The Austro-Prussian War

[Menydh]

The Austro-Prussian War


A.D. 1866

Charles A. Fyffe

This conflict, called also the Seven Weeks' War, was productive of results not to be measured by the duration of the struggle in the field - the total exclusion of Austria from political control in Germany, and the rise of Prussia to a position of primacy among the German States. The annexation of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia, as a consequence of the war, not only aggrandized that kingdom, but made an important change in the relations of the duchies so annexed.

The "Schleswig-Holstein question" was the cause of the war-that and the ancient rivalry between Austria and Prussia. The Schleswig-Holstein question is one of the most complicated matters in modern history. The two duchies had been long united under a single duke. When ducal heirs failed, Denmark undertook the government of both duchies, which were "never to be separated." Schleswig was a vassal State of Denmark, and Holstein of Germany. When in 1846 the duchies demanded local independence, Denmark attempted to absorb them, and German troops were sent to their assistance. Denmark secured a provisional triumph, and adhered to her purpose of incorporating the duchies with her own territory. In 1864 Schleswig and Holstein were occupied by the allied forces of Austria and Prussia, and the "Danish War" ensued, in which the duchies were quickly wrested from Denmark to be disposed of by the other two Powers. This war furnished a notable example of the fact that royal alliances no longer control the fate of nations. Only the year before the Prince of Wales had wedded the Crown Princess of Denmark, yet Denmark was robbed of territory with no protest from England.

For many years Austria had been dominant in Germany and had subjected Prussia to her will. On the accession of William 1, in j861, Prussia began to assert her independence, and this new policy was aggressively pursued by Count Otto von Bismarck, the King's minister. He strengthened the army, and directed his schemes against Austria. It had been agreed that Prussia should govern Schleswig, while Holstein was to be ruled by Austria. Bismarck accused Austria of violating this agreement, and, after various moves by both sides, warlike preparations were begun. In April, 1866, a treaty of alliance was signed between Prussia and Italy, while several German States took the part of Austria.

ON March 16, 1866, the Austrian Government announced that it should refer the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein to the Federal Diet. This was a clear departure from the terms of the Convention of Gastein [A treaty concluded between Austria and Prussia at Wildbad Gastein, August 14, 1865, by which the duchies conquered from Denmark were disposed of. -ED.], and from the agreement made between Austria and Prussia before entering into the Danish War in 1864 that the Schleswig-Holstein question should be settled by the two Powers independently of the German Federation. King William was deeply moved by such a breach of good faith; tears filled his eyes when he spoke of the conduct of the Austrian Emperor, Francis Joseph; and though pacific influences were still active around him, he now began to fall in more cordially with the warlike policy of his minister. The question at issue between Prussia and Austria expanded from the mere disposal of the duchies to the reconstitution of the federal system of Germany. In a note laid before the Governments of all the minor States, Bismarck declared that the time had come when Germany must receive a new and more effective organization, and inquired how far Prussia could count on the support of allies if it should be attacked by Austria or forced into war. Immediately after this reopening of the whole problem of federal reform in Germany the draft of the treaty with Italy was brought to its final shape by Bismarck and the Italian envoy, and sent to the Ministry at Florence for its approval.

Bismarck had now to make the best use of the three-months' delay that was granted to him. On the day after the acceptance of the treaty by the Italian Government the Prussian representative at the Diet of Frankfort handed in a proposal for the summoning of a German parliament, to be elected by universal suffrage. Coming from the minister who had made parliamentary government a mockery in Prussia, this proposal was scarcely considered as serious. Bavaria, as the chief of the secondary States, had already expressed its willingness to enter upon the discussion of federal reform, but it asked that the two leading Powers should in the mean time undertake not to attack each other. Austria at once acceded to this request, and so forced Bismarck into giving a similar assurance. Promises of disarmament were then exchanged; but as Austria declined to stay the collection of its forces in Venetia against Italy, Bismarck was able to charge his adversary with insincerity in the negotiation, and preparations for war were resumed on both sides. Other difficulties now came into view. The treaty between Prussia and Italy had been made known to the Court of Vienna by Napoleon, whose advice La Marmora, the Italian minister, had sought before its conclusion, and the Austrian Emperor had thus become aware of his danger. He now determined to sacrifice Venetia if Italy's neutrality could be so secured. On May 5th the Italian ambassador at Paris, Count Nigra, was informed by Napoleon that Austria had offered to cede Venetia to him in behalf of Victor Emmanuel if France and Italy would not prevent Austria from indemnifying itself at Prussia's expense in Silesia.

Without a war, at the price of mere inaction, Italy was offered all that it could gain by a struggle which was likely to be desperate and which might end in disaster.

La Marmora was in sore perplexity. Though he had formed a juster estimate of the capacity of the Prussian army than any other statesman or soldier in Europe, he was thoroughly suspicious of the intentions of the Prussian Government; and in sanctioning the alliance of the previous month he had done so half expecting that Bismarck would through the prestige of this alliance gain for Prussia its own objects without entering into war, and then leave Italy to reckon with Austria as best it might. He would gladly have abandoned the alliance and have accepted Austria's offer if Italy could have done this without disgrace. But the sense of honor was sufficiently strong to carry him past this temptation. He declined the offer made through Paris, and continued the armaments of Italy, though still with a secret hope that European diplomacy might find the means of realizing the purpose of his country without war.

The neutral Powers were now, with various objects, bestirring themselves in favor of a European congress. Napoleon believed the time to be come when the treaties of 1815 might be finally obliterated by the joint act of Europe. He was himself ready to join Prussia with three hundred thousand men if the King would transfer the Rhenish Provinces to France. Demands, direct and indirect, were made on Count Bismarck in behalf of the Tuileries for cessions of territory of greater or less extent. These demands were neither granted nor refused. Bismarck procrastinated; he spoke of the obstinacy of the King his master; he inquired whether parts of Belgium or Switzerland would not better assimilate with France than a German Province; he put off the Emperor's representatives by the assurance that he could more conveniently arrange these matters with the Emperor when he should himself visit Paris. On May 28th invitations to a congress were issued by France, England, and Russia jointly, the objects of the congress being defined as the settlement of the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein, of the differences between Austria and Italy, and of the reform of the Federal Constitution of Germany, in so far as these affected Europe at large. The invitation was accepted by Prussia and by Italy; it was accepted by Austria only under the condition that no arrangement should be discussed which should give an increase of territory or power to one of the States invited to the congress.

This subtly worded condition would not indeed have excluded the equal aggrandizement of all. It would not have rendered the cession of Venetia to Italy or the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia impossible; but it would either have involved the surrender of the former Papal territory by Italy in order that Victor Emmanuel's dominions should receive no increase, or, in the alternative, it would have entitled Austria to claim Silesia as its own equivalent for the augmentation of the Italian Kingdom. Such reservations would have rendered any efforts of the Powers to preserve peace useless, and they were accepted as tantamount to a refusal on the part of Austria to attend the congress. Simultaneously with its answer to the neutral Powers Austria called upon the Federal Diet to take the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein into its own hands, and convoked the Holstein Estates. Bismarck thereupon declared the Convention of Gastein to be at an end, and ordered General Manteuffel to lead his troops into Holstein. The Austrian commander, protesting that he yielded only to superior force, withdrew through Altona into Hanover.

Austria at once demanded and obtained from the Diet of Frankfort the mobilization of the whole of the federal armies. The representative of Prussia, declaring that this act of the Diet had made an end of the existing federal union, handed in the plan of his Government for the reorganization of Germany, and quitted Frankfort. Diplomatic relations between Austria and Prussia were broken off on June 12th, and on the 15th Count Bismarck demanded of the sovereigns of Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Cassel that they should on that very day put a stop to their military preparations and accept the Prussian scheme of federal reform. Negative answers being given, Prussian troops immediately marched into these territories, and war began. Weimar, Mecklenburg, and other petty States in the north took part with Prussia; all the rest of Germany joined Austria.

The goal of Bismarck's desire, the end he had steadily set before himself since entering upon his ministry, was attained; and, if his calculations as to the strength of the Prussian army were not at fault, Austria was at length to be expelled from the German Federation by force of arms. But the process by which Bismarck had worked up to this result had ranged against him the almost unanimous opinion of Germany outside the military circles of Prussia itself. His final demand for the summoning of a German parliament was taken as mere comedy. The guiding star of his policy had hitherto been the dynastic interest of the house of Hohenzollern; and now, when the Germans were to be plunged into war with one another, it seemed as if the real object of the struggle was no more than the annexation of the Danish duchies and some other coveted territory to the Prussian Kingdom. The voice of protest and condemnation rose loud from every organ of public opinion. Even in Prussia itself the instances were few where any spontaneous support was tendered to the Government.

The Parliament of Berlin, struggling up to the end against the all-powerful minister, had seen its members prosecuted for speeches made within its own walls, and had at last been prorogued in order that its insubordination might not hamper the Crown in the moment of danger. But the mere disappearance of Parliament could not conceal the intensity of ill-will which the minister and his policy had excited. The author of a fratricidal war of Germans against Germans was in the eyes of many the greatest of all criminals; and on May 7th an attempt was made by a young fanatic to kill Bismarck in the streets of Berlin. The minister owed the preservation of his life to the feebleness of his assailant's weapon and to his own vigorous arm. But the imminence of the danger affected King William far more than Bismarck himself. It spoke to his simple mind of supernatural protection and aid; it stilled his doubts and confirmed him in the belief that Prussia was in this crisis the instrument for working out the Almighty's will.

A few days before the outbreak of hostilities the Emperor Napoleon gave publicity to his own view of the European situation. He attributed the coming war to three causes: To the faulty geographical limits of the Prussian State, to the desire for a better federal system in Germany, and to the necessity felt by the Italian nation for securing its independence. These needs would, he conceived, be met by a territorial rearrangement in the north of Germany consolidating and augmenting the Prussian Kingdom; by the creation of a more effective federal union between the secondary German States; and finally, by the incorporation of Venetia with Italy, Austria's position in Germany remaining unimpaired.

Only in the event of the map of Europe being altered to the exclusive advantage of one great Power would France require an extension of frontier. Its interests

lay in the preservation of the equilibrium of Europe, and in the maintenance of the Italian Kingdom. These had already been secured by arrangements which would not require France to draw the sword; a watchful but unselfish neutrality was the policy which its Government had determined to pursue. Napoleon had in fact lost all control over events, and all chance of gaining the Rhenish Provinces, from the time when he permitted Italy to enter into the Prussian alliance without any stipulation that France should at its option be admitted as a third member of the coalition. He could not ally himself with Austria against his own creation, the Italian Kingdom; on the other hand, he had no means of extorting cessions from Prussia when once Prussia was sure of an ally who could bring two hundred thousand men into the field. His diplomacy had been successful in so far as it had assured Venetia to Italy whether Prussia should be victorious or overthrown, but as regarded France it had landed him in absolute powerlessness. He was unable to act on one side; he was not wanted on the other. Neutrality had become a matter, not of choice, but of necessity; and until the course of military events should have produced some new situation in Europe, France might well be watchful, but it could scarcely gain much credit for its disinterested part. [On May 11th Nigra, Italian ambassador at Paris, reported that Napoleon's ideas on the objects to be attained by a congress were as follows: Venetia to Italy; Silesia to Austria; the Danish duchies and other territory in North Germany to Prussia; the establishment of several small States on the Rhine under French protection; the dispossessed German princes to be compensated in Roumania. Napoleon III was pursuing in a somewhat altered form the old German policy of the republic and the empire - namely, the balancing of Austria and Prussia against each other, and the establishment of a French protectorate over the group of secondary States.]

Assured against an attack from the side of the Rhine, Bismarck was able to throw the mass of the Prussian forces southward against Austria, leaving in the north only the modest contingent that was necessary to overcome the resistance of Hanover and Hesse-Cassel. Through the precipitancy of a Prussian general, who struck without waiting for his colleagues, the Hanoverians gained a victory at Langensalza on June 27th; but other Prussian regiments arrived on the field a few hours later, and the Hanoverian army was forced to capitulate the next day. The King made his escape to Austria; the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, less fortunate, was made a prisoner of war. Northern Germany was thus speedily reduced to submission, and any danger of a diversion in favor of Austria in this quarter disappeared.

In Saxony no attempt was made to bar the way to the advancing Prussians. Dresden was occupied without resistance, but the Saxon army marched southward in good time, and joined the Austrians in Bohemia. The Prussian forces, about two hundred fifty thousand strong, now gathered on the Saxon and Silesian frontier, covering the line from Pirna to Landshut. They were composed of three armies: the first, or central, army under Prince Frederick Charles, a nephew of the King; the second, or Silesian, army under the Crown Prince; the westernmost, known as the Army of the Elbe, under General Herwarth von Bittenfeld. Against these were ranged about an equal number of Austrians, led by Benedek, a general who had gained great distinction in the Hungarian and Italian campaigns. It had at first been thought probable that Benedek, whose forces lay about Ohnuetz, would invade Southern Silesia, and the Prussian line had therefore been extended far to the east. Soon, however, it appeared that the Austrians were unable to take up the offensive, and Benedek moved westward into Bohemia. The Prussian line was now shortened, and orders were given to the three armies to cross the Bohemian frontier and converge in the direction of the town of Gitschin. General Moltke, chief of staff, directed their operations from Berlin by telegraph.

The combined advance of the three armies was executed with extraordinary precision; and in a series of hard-fought combats, extending from June 26th to the 29th, the Austrians were driven back upon their centre, and effective communication was established between the three invading bodies. On the 30th the King of Prussia, with General Moltke and Count Bismarck, left Berlin; on July 2d they were at headquarters at Gitschin. It had been Benedek's design to leave a small force to hold the Silesian army in check, and to throw the mass of his army westward upon Prince Frederick Charles and overwhelm him before he could receive help from his colleagues. This design had been baffled by the energy of the Crown Prince's attack, and by the superiority of the Prussians in generalship, in the discipline of their troops, and in the weapon they carried - for though the Austrians had witnessed in the Danish campaign the effects of the Prussian breechloading rifle (called the needle-gun), they had not thought it necessary to adopt a similar arm.

Benedek, though no great battle had yet been fought, saw that the campaign was lost, and wrote to the Emperor on July 1st recommending him to make peace, for otherwise a catastrophe was inevitable. He then concentrated his army on high ground a few miles west of Koeniggraetz, and prepared for a defensive battle on the grandest scale. In spite of the losses of the past week he could still bring about two hundred thousand men into action. The three Prussian armies were now near enough to one another to combine in their attack, and on the night of July 2d the King sent orders to the three commanders to move against Benedek before daybreak.

Prince Frederick Charles, advancing through the village of Sadowa, was the first in the field. For hours his divisions sustained an unequal struggle against the assembled strength of the Austrians. Midday passed; the defenders now pressed down upon their assailants; and preparations for a retreat had been begun, when the long-expected message arrived that the Crown Prince was close at hand. The onslaught of the army of Silesia on Benedek's right, which was accompanied by the arrival of Hewarth at the other end of the field of battle, at once decided the day. With difficulty the Austrian commander prevented the enemy from seizing the positions that would have cut off his retreat. He retired eastward across the Elbe with a loss of eighteen thousand killed or wounded and twenty-four thousand prisoners. His army was ruined; and ten days after the Prussians had crossed the frontier the war was practically at an end.

The disaster of Koeniggraetz was too great to be neutralized by the success of the Austrian forces in Italy. La Marmora, who had given up his place at the head of the Government in order to take command of the army, crossed the Mincio at the head of a hundred twenty thousand men, but was defeated by inferior numbers on the fatal ground of Custozza, and compelled to fall back on the Oglio. This gleam of success, which was followed by a naval victory at Lissa off the Istrian coast, made it easier for the Austrian Emperor to face the sacrifices that were now inevitable. Immediately after the Battle of Koeniggraetz he invoked the mediation of Napoleon III, and ceded Venetia to him in behalf of Italy. Napoleon at once tendered his good offices to the belligerents, and proposed an armistice. His mediation was accepted in principle by the King of Prussia, who expressed his willingness also to grant an armistice as soon as preliminaries of peace should be recognized by the Austrian Court.

In the mean time, while negotiations passed between all four Governments, the Prussians pushed forward until their outposts came within sight of Vienna. If in pursuance of General Moltke's plan the Italian generals had thrown a corps northeastward from the head of the Adriatic, and so struck at the very heart of the Austrian monarchy, it is possible that the victors of Koeniggraetz might have imposed their own terms without regard to Napoleon's mediation, and, while adding the Italian Tyrol to Victor Emmanuel's dominions, have completed the union of Germany under the house of Hohenzollern at one stroke. But with Hungary still intact, and the Italian army paralyzed by the dissensions of its commanders, prudence bade the great statesman of Berlin content himself with the advantages he could reap without prolongation of the war, and without the risk of throwing Napoleon into the enemy's camp. He had at first required, as conditions of peace, that Prussia should be left free to annex Saxony, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and other North German territory; that Austria should wholly withdraw from German affairs; and that all Germany, less the Austrian Provinces, should be united in a federation under Prussian leadership.

To gain the assent of Napoleon to these terms, Bismarck hinted that France might by accord with Prussia annex Belgium. Napoleon, however, refused to agree to the extension of Prussia's ascendency over all Germany, and presented a counter-project, which in its turn was rejected by Bismarck. It was finally settled that Prussia should not be prevented from annexing Hanover, Nassau, and Hesse-Cassel, as conquered territory that lay between its own Rhenish Provinces and the rest of the Kingdom that Austria should completely withdraw from German affairs; that Germany north of the Main, together with Saxony, should be included in a federation under Prussian leadership; and that for the States south of the Main the right of entering into a national bond with the Northern League should be reserved.

Austria escaped without loss of any of its non-Italian territory; it also succeeded in preserving the existence of Saxony, which, as in 1815, the Prussian Government had been most anxious to annex.

Napoleon, in confining the Prussian Federation to the north of the Main, and in securing by a formal stipulation in the treaty the independence of the South German States, imagined himself to have broken Germany into halves, and to have laid the foundation of a South German League that should look to France as its protector. On the other hand, Bismarck by his annexation of Hanover and neighboring districts had added a population of four millions to the Prussian Kingdom, and given it a continuous territory; he had forced Austria out of the German system; he had gained its sanction to the federal union of all Germany north of the Main, and had at least kept the way open for the later extension of this union to the South German States.

Preliminaries of peace embodying these conditions and recognizing Prussia's sovereignty in Schleswig-Holstein were signed at Nicolsburg on July 26th, and formed the basis of the definitive treaty of peace, which was concluded at Prague on August 23d. An illusory clause, added at the instance of Napoleon, provided that if the population of the northern districts of Schleswig should by a free vote express the wish to be united with Denmark, these districts should be ceded to the Danish Kingdom.

Bavaria and the southwestern allies of Austria, though their military action was ineffective, continued in arms for some weeks after the Battle of Koeniggraetz, and the suspension of hostilities arranged at Nicolsburg did not come into operation in their behalf till August 2d. Before that date their forces were dispersed and their power of resistance broken by the Prussian generals Falckenstein and Manteuffel in a series of unimportant engagements and intricate manoeuvres. The city of Frankfort, against which Bismarck seems to have borne some personal hatred, was treated for a while by the conquerors with extraordinary and most impolitic harshness; in other respects the action of the Prussian Government toward these conquered States was not such as to render future union and friendship difficult.

All the South German Governments, with the single exception of Baden, appealed to the Emperor Napoleon for assistance in the negotiations they had opened at Berlin. But at the very moment when this request was made and granted Napoleon was himself demanding from Bismarck the cession of the Bavarian Palatinate and of the Hessian districts west of the Rhine. Bismarck had only to acquaint the King of Bavaria and the South German ministers with the designs of their French protector in order to reconcile them to his own chastening but not unfriendly hand. The grandeur of a united "Fatherland" flashed upon minds hitherto impenetrable by any national ideal, when it became known that Napoleon was bargaining for Oppenheim and Kaiserslautern. Not only were the insignificant questions as to the war indemnities to be paid to Prussia and the frontier villages to be exchanged promptly settled, but by a series of secret treaties all the South German States entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Prussian King, and engaged in case of war to place their entire forces at his disposal and under his command.

The diplomacy of Napoleon III had in the end effected for Bismarck almost more than his earlier intervention had frustrated, for it had made the South German courts the allies of Prussia, not through conquest or mere compulsion, but out of regard for their own interests. It was said by the opponents of the Imperial Government in France, and scarcely with exaggeration, that every error which it was possible to commit had, in the course of the year 1866, been committed by Napoleon M. One crime, one act of madness, remained open to the Emperor's critics, to lash him and France into a conflict with the power whose union he had not been able to prevent.


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[Erasmus]

Thanks. Interesting article for the Austro-Hungarian Forum