not then effected; at least four Austrian and parts of the Saxon army corps had then been engaged against about five or six Prussian corps.

The various columns of the army of the Crown Prince, as they descended into the valley on the Bohemian side of the hills, were met by the Austrians at favourable points where the valley, widening out, allowed them to offer a larger front to the Prussian columns, and to attempt to prevent them from deploying; while the Prussians would send troops, wherever practicable, through the lateral valleys, to take their opponents in flank and rear. This is always the case in mountain warfare, and accounts for the great number of prisoners that are always made under such circumstances. On the other side, the armies of Prince Frederick Charles and Herwarth von Bittenfeld appear to have got through the passes almost unopposed; the first engagements took place on the line of the Ires river, that is almost midway between the Starting points of the two armies. It would be idle to try to disentangle and bring into harmony the fearfully contradictory, and often totally unauthenticated, telegrams which have come to hand these last three or four days.

The fighting has been necessarily very much chequered in its results: as new forces came up, victory favoured first one and then the other side. Up to Friday, however, the general result appears to have been, so far, in favour of the Prussians. If they maintained themselves in Gitschin, no doubt the junction was effected on Saturday or Sunday, and then their greatest danger would be passed. The final fight for the junction would probably be fought with concentrated masses on both sides, and decide the campaign for some time, at least. If the Prussians were victorious, they would be at once out of all their self-begotten difficulties, but they might have obtained the same, and even greater, advantages without exposing themselves to such unnecessary dangers.

The fighting appears to have been very severe. The very first Austrian brigade which met the Prussians in battle, was the "black and yellow" brigade, which, in Schleswig, stormed the Konigsberg, near Oberselk, the day before the evacuation of the Dannevirke. It is called black and yellow after the facings of the two regiments composing it, and was always considered one of the best brigades in the service. They were, however, beaten by the needle-gun, and above 500 men of one of its regiments (Martini) were taken prisoners after they had charged the Prussian lines five times in vain. In a later engagement, the colours of the 3d battalion, of the Deutschmeister regiment were taken. This regiment, recruited in Vienna exclusively, is considered the best in the whole army. Thus the very best troops have been already in action. The Prussians must have behaved splendidly for an old peace army. When war was actually declared, a totally different spirit came over the army, brought on, chiefly, by the clearing-out of the small fry of potentates in the north-west. It gave the troops--rightly or wrongly, we merely register the fact--the idea that they were asked to fight, this time, for the unification of Germany, and the hitherto sullen and sulky men of the reserve and Landwehr then crossed the frontier of Austria with loud cheers. It is owing to this chiefly that they fought so well; but at the same time we must ascribe the greater portion of whatever success they have had to their breech-loaders; and if they ever get out of the difficulties into which their generals so wantonly placed them, they will have to thank the needle-gun for it. The reports as to its immense superiority over the muzzle-loaders are again unanimous. A sergeant from the Martini regiment, taken prisoner, said to the correspondent of the Cologne Gazette:

"We have surely done whatever may be expected from brave soldiers, but no man can stand against that rapid fire.

If the Austrians are beaten, it will be not so much General Benedek or General Ramming as General Ramrod who is to blame for the result.

In the north-west, the Hanoverians, brought to a sense of their position by a sharp attack from General Manteuffel's advanced guard under General Flies, have surrendered, and thereby 59 Prussian battalions will be at liberty to act against the Federal troops. It was high time, too, that this should be done before Bavaria had completed all her armaments, for otherwise much stronger forces would be required to subdue South-western Germany. Bavaria is notoriously always slow and behindhand with her military arrangements, but when they are complete, she can bring into the field from 60,000 to 80,000 good troops. We may now soon hear of a rapid concentration of Prussians on the Main and of active operations against Prince Alexander of Hesse Darmstadt and his army.

No. V A Prussian Victory due to their tactical superiority

Written: between June 19 and July 5, 1866; First published: in The Manchester Guardian, No. 6204, July 6, 1866

The campaign which the Prussians opened with a signal strategic blunder has been since carried on by them with such a terrible tactical energy that it was brought to a victorious close in exactly eight days.

We said in our last note that the only case in which the Prussian plan of invading Bohemia by two armies separated by the Riesengebirge could be justified was that in which Bohemia was unoccupied by hostile troops. The mysterious plan of General Benedek appears to have mainly consisted in creating a situation of that sort. There appear to have been but two Austrian army corps-the 1st (Clam-Gallas) and the 6th (Ramming)--in the north-western corner of Bohemia, where, from the beginning, we expected the decisive actions would be fought. If this was intended to draw the Prussians into a trap, Benedek has succeeded so well that he got caught in it himself. At all events, the Prussian advance on two lines, with from forty to fifty miles of impassable ground between them, towards a point of junction two full marches from the starting points, and within the enemy's lines,--this advance remains a highly dangerous manoeuvre under all circumstances, and one which would have been followed by signal defeat but for Benedek's strange slowness, for the unexpected dash of the Prussian troops, and for their breech-loading rifles.

The advance of Prince Frederick Charles took place with three corps (the 3d, 4th, and 2d, the latter in reserve) by Reichenberg, north of a difficult range of hills, on the southern side of which General Herwarth advanced with a corps and a half (the 8th and one division of the 7th). At the same time, the Crown Prince stood, with the 1st, 5th, and 6th corps, and the Guards, in the mountains about Glatz. Thus the army was divided into three columns--one on the right, of 45,000, one in the centre, of 90,000, and one on the left, of 120,000 men--none of which could support either of the others for at least several days. Here, if ever, there was a chance for a general commanding at least an equal number of men to crush his opponents in detail. But nothing appears to have been done. On the 26th Prince Frederick Charles had the first serious engagement, at Turnau, with a brigade of the Ist corps, by which he established his communication with Herwarth; on the 27th, the latter took Munchehgratz, while, of the army of the Crown Prince, a first column, the 5th corps, advanced beyond Nachod, and beat the 6th Austrian corps (Ramming) severely; on the 28th, the only slightly unlucky day for the Prussians, Prince Frederick Charles's advance guard took Gitschin, but was again dislodged by General Edelsheim's cavalry, while the 1st corps of the army of the Crown Prince was checked with some loss at Trautenau by the 10th Austrian corps of Gablenz, and only disengaged by the advance of the Guards towards Eipel, on an intermediate road between the 1st and 5th Prussian corps. On the 29th, Prince Frederick Charles stormed Gitschin, and the army of the Crown Prince totally defeated the 6th, 8th, and 10th Austrian corps. On the 30th, a fresh attempt of Benedek's to re-take Gitschin by the Ist corps and the Saxon army was signally foiled, and the two Prussian armies effected a junction. The Austrian loss represents men to the number of at least a corps and a half, while that of the Prussians is less than one fourth that number.

Thus we find that on the 27th there were only two Austrian army corps, of about 33,000 men each, at hand; on the 28th, three; on the 29th, four, and if one Prussian telegram be correct, part of a fifth (the 4th corps); while on the 30th the Saxon army corps only had been able to come up in support. There were, then, two, if not three, corps absent from the contested ground during all that time, while the Prussians brought every man down into Bohemia. In fact, up to the evening of the 29th, the whole of the Austrian troops on the spot were barely superior in numbers to either of the two Prussian armies, and being brought into line successively, the supports arriving after the defeat only of the troops first engaged, the result was disastrous.

The 3d army corps (Archduke Ernst), which fought at Custozza, is reported to have been sent to the north by rail immediately after that battle, and is, in some accounts, set down among Benedek's available forces. This corps, which would make the whole force, including the Saxons, nine corps, could not have been up in time for the battles in the latter days of June.

The Prussians, whatever the faults of their plan of operations were, made up for them by their rapidity and energy of action. No fault can be found with the operations of either of their two armies. Short, sharp, and decisive were all their blows, and completely successful. Nor did this energy forsake them after the two armies were joined; on they marched, and already on the 3d they met Benedek's combined forces with the whole of theirs, and gave them a last crushing blow.

It is hardly possible to suppose that Benedek accepted this battle of his own free will. No doubt the rapid pursuit of the Prussians compelled him to take a strong position with all his army, in order to reform his troops, and to give a day's start to his retiring army train, expecting not to be attacked in force during the day, and to be able to draw off during the night. A man in his position, with four of his corps completely shattered, and after such tremendous losses, cannot have desired, there and then, to deliver a decisive battle, if he could draw off in safety. But the Prussians appear to have compelled him to fight, and the result was the complete rout of the Austrians, who, if the armistice be not granted, will now be trying to make towards Olmutz or Vienna, under the most disadvantageous circumstances, for the slightest out-flanking movement of the Prussians on their right must cut off numerous detachments from the direct road, and drive them into the hills of Glatz, to he made prisoners. The "army of the north", as splendid a host as there was in Europe ten days ago, has ceased to exist.

No doubt the needle-gun, with its rapid fire, has done a great part of this. It may be doubted whether without it the junction of the two Prussian armies could have been effected; and it is quite certain that this immense and rapid success could not have been obtained without such superior fire, for the Austrian army is habitually less subject to panic than most European armies. But there were other circumstances co-operating. We have already mentioned the excellent dispositions and unhesitating action of the two Prussian armies, from the moment they entered Bohemia. We may add that they also deviated, in this campaign, from the column system, and brought their masses forward principally in deployed lines, so as to bring every rifle into activity, and to save their men from the fire of artillery. We must acknowledge that the movements both on the march and before the enemy were carried out with an order and punctuality which no man could have expected from an army and administration covered with the rust of fifty years peace. And, finally, all the world must have been surprised at the dash displayed by these young troops in each and every engagement without exception. It is all very well to say the breech-loaders did it, but they are not self-acting, they want stout hearts and strong arms to carry them. The Prussians fought very often against superior numbers, and were almost everywhere the attacking party; the Austrians, therefore, had the choice of ground. And in attacking strong positions and barricaded towns, the advantages of the breech-loader almost disappear; the bayonet has to do the work, and there has been a good deal of it. The cavalry, moreover, acted with the same dash, and with them cold steel and speed of horse are the only weapons in a charge. The French canards of Prussian cavalry lines first peppering their opponents with carbine fire (breech-loading or otherwise) and then rushing at them sword in hand, could only originate among a people whose cavalry has very often been guilty of that trick, and always been punished for it by being borne down by the superior impetus of the charging enemy. There is no mistaking it, the Prussian army has, within a single week, conquered a position as high as ever it held, and may well feel confident now to be able to cope with any opponent. There is no campaign on record where an equally signal success, in an equally short time, and without any noteworthy check, has been obtained, except that campaign of Jena which annihilated the Prussians of that day, and, if we except the defeat of Ligny, the campaign of Waterloo.