The Campaign of Königgrätz. Arthur Lockwood Wagner

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СКАЧАТЬ Trautenau. Believing himself in complete possession of the field, Von Bonin, at 1 o’clock, declined the assistance of the 1st Division of Guards, which had hurried up to Parschnitz, and the division, after a halt of two hours, marched off to the left, towards Eypel. About half past 3 o’clock the entire Xth Corps, under Von Gablentz, arrived on the field, and made a vigorous attack upon the Prussians. Von Bonin’s left wing was turned; and, after fighting six hours, the Prussians were driven from the field, and retreated to the positions from which they had begun their march in the morning.

      The Prussian defeat was due to two causes:

      1. The delay of Von Clausewitz at Parschnitz, when common sense should have prompted him to exceed his orders, and seize the unoccupied town and heights of Trautenau. For two hours these positions were completely undefended by the Austrians, and could have been occupied by Von Clausewitz without firing a shot.4

      2. The fatuity of Von Bonin in declining the assistance of the Guards. Von Bonin knew that Mondl had not been routed, that he had fallen back “slowly and fighting,” and he did not know what other force might be in his immediate front. He had no reason to expect that he would be allowed to pass through the defile without the most stubborn opposition. He knew that he had been opposed by a single brigade, and the plucky resistance of that small force should have made him suspicious that it had stronger forces at its back. His orders were to push on to Arnau, some twelve miles from Trautenau, and to carry out these orders it was necessary to sweep aside the opposition in his front. His declension of assistance when the firing had scarcely ceased, and when the aid of the Guards would have enabled him to clinch his success, was inexcusable. Like Beauregard at Shiloh, Von Bonin seems to have labored under the delusion that a victory could be sufficiently complete while the enemy’s army still remained in his front.5

      The Austrians had certainly gained a brilliant victory. With a force of 33,600 men, they had defeated 35,000 Prussians, armed, too, with breech-loaders, while the victors had only muzzle-loading rifles. The loss of the Prussians was 56 officers and 1,282 men, while the Austrians lost 196 officers and more than 5,000 men. This disparity of loss illustrates the difference in the power of the old and the new rifles; it also speaks volumes for the pluck of the Austrian soldiers.

      But the Austrian victory was doomed to be as fruitless as it was costly; for Prussian skill and valor on other fields obliterated all that was gained by Von Gablentz in the bloody combat of Trautenau.

      The march of the Vth Corps, under Von Steinmetz, lay through the defile of Nachod, five miles in length, in which the entire corps was obliged to march in a single column. The advanced-guard, which had seized Nachod the night before, pushed forward rapidly, beyond the outlet of the defile, to the junction of the roads leading to Skalitz and Neustadt, where it received orders to halt, and thus cover the issue of the main body through the defile. While the advanced-guard was making preparations for bivouacking, its commander, General Von Loewenfeldt, received news of the approach of the Austrian VIth Corps, which, as we have seen, had been ordered upon Nachod. Hastily forming for action, the Prussian advanced guard received the attack of a brigade, which was reinforced until nearly the whole Austrian corps was engaged. It was a desperate struggle of six and one-half battalions, five squadrons and twelve guns, against twenty-one battalions, eighty guns and a greatly superior force of cavalry. For three hours the advanced-guard sustained the unequal conflict, with no other reinforcement than Wnuck’s cavalry brigade. The Prussian force, in one line 3,000 paces long, without reserves, was sorely pressed, until the main body began to issue from the defile and deploy upon the field. The entire Austrian corps was now engaged. Finally, after a successful charge of Wnuck’s cavalry brigade upon the Austrian cuirassiers, and the repulse of a heavy infantry attack, Von Steinmetz assumed the offensive, and the Austrians, defeated with great loss, retreated to Skalitz. In the latter part of this action the Prussians were under the immediate command of the Crown Prince. The Prussian loss was 1,122, killed and wounded; the Austrians lost 7,510, of which number about 2,500 were prisoners.

      N^o. 5.

      POSITION OF BOTH ARMIES ON THE EVENING OF THE 27^TH. JUNE.

      The 1st Division of the Guards halted this night at Eypel; the 2d Division at Kosteletz.

      This day, which had seen two bloody actions fought by the Second Army, was one of inaction on the part of the armies of Frederick Charles. The day was consumed in constructing bridges across the Iser, at Turnau and Podol, and in concentrating the main body of the army on the plateau of Sichrow, preparatory to an attack upon the Austrian position at Münchengrätz.

      JUNE 28TH

      The First Army and the Army of the Elbe made a combined attack upon Count Clam-Gallas at Münchengrätz, the Austrians being assailed in front and on both flanks. The Austrian commander had begun his retreat before the Prussian attack commenced; and after a brief resistance, he fell back upon Gitschin, with a loss of about 2,000 men, killed, wounded and prisoners. The Prussian loss was only 341. The armies of Frederick Charles were now completely united. One division was pushed forward to Rowensko, and the remaining eight, numbering, with the cavalry, upwards of 100,000 men, were concentrated upon an area of about twenty square miles. Some distress began to be felt because of the short supply of food and the difficulty of getting water; for only part of the provision trains had come up, and the Austrian inhabitants, when they abandoned their homes, had filled up the wells. Two roads led east from the Prussian position; one via Podkost, and the other via Fürstenbrück, but both united at Sobotka. The Austrian rear guard was driven from Podkost during the night, and both roads were open for the Prussian advance on the following morning.

      Frederick Charles has been severely (and it would seem justly) criticised for his inaction on the 27th of June. His explicit instructions from Von Moltke should have been enough to cause him to hasten forward, and so threaten the Austrian left as to relieve the pressure on the Crown Prince. And there was another reason for prompt action. As already mentioned, the victory of Podol had opened to Frederick Charles the shortest line to Gitschin, from which place he was now distant only fifteen miles, while Clam-Gallas, at Münchengrätz, was twenty miles away from the same point. The town of Gitschin, like Ivrea in 1800, or Sombref and Quatre-Bras in 1815, had accidentally become a strategic point of the first importance by reason of the relative positions of the opposing armies and the direction of the roads necessary for the concentration of each. All the roads leading from the Iser, from Turnau to Jung Bunzlau, center at Gitschin, whence other roads branch out to Neu Bidsow, Königgrätz, Josephstadt, Königinhof, and other important points. The possession of Gitschin by either army would seriously delay, and perhaps eventually prevent, the concentration of the other. A prompt movement to Gitschin by Frederick Charles would have cut off Clam-Gallas, who could then have effected a junction with Von Benedek only by a circuitous march of such length as to make it probable that his two corps would have been eliminated altogether from the problem solved on the field of Königgrätz. As the Austro-Saxons at Münchengrätz, covering the roads to Prague, could have protected their communications with that city, while menacing the communications of the Prussians with their base, it was, doubtless, necessary to dislodge them from that position; but Frederick Charles might have promptly pushed to Gitschin a force sufficient to seize and hold the place, and still have kept in hand enough troops to defeat Clam-Gallas so heavily as to drive him back in complete rout; for Frederick Charles’ force numbered, at this time, nearly 140,000 men, while Clam-Gallas had not more than 60,000.

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