Koniggratz

Background.
Opposing Armies.
Opening Moves.
The Battlefield.
The Battle.
Prussian Army
Austrian Army
Saxon Army
Photographs
Bibliography

Background.

Prussia had emerged from the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 as the weakest of the five great European powers (England, France, Austria, Russia and Prussia). She seemed far inferior to Austria both in military strength and total population. By 1859, however, the squeaking cogs of the Austrian military machine had been heard by the Prussian General Staff in Berlin. Perhaps what the small monarchy of Piedmont-albeit with French assistance-had recently done for a unified Italian cause might also be achieved by a German confederation under Prussian control?

To this end, Count Otto von Bismarck, first minister of Prussia, addressed all his efforts. From the moment he came to power in 1862 until the outbreak of hostilities in 1866, Bismarck pursued a course whose main objective was securing Prussian domination over Austria and the smaller German states. His policy of aggrandizement was based largely on a strong military program. For Bismarck, as it was for the Prussian military theorist Karl von Clausewitz, war was an extension of state policy by other means. The crushing of democratic Prussian liberalism in 1862 had left the way clear for a confrontation with Austria

A situation now arose that gave Bismarck his chance to inaugurate a series of diplomatic manoeuvres that would nudge Austria along the road to war. For some years, the two duchies of Schleswig and Holstein had been a thorn in the side of both Austria and Prussia, with the kingdom of Denmark claiming sovereignty over both. In 1864, Austrian and Prussian troops under the overall command of Austria invaded the duchies. In January of that year the Danes were defeated and their king, Christian IX, was compelled to sue for peace. By the terms of the Treaty of Vienna, the Danes ceded their rights over both Schleswig and Holstein. The two duchies were placed under the control of Prussia and Austria, Holstein going to Prussia and Austria administering Schleswig.

Such a condominium between Austria and Prussia could not be expected to work without friction. By the summer of 1865, the two powers were on the brink of war, but Bismarck was not ready to enter a conflict at this time-a convention of sorts was arranged and a deal struck at Gastein in Austria, to paper over the cracks and allow a breathing space, during which both sides began to organize their military forces for the showdown that was bound to come.

Bismarck made full use of the lull to win over the Prussian King Wilhelm I and his advises. He also managed to talk round Prussian Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke, who was cool towards an all-out war with Austria, by promising him an alliance with Italy that would divert some of the Austrian forces. The Italians agreed to this alliance provided that in event of a Prussian victory, the province of Venetia would be handed over to them, and that the war with Austria would commence within three months after April 1866. The Mexican war of 1865 had been such a disappointment to the French Emperor Napoleon III that French neutrality was won over by a shadowy assurance of some form of compensation from Bismarck when he met the Napoleon at Biarritz. Bismarck also used his diplomatic skills to neutralize Russia. At last, he could set his sights on the confrontation he had so long desired and so artfully delayed.

On June 1^st, 1866, Austria announced that the settlement of Schleswig and Holstein should be entrusted to the Germanic Confederation, within which she held control. Whereupon Prussia declared that Austria had broken the Convention of Gastein, and she claimed control over both duchies. On the 7^th of June, General Edwin Rochus Freiherr von Manteuffel led a Prussian force of 12,000 troops into Holstein, forcing a much weaker Austrian contingent to retire before him. Austria promptly demanded from the various states of Germany a declaration against Prussia. On the 14^th, the motion was carried by nine votes to six-war with Prussia had come about.

The conflict that followed would show how little the Austrian high command had learned from the catalogue of mistakes made during the 1859 Italian campaign. Although Austria had by now made an attempt to remedy the discrepancy between her strength “on paper” and the real numbers of trained men actually available for a war on two fronts, in tactics and troop control Austria persisted in the archaic methods of a bygone age.