BENDL, KAREL (1838-1897), Bohemian was born on April 16, 1838, at Prague. He studied at the organ school, and in 1858 had already composed a number of small choral works. In 1861 his Poletuje holubice won a prize and at once be came a favourite with the local choral societies. In 1864 Bendl went to Brussels, where for a short time he held the post of second conductor of the opera. After visiting Amsterdam and Paris he returned to Prague. Here in 1865 he was appointed con ductor of the choral society known as Hlahol, and he held the post until 1879, when Baron Dervies engaged his services for his private band. Bendl's first opera Le jla was produced in 1868. It was followed by Bretislav a Jitka (187o), Stary 2enich, a comic opera (1883), Karel Skreta (1883), Dite Tabora, a prize opera (1892), and ,Mdti Mila (1891). Other works by Bendl are In dicka Princezna, an operetta (1877), Cernohorci, a prize opera (1881), Carovny Kve t (1875). Bendl published a mass in D minor for male voices and another mass for a mixed choir; two songs to Ave Maria; a violin sonata and a string quartet in F; and a quantity of songs and choruses in the national style. Bendl helped Dvofak in his early days by lending him scores which he was too poor to buy. He died on Sept. 20, 1897, at Prague. BENEDEK, LUDWIG, RITTER VON (1804-1881), Austrian general, was born at Odenburg in Hungary on July 14, 1804, his father being a doctor. He received his commission in the Austrian army as ensign in 1822, and rose rapidly in the service. He dis tinguished himself in the campaigns of Galicia (1846), Italy (1847-48), and Hungary (1849). In the Hungarian campaign he served on Radetzky's (q.v.) staff. In the war of 1859 in Italy, Benedek commanded the VIII. corps, and at the battle of Solfer ino was in command of the right of the Austrian position. That portion of the struggle which was fought out between Benedek and the Piedmontese army is sometimes called the battle of San Martino. Benedek covered the retreat of the rest of the Austrian army to the Mincio. His reputation was now at its highest, and his great popularity was enhanced, in the prevailing discontent with the reactionary and clerical government of previous years, by the fact that he was a Protestant and not of noble birth. He was promoted Feldzeugmeister and in 1860 appointed quarter master-general to the army, and soon afterwards governor general and commander-in-chief in Hungary, in succession to the archduke Albert. In 1861 he was made commander-in-chief in Venetia and the adjoining provinces of the empire. In 1864 he resigned the quartermaster-generalship and devoted himself ex clusively to the command of the army in Italy. In 1861 he had been made a life-member of the house of peers. In 1866 war with Prussia and with Italy became imminent. Benedek was appointed to command the Army of the North against the Prussians, the control of affairs in Italy being taken over by the archduke Albert. For the story of the campaign of Koniggratz, in which the Aus trians under Benedek's command were decisively defeated, see SEVEN WEEKS' WAR. Benedek took over his new command as a stranger to the country and to the troops. Only the personal command of the emperor and the requests of the archduke Albert prevailed upon him to "sacrifice his honour." When he took the field his despondency was increased by the passive obstruction he met with amongst his officers, and by the unpreparedness which he found existing at the front. Further his assistants, Lieutenant Field Marshal von Henikstein, and Major-General Krismanic in particular, endeavoured to control Benedek's opera tions in the spirit of the 18th-century strategists. Under these circumstances, and against the superior numbers, moral and arma ment of the Prussians, the Austrians were foredoomed to defeat. A series of partial actions convinced Benedek that success was unattainable, and he telegraphed to the emperor advising him to make peace ; the emperor refused on the ground that no decisive battle had been fought ; Benedek, thereupon, instead of retreating across the Elbe, determined to bring on a decisive engagement, and took up a position with the whole of his forces near Konig gratz with the Elbe in his rear. Here he was completely defeated by the Prussians on July 3, but they could not prevent him from making good his retreat over the river in magnificent order on the evening of the battle. He conducted the operations of his army in retreat up to the great concentration at Vienna under the archduke Albert, and was then suspended from his command and a court-martial ordered ; the emperor, however, in December determined that the inquiry should be stopped. Benedek from this time lived in absolute retirement, and having given his word of honour to the archduke Albert that he would not attempt to rehabilitate himself before the world, he published no defence of his conduct, and even destroyed his papers relating to the campaign of 1866. This attitude of self-sacrificing loyalty he maintained even when on Nov. 8, 1866, the official Wiener Zeitung published an article in which he was made responsible for all the disasters of the war. The history of the campaign from the Austrian point of view as at present known leaves much unex plained, and the published material is primarily of a controversial character. There can be little doubt that Benedek was the victim of political necessities, perhaps of court intrigues. For the rest of his life he lived at Graz, where he died on April 27, 1881.
See H. Friedjung, Benedeks nachgelassene Papiere (Leipzig, i9oi, 3rd and enlarged ed., 1904), and Der Kampf um die Vorherrschaft in Deutschland 1859-1866 (Stuttgart, 1897 ; 6th ed., 19o4—o5) ; V. Schlichtling, Moltke and Benedek (19oo) ; A. Krauss, Molte, Benedek and Napoleon (i9oi) ; and a roman a cle by Grafin Salburg, entitled Konigsglaube (Dresden, 'goo). The brief memoir in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie represents the court view of Benedek's case.