The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-17 00:00:00

THE AUSTRIAN ARMY.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times)
SALZBURG, Aug. 11.
How did the old Generals get on at all before the
electric telegraph and railway were ? No one will
ever know what battles were lost, what nations were
ruined, what reputations made or marred by the
miscarriage of a message, or the failure of an aide to
reach a given point in time. Here, at Salzburg,
have troops been pouring in on their way to our
friend General-Major Kuhn, as if the war in the
Valley of the Adige were not all over, and there is
a regiment of the Line—say 5,000 men, and a bat-
talion of Jagers, say 1,100 men coming, in addition
to the 12,000 sent down within a few hours towards
Innspruck. As to the road to Gortz and Trieste,
and its swarming masses, it will cost Austria thou-
sands to clear it., and I am told the Kriegs-Ministe-
rium could not raise the money the other day to pay
the poor fellows. Even where they have money the
soldiers are often unable to obtain tobacco, meat,
wine, or beer in the little villages they inundate.
The head of the column enters, disperses on halt-
ing, and buys and eats everything. The next who
follow find nothing. " What is• come over Deutsch-
land ?" exclaimed a despairing private, with his
hands full of dirtypaper notes and copper kreutzers.
" Time was when money was scarce, but now a
man may seek in vain for bread, or meat, or wine,
though he has fullpockets." In Bavaria it is not so.
The ;and is rich. War has not devastated the fields
nor touched the villages and towns between Augs-
burg and Munich or the fine district between
Munich and Salzburg, and all the comforts of
German life are to be had in abundance. There-
fore the people are not so very much enamoured
of peace as the peasantry of Bohemia and Mo-
ravia and of the country around Vienna, who
have been literally eaten out of house and home,
and are left with only a few sagacious geese or
secluded cows on their holdings to represent
tax-paying and rent-paying resources. The
train was crowded with men returning from
Augsburg to Munich, or to the towns beyond Salz-
burg, who had been called out for military duty, and
had been sent home again. They wore blue cloth
caps with a crown embroidered in yellow on the
front, and some had tall hats with feathers in them,
but they had no uniforms or arms. Large of frame,
heavy, big-footed, coarse-limbed, given much to
ponderous pipes and foaming tankards of beer, to
cheese and sausages, these Bavarians form with the
aid of drill sergeants and military tailoring the ma-
terials of amassive solid infantry. As to military
tailoring in Bavaria, it must be said that the princi-
ples on which armour was made in the old days still
prevail in this softer age of broadcloth, and these
principles led to the construction of coverings made
to suit all figures and dimensions. The prominent
idea of the German contractors for the Bavarian
army is to give the soldiers the largest amount of
cloth and leather that can be put into tunic and
overalls; but they probably make up for their prodi-
gality in the quality of the material, for there is a
glaze about the surface of the fabrics in which these
warriors move suspiciously indicative of " shoddy."
They are not at all contented with being defeated,
and would like another encounter with the Branden-
burgers and Pomeranians, for they are of a pugna-
cious nature, notwithstanding their deliberate ele-
phantine ways. The pretension to superior prowess,
founded though it be on actual success on the part of
the Prussians, is most galling to men who consider
they are quite as strong and as brave, and the uses
made by the conquerors of their victories have not
reconciled the conquered to their fate.

The causes of the sudden submission of Austria in
the field are not as yet easily ascertained. The diffi-
culty of defining them accurately is increased by
the exhibition of military strength she now makes
to the world, and by the development of her power
when the necessity for using it has passed away. A
dwarf may surprise a giant in the act of putting on
his armour and bind him, or may set pitfalls for
his tremendous opponent when he is armed, and
may sit on him when he is down. Prussia is
not a dwarf, but the resistance made to her assault
by Austria by no means represented the force Aus-
tria could and ought to have exhibited in the con-
test. In considering the circumstances which led to
such tremendous consequences as we are yet trying
to grasp in all their magnitude without much suc-
cess, it may be at once admitted and maintained that
Austria was not prepared for the war she encoun-
tered or provoked, and that Prussia was. Austria
was not sustained by a unanimous population,
neither was Prussia at the outset of the war ; but
Pritssia was able to kindle national enthusiasm by
her victories, whereas Austria only encouraged in-
ternal dissensions by her defeats. At the end of the
third week in JUMP the Austrian army was not con-
centrated, its leaders had no matured plans, its
transport was ill-organized, its commissariat defec-
tive. At that time the Prussian armies were as-
sembled in pursuance of well if not long digested
schemes of operation, close to the enemy's frontiers,
with an excellent railway system to conduct and
supply their troops with efficient transport and com-
missariat. The Austrian railways were so placed,
and were, besides, of such a nature, being only
, single in the line of certain important points, that
the trains became cumulative as they approached the
places of concentration. The Prussian lines, on the
contrary, were so disposed that troops could be de-
posited as the trains went on from point to point,
fed by lines at right angles to the main railways,
and in connexion with great magazines. Neither
Josephstadt, Koniggratz, nor Olmutz contained
stores or supplies for such an army as was required
to meet the hosts Prussia was directing to a point of
junction inside Bohemia, and there were no vast
magazines in any part of the Empire to make ade-
quate provision for its wants. As to the army
itself, brave and well disciplined as it is believed to
have been, there was not to be found either in the
ranks or in the staff the same intelligence as cha-
racterized, we are told, the army of Prussia. It was
not homogeneous. Even now the Hussars scarcely
consider their comrades, horse or foot, as part of the
same
.army, and fight as Hungarians f
the King of
Hungary, having a profound
dragoons,
and a grand patronage for G
and a lofty dislike of the Croats and o'thiler sagioons,
who with Germans and Italians constitute that‘pvoers'
por-
tion of the Austrian infantry which is not nunc,a,_
rian. An Austrian officer ought to speak at least
six differert languages to be able to converse with
the troops under the " double eagle." Benedek, as
a Hungarian Protestant gentleman, may not have
been quite acceptable to the German Roman Catholic
nobles, but there is in the higher ranks of the army
nothing of the strong prejudice which causes jea-
lousies and dislikes lower down, only restrained by
discipline from breaking into violent quarrels. Al-
though most of the regiments were excellent, there
were exceptions which caused a deterioration in the
quality of a whole corps, as the strength of a chain
is to be measured by its weakest link ; but among
the principal causes of the rapid disintegration of the
Austrian army there must be included, in my humble
judgment, the want of a corps d'elite such as a
ivision of Guards. The Jagers, with all their good
ualities, are not Guards, nor is such a regiment as
the Hoch Deutschmeister equivalent to the Guard
of Prussia or of France. A division of Guards
could scarceilnydheaervle failed to drive the Prussians out
of Chlum—
regiment ought to have done
that ; and, at all events,
twooluldkhave been a standard
for the rest of the armys
crup. to ; but years ago
Austria abolished her cor o
an army
and she needed
them at Koniggratz. Whepns is beaten and is
obliged to fall back on its rear, its own trains, supply
and reserve waggons, prove a serious obstacle, and
add to the confusion which renders it so very
difficult to gather up the fragments of a broken
force and reintegrate them. The army of Benedek
could not have fought another battle in the open for
many days. Its losses in material were enormous,
and its degradation in morale was marked; but if
Ohnutz could have supplied them all, and afforded
a basis for reinforcements and supplies, the troops
would soon have been ready to try the fortunes of
another battle. The march of the Prussians and
their superiority in force put the capital in danger.
But the Government was not only menaced from
without, but from within ; troops were needed to
defend the lines of Floridsdorf from the Prussians,
and at the sage time to stand with their back to

the foreign enemy to keep down disaffected citizens.
Thus it was that Benedek's army was broken up—
part was sent to Vienna, part kept at Olmutz, part
directed to the Danube, above and below, part
left in the garrisons of Josephstadt, Koniggratz, and
Olmutz, while the Prussians in two great compact
armies spread over Bohemia, Moravia, and Upper.
AuStria, as two streams of lava pass over the corn-
fields. The whole of the richest parts of Austria were
lost to her, and made fat her enemy. Another
capital illustration was afforded of the truth of the
great maxim in war, that the belligerent who takes
the initiative and acts on the aggressive has decided
advantages in his favour. But it must also be consi-
dered that Austria, though very strong and powerful,
owed much of her strength and power to her position
as an aggressive nation, and to her exemption from

- .
invasion. As long as she could keep her enemy out-

side her borders, and strike him with a long arm, her
blows were tremendous; but when penetrated through
her outer armour, her vitals were soon reached, and
she fell as the Southern States of America did when
Sherman marched through Georgia and Carolina.
Indeed, Austria is not peculiar in that respect. The
rule may be applied to almost any nation, and it
is not without cause that belligerents seek battle-
grounds outside their own territories. Had not her
army been so large the defeat of Koniggratz would
not have been so crushing ; but the forces of Prussia
were so large that Austria had to hurry up every
man to the front. Then was revealed her pitiable
weakness. Austria was in the camp of Benedek.
She had no reserve—not a corps to fall back upon.
The victory of Koniggratz gave Venetia to Italy ;
for Austria was obliged to take the army df the
Quadrilateral as her reserve, and of the whole of her
800,000 men she could not place 300,000 in
.line.
It is said that there had been great mismanagement,
peculation, and the like in the departments, but of
the truth of these charges I know nothing ; they are
readily made, and in the days of disaster readily
credited. It is alleged, too, that ever since the
Schleswig-Holstein war,—fons et origo malorum,—
the common soldiers bad conceived an undue respect

'or the Prussians, and bad an almost superstitious

idea of the effect of the needle-gun, though their
officers thought only of the inferior position they
were made to assume in the campaign. The high
reputation of the Prussians and of their arm, and
the ideas of their comrades, became known to the
Astrians at home, and they saw, too, that Austria
was not even playing second fiddle to Prussia, but
was sent off apart to play on the Jew's harp. The
character of Austrian diplomacy and of Austrian
generalship became damaged among the citizens
and the army, and, at the same time the popularity
of the Emperor, -which had been for some time on
the wane among the non-military classes, was di-
minished in the regiments employed on a distaste-
ful service. Had the Prussians been led by a Na-
poleon they could have made Koniggratz worse than
a Jena. Vienna must have fallen if, instead of ap-
pearing before Presburg on the 23d July, they bad
come down on it with the same rapidity they dis-
played in the invasion of Saxony and Bohemia. The

most mischievous result of delay which has occurred
has been perhaps the irritation caused in the Austrian
army by the discovery that all was not lost in Austria,
and that Prussia in her advance was daily getting into
greater difficulties. Ido not think the Austrians
could have beaten the Prussians in another great
battle, bat I do believe that the Prussians might
have been repulsed in an attempt to cross the Danube
and take Vienna, and I am quite certain their posi-
tion would have become in the last degree precarious
had they been compelled to undertake 'a regular
siege of Floridsdorf, while it would not have been
much better had they tried to overrun to Hungary
and Styria.
Situated as she was, Austria had no course left
but submission, but she gnaws her lip as she lowers
the point of her sword and asks for terms, and I
am much mistaken if there be not in her mind an
arriere pensee in which she finds some consolation
for present discomfiture, and that she looks forward
to no distant time for a .renewal of the strife, in
which, prepared and armed, she can wipe out the
memory of Koniggratz in blood, and avenge all her
disasters. It may be a vain hope ; it certainly is an
unfortunate aspiration ; for, resigning her dreams
of hegemony and Germanic Imperialism and culti-
vating the arts of peace, Austria has a grand role
to play, in which her success would be greeted with
the blessings of a happy and contented people, and
with the approbation of the civilised world, and in
which her glory would be greater and more lasting
than if she wore the diadem of a hundred exsars.

(From the Times Military Correspondent)

GORTZ, Aug. 11.
Austria and Italy are again in a state of war, if
that may be called war which consists in the mere
absence of declared peace without much probability
of an actual collision ; for, though the Italians have
formally refused the conditions on which Austria
would agree to prolong the truce, or enter into an
armistice, they have already complied with the most
important of them. These conditions were as fol-
lows :

1. That the Italians should withdraw beyond the
Tagliamento, and suffer the Austrian army to occupy
all the country on this side of the river for purposes
of subsistence.

2. That they should withdraw their columns which
have penetrated into the Tyrol.
3. That the space included between the four great
fortresses of the Quadrilateral should be left free.
Now, Austria has no arriZre pensee about Venetia;
the country has been resigned for ever, and though
the amputation has doubtless cost many a pang, there
is an evident sense of relief at the loss of the diseased
limb, which was not only a burden of itself, but
ministered evil to the whole body. But Italy would
not receive it at the hand of the Emperor of the
French, and must be content to pay for it in trea-
sure sorely needed by the Austrians, unless she will
spend both blood and money in its acquisition.
And, indeed, there can be little doubt that the Ita-
lians are incapable of winning Venetia by arms, for
though the Piedmontese are excellent troops, and
Garibaldi's Volunteers are full of spirit and hope,
the bulk of the army is composed of softer material,
which could ill stand the shock of Austria's solid
battalions. Unfortunately, the idea of building up
their nation with their own hands has become a ruling
passion in Italy, and the people refuse to take a
practical view of the case as it stands, exclaiming,
with true Italian warmth and susceptibility, that the
conditions of the armistice are too humiliating. But
on the side of the Austrians the case admits of no
doubt, for they have collected a large army on a
country which grows nothing but rocks and trees,
and the only animals of which are game, birds,
and lizards, unless, as a last resource, the caves
of Adelsberg be ransacked, and the strange
proteus anguinus be resorted to as an article of
human food. How is it possible, under these cir-
cumstances, for this army to remain where it is? If
it cannot advance peacefully into a more fertile
country, it must force its way, for it is not likely to
leave Trieste and the Tyrol defenceless again since
the Italians have declared their intention of possess-
ing them.
The second condition meansthtaertritthoerylltvahliiaenh
columns are to withdraw
from
the
Austria has not yielded, and the third that the gar-
rison of the Quadrilateral may have some room to
*
stretch themselves, for it cannot be supposed that
they could execute thence any important demonstra-
tion,p and communication with the main army is not
demanded. Yet the Italians refuse to comply with
these terms, which they declare to be too humiliating,
and nothing remains but to advance to-
morrow and
occupy as an enemy the country that might other-
wise be friendly, or at least neutral.
The usual success has attained the arrangements
of the military trains. From Vienna to Neustadt
the line is broad, and with two and sometimes three
lines of rail, so that two trains can, if necessary,
travel side by side. From NeUstadt a line runs south-
east to Oedenburg, near the Neusiedler See, and
thence a new line leads to Kanista south-west of the
Platten See, where it is connected with the railway
from Pesth and Comorn to Pragerhof, a station on
the Vienna and Trieste line, further south than
Marburg, the junction for Villach. Let us suppose
two trains starting together from Vienna, and con- '
veying troops to the South. The stations at which 1
they are all to stop are clearly laid down, and are
always the same for the same line, Suppose the first :

THE SUN, LO

to be Baden and the second Neustadt. At Baden,
then, they pull up and wait till the telegraph from
Neustadt informs them that the line is clear.
They start again and proceed to the latter
station, whence they diverge—the one mounting
the Sommering Pass, the other turning off towards
Oedenburg. The distance by the direct route to
Marburg is considerably shorter than that to
Pragerhof round by Oedenburg, Kanista, &c., so
the first train has reached Marburg, and is speeding
along thevalley of the Drave towards Villach before
the second has rejoined the direct route below Mar-
burg junction. To judge by the distance, the latter
should reach Laybach on its way to Gortz by Na-
bresina at about the time that the former arrives at
Villach and commences to disembark the troops,
which, having had plenty of sleep on the way, are
ready to March at once through. Tarvis and down
the valley of the Isonzo, or, as is more probable, to
feel their way down the Tagliamento, for Tarvis is
not far from the sources of both rivers, and is the
point of junction of the two roads. Fortunately, as
soon as the mountains are passed, the Tagliamento
road runs down the left or Austrian bank of the
river till it reaches the railway from Gortz. Thus,
with almost equal facility, the columns of trains
leaving Vienna can forward their military freight,
concentrating either at Gortz or on the line which
the Austrians have chosen for their front. But, in
fact, the Villach route is not, I believe, so broad or
so convenient for traffic as the southern line, so it
is probable that there is more delay in the former
direction, and certainly the smaller force has been
sent there. For obvious reasons I cannot send the
exact
„force now assembled, but there is no doubt
that the Italians are overmatched, and cannot hope
to measure their strength against Austria in the
field with any probability of success.
Vienna can still forward troops to this quarter at
the rate of 10,000 a-day, with horses, artillery, train,
and all the requisites for an army, but it is to be
hoped that, in the name of common sense, the Ita-
lian Government will be satisfied with what they
have obtained, and cease to deluge their beautiful
land with blood, to throw away its richest fruits—
the lives of their countrymen.
They have lost the superiority of numbers on
land, and the command of the sea, for the Austrian
fleet has left Lissa and Pola to take care of them-
selves, and is to-day at Trieste protecting the em-
barkation of troops in transports for a destination
which is carefully concealed for the present. They
are free enough now ; their genius is undoubted ;
they were once foremost in arts, literature, and
science ; they gave Europe not only the revival of
painting, sculpture, and architecture, but also of
mathematics and engineering ; nay, the first authen-
tic account which we have of the introduction of
cannon into Europe is to be found in the archives of
Florence ; may we not ask at their hands something
worthy of the descendants of Leonardo da Vinci,
Michael Angelo, Raphael, Dante, Petrarch, and
Galileo, some proof that they are worthy of the free-
dom that has been won for them by the blood of
others as well as their own ? They may say that
the times are troublous, and the political horizon not
yet clear, but the Medici did not flourish in profound
peace, nor were the lives of their great poets and
artists un checkered by banishment and imprisonment,
unclouded by the dread of a violent end. If their
statesmen will but become more practical, and their
artists give up dilettantism, and turn from perpetual
copying to real study and original work, they may
yet produce something worthy of their ancient fame.

Messages have come in from the front. Cavalry
were pushed forward to-day to reconnoitre, and
crossed the Tagliamento in three places without dis-
covering any enemy. The Italians have doubtless
retired out of reach. Palmanova is free, and there
seems nothing now to check the steady progress of
events towards peace.