The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-10 00:00:00

WAR NOTES.

rIIE IRTTLE OF WEISSENBTJIIG.—k letter in the
Standard, from Mannheim, Saturday, speaks of what hap.
paned after the battle of Weissenburg, which engagement
took place last Thursday. He says :—The news of the
capture of Weissenburg and Geisberg was received here,
as elsewhere, with the utmost enthusiasm, though tho
lots on the Prussian side has been very severe. The sth
Prussian Regiment was sadly cut up, and I have been
told only five officers are remaining unwounded; so was
also the 11th. A Bavarian regiment suffered very
severely. I was speaking to several of the wounded.
They were not in the least low-spirited. " We have won.
It is for our fatherland," they said, " and we do not
care." Fourhundred came into Mannheim, and 150 went to
kenkfort to the Lazaretto there. The arrangements at
the station here are excellent; a party of firemen keep
celee, and then the young men from the town's committee
ve seltzer water or brandy, as the surgeons order, to the
wounded. Four hundred and eighty French prisoners,
tether with ten officers, passed through—some French,
:kno pure Aigerines, some Zonaves. One Zouave said he
;l el not care who was Emperor, whether Napoleon or Use
ol Prussia, provided he had plenty to eat and drink..
Thoy were going to Spandau, a political prison near
Be -'in. One cannon was taken at Weissenburg, a six.
Denuder; the carriage in which it was put was labelled
:`(;4' sods for Berlin." All speak in the higheSt terms of not
only the bravery, but the kindness of the Crown Prince.
['oe wounded Prussian soldiers said he was just as a com-
a-el man amongst them, and to see their faces when that
'a,4 ea:d would thoroughly have gladdened the heqt of
ar own Princess Royal. They all acknowledged that the
em of the Bavarian troops was I.Atter than -the PlRL'it:all
leedle--gun ; that not only did it fire farther, but twenty
huts a minute. I was speaking to the, Inspector-General
HoJpitals in Berlin, who is now here. lie ears the
iliasse.-pot makes frightful wounds ; the bullet is larger,
sn:l it jumps. He saw an officer who was wounded in the
wei:;t, and the bullet jumped on three places on his arm.
TIIE DANGER OF A GENERAL WAm.—A corres-
pondent of the Times, who writes with much apparent
authority from Vienna, gives the following highly Ina-
portaat intelligence :—".The first danger of a general con-
flagration has passed. It was not without great trouble
that it was averted, for the French moved, heaven and
ea. th to drag us in as well as Italy. As Cadore in BaVaria,
so Malaret in Italy and Gramont here had talked them-
selves and their Government into the belief that France
had but to give the signal and all would rush to the rescue.
Beast, who I suspect had been fencing all along, tried to
parry the attack made upon him with his old diplomatic
tricks ; the French, who had left here a nervous and ex-
citable First Secretary, became more and more press-
ing, and at last went so far as to threaten to make it
up with the Prussians, and make us pay the price of
the bargain. Beust was at his wit's end, for there seemed
a disposition in the military and Court circles to push in
the same direction. Of course there could be no question
of entering into action at once, but Austria could not
remain as unprepared as she is now. " Armedmeatra-
lity " was, therefore, the watchword, and everyone knows
what that means.. If Austria had armed Russia would
have armed too, and then a pretext was easily found when
the moment for action came. The Emperor was unde-
cided, listening one day to one side and the
next day to the other. In this crisis Andrassy came
to the rescue, and, by his influence on the Emperor,
avoided the struggle. He had all along held the same
language, which was plain and clear, so that there could
be ne mistake. Still the French thought themselves ill.
used, and their civilities ill-requited. In Italy it was the
same story as before, the King trying to make politics on
his own hook, and from the first moment ready to rush in
with the French. The Ministry, knowing the disposition
of the country, which is averse from the very name of
France, resisted as best it could, and the result was a tem-
porary compromise. Italy was to arm, but not to eater
into action. However, the Ministry does not make to
itself illusions. It is only a respite they have gained, and
unless some support is found elsewhere they will have to
give way or to go.

MILITARY Law.—Two painful incidents have
Jecurred here lately. On Wednesday, a soldier at work
mtside the works, throwing up a breastwork in a potato-
field, being told by the officer on duty to do something he
lid not like, stooped down, picked up half a dozen
potatoes, and pelted his superior. Half an hour after-
wards ho was a corpse, a drumhead court-marshal baying
3enteucedirim to be shot instantly in the ditch of the
fortress where he was at work. On Thursday, a soldier in
the train from here to Bingen fired his pistol at an officer,

fortunately without effect. The train was stopped at
ante, and military law carried into effect within sight of
,he whole train. Of course there is nothing to be said
ygainst these two executions, but it is horrible to think
that a moment's folly may thus hurry a man out of the
world.—Daily News Correspondent at Mallence.
THE FIRST FIGHTING.—The account of the en-
;agement at Weissenburg, by the Paris correspondent,

iiffers from most particulars hitherto published. It would
tppear, he says, that they (the French), were in consider-
Lille force, fifteen or twenty thousand strong at the least,
!,nd the troops engaged belonged to Marshal MacMahon's
..ofumand. They took the offensive, and succeeded, after

t fiercv htreggle, during which both sides displayed the

greatest bravery and steadiness, in forcing the Prussians
6o retire towards Bergenberg. This retreat, however,

would appear to have been a feint to draw them forward;

:or tha Bavarian division, during the Franco-Prussian
3ontest, had got round the Geisberg,—a mountain close

ro Weissenberg,—and suddenly appeared in the

French rear, occupying the town without
tud pushing back towards the Prussians ; whereby the
French, caught between two fires, suffered very heavily,
Ind were eventufklly compelled to retreat, leaving the
aonfederate army in possession of Weissenburg. They
my that the Bavarians fought like tigers, even clubbing
;heir rifles at close quarters, and dashing their enemies'
drains on the right and left ; the French appeared to be
)verwhelmed with astonishment n t discovering the Ger-
nans to be such terrible foes. The Prussian wounded
dso speak in the highest terms of the behaviour of the
French troops throughout the action, and say without
iesitation tnat " although•the red breeches had the worst
)f it all time, they fought with the utmost steadiness and
letermination."

MISMANAGEMENT.—The strategy which rendered
possible suclAlunders is worthy of the Austriandin their
most helpless times. It is not Napoleon, it is
Beaulieu, *Mack, Gyulai, and the like of them,
we arc reminded of. Imagine Frossard having
to fight at Forbaeh all day, while to his left, and not
more than ten miles or so from the line of the
Saar, seven divisions were looking on ! This would
be unaccountable, unless we suppose that there were
facing them German forges sufficient to prevent them
from either supporting Frossard, or assisting him by an
independent attack. If the Emperor intends to keep
his four army corps in the entrenched camp at Metz—
and he has but the choice between that and an
uninterrupted retreat upon Paris that need not
stop the advance of the Germans any more than the

attempt of Benedek, in 1866, to reassemble his army
under shelter of Olmiitz arrested the Prussian advance
upon Vienna. Benedek ! What a comparison for the
conqueror of Magenta and Solferino! And yet it is more
to the point than any other. Like Benedek, the Emperor
had his troops massed in a position from hich he could
move in any direction, and that a full fort-
night before the enemy was concentrated. Like
Benedek, Louis Napoleon • managed to have corps
after corps beaten in detail by superior numbers or
superior generalship. But here, we are afraid, the like-
ness ceases. Benedek had, after a week of daily defeats,
strength enough left him for the supreme effort of
Sadowa. To all appearances Napoleon has his troops
separated almost hopelessly, after two days' engage-
ments, and cannot even afford to try a general action.
Pall Mall Gazette.

BAD STRATEGY.—AS far as we can judge from
the imperfect knowledge we possess of what has passed, it
seems as if the advantage of the Prussians had hitherto
consisted in their superior strategy and vigilance. Without
pretending to divine what passed in French councils of war
at the opening of the campaign, or to judge of the propriety
of movements only partially known to us, it certainly ap-
pears as if the French had been out-manceuvred by their
foe. This was particularly manifest in the affair of
Weissenburg, where an incomplete Division allowed
itself to be surprised by superior forces, and was
left to shift for itself, without any attempt to
support it by the French Corps to which it
belongs. Some of the French papers (to-day's Libertd,
for instance) allude to this in an indignant tone,
and hint that some in command must hereafter be
brought to a reckoning for a., disaster which ought to have
been avoided. Now, Prussian strategy has a high repu-
tation in Europe since 1866, although it must
be admitted that in that campaign 'it was
powerfully aided by many fortunate circum-
stances and by the shortcomings of Austrian
leaders. It is scarcely possible to doubt that the whole
plan of the present campaign was carefully drawn up
by Moltke and his coadjutators before it ever com-
menced, and, as an unexperienced English officer
lately remarked, the steady, prudent Germans will not
only have done their best to insure victory, but they will
have made every proper
_preparation for the possibility of
defeat.-LParis Correspondent of the Times.