THE BATTLE OF KONIGGRATZ (OR SADOWA) The Prussian Plans.—On July 1 two great hosts of nearly a quarter of a million men each (the largest forces that met on one battlefield till the World War of 1914) lay within a few miles of each other. It might have been expected that a "set-piece" battle would ensue; that the Austrian army, now thrown on the defensive, would select the most favourable position in which to await attack, and that the Prussians of ter due reconnaissance would assault, if unable to manoeuvre their enemies out of their selected position. Actually, on July 3, 1866, these two great armies blundered into battle on a field and in circumstances which neither commander had chosen nor foreseen. The incidents which led up to this result deserve some attention. They showed that the art of reconnaissance had been forgotten with the passing of Napoleon. Neither Prussian nor Austrian army had any other employment for its numerous cavalry than to await the oppor tunity for a charge on the battlefield. Hence, though only a few miles apart, they completely lost touch with each other for more than 48 hours, and made their dispositions blindfold.
To consider first the Prussian plans. Von Moltke had de liberately kept an interval of half a day's march between the I. and II. Armies, though there was no longer any bar to their close assembly. He had realized—he was the first to do so—that the ' union of two forces from different points on the field of battle itself, the one striking the enemy frontally, the other in flank, had been made possible by modern inventions and would lead to decisive results. The method by which he proposed in this in stance to put his theories into practice is characteristic. He set himself a tactical problem—to select the best defensive position for the Austrian army—solved it to his own satisfaction by plac ing his opponents east of the Elbe with flanks on the fortified crossings of Josef stadt and Kiiniggratz, and issued orders to the Prussian forces accordingly, without ascertaining by reconnais sance whether or not Benedek had arrived at the same able solution of the problem. Moltke's orders for July 3 directed the I. Army and Army of the Elbe towards Koniggratz and Pardubitz, while the II. Army on the left bank of the Elbe was to reconnoitre the line of the Aupa and Mettau rivers with a view to advancing next day against the supposed right flank of the Austrians. Actually, the Austrian army was still west of the Elbe, so that had Moltke's orders been executed the I. Army would have been exposed unsupported to the whole Austrian army, and could hardly have avoided defeat. The chain of events which modified these orders and made a Prussian victory possible was as follows. On the evening of July 2 Prince Frederick Charles sent out reconnaissances and discovered that there was a large Austrian force between the Bistritz and the Elbe, though he did not yet realize that the whole Austrian army was there. He at
once made preparations to attack this force on the morning of the 3rd, and sejit a letter to the Crown Prince to ask for one of the latter's Corps to cover his left flank. The Crown Prince was asleep when the letter reached his H.Q. at 2 A.M. and his Chief of Staff, Blumenthal, without awakening him refused Prince Frederick Charles' request. Meanwhile, however, duplicates of the I. Army's orders had reached Moltke, who was prompt to realize the situation and instant to decide. Orders were sent forthwith from Imperial H.Q. for the Crown Prince to co-operate with his whole army. These orders did not reach him till 4 A.M. of the morning of the battle.
Austrian Dispositions.—The retreat towards Koniggratz on July I had been confused by bad staff work. On July 2 there fore the army halted to rest instead of crossing to the east of the Elbe, as seems to have been the original intention. Mean while Benedek, who had now lost all faith in his advisers and in his troops as well as in himself, telegraphed to his emperor ad vising the immediate conclusion of peace. The emperor's reply "Has a battle been fought?" seems to have resolved Benedek to stand and fight. The full history of his correspondence with the Emperor and of the instructions he received at this crisis has never been disclosed. Pressure was probably brought on him to give battle against his better judgment, but after the disaster he accepted his disgrace and loyally kept silence. Whether in any case he intended to fight a decisive battle west of the Elbe or on July 3 is doubtful. His orders, issued late at night on July 2, are almost incredibly bad judged as orders for a decisive battle. Bonnal, the author of Sadowa, says : "Except at Ulm and Sedan, no worse dispositions for an army about to accept battle have ever been made." It is, however, more likely that Benedek's dispositions were made merely with a view to providing for the safety of his army during another day's rest, after which he proposed to take up a position behind the Elbe. If so, he once again showed his disregard of the time factor. The orders pro vided for the army to occupy a semi-circular position between the Trotina and Bistritz streams with the centre in front of the village of Chlum, about 1 o miles north-west of Koniggratz. A mile or so north of Chlum lies the Swiep Wald, in the struggle for which the issue of the battle was decided. The position might have been made a reasonably strong one, but the orders were vague and crude and did not reach some of the Austrian corps till 6 A.M., by which time the advanced troops on both sides were already in contact. Henikstein and KrismaniC, as well as Clam Gallas, had been superseded, but the new Chief of Staff, Baumgarten, did not arrive till the morning of the battle.