The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-30 00:00:00

TI-in SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST SO, 1866.

THE FIELD OF KONIGGRATZ.

(From the Times Special Correspondent.)

PARDUBITZ, Aug. 23

. _
Since my last letter posted here I have made a
journey to Koniggratz, and gone over the battle-
field in company with your Military Correspondent,
who saw it from the other side, and was with Prince
Frederick Charles in the advance from Dub and the
attack on Sadowa. Pardubitz is a curious old walled
town of more interest and antiquity than many
which are mentioned in the English handbooks, and
it was also the head-quarters of the Vienna fox,
hunters, their " Melton," where they kept a capital
pack, and on their English hunters enjoyed many a
good run over a fine country, with plenty of water
leaps and stiff " obstacles." Near it is a fine old
castle, perched on a rock rising out of the plain,
which was sacked by Ziska, but still contains some
curious paintings, of greater antiquity than merit,
it is said ; and hither, in happier days, Pardubitzers
repaired to enjoy the view and coffee and cigars at
the rural restaurant on the top. Probably the
Prussian element in the landscape is too much pro-
nounced at present. Certainly, Pardubitz has no
reason to feel neglected, for the place has all the
appearance of being a favourite residence of the
conquerors. They mount guard at the Austrian
guard-house, at the gates, the railways and all the
buildings, look out of all the windows, crowd the
shops, and fill the streets and neighbouring roads.
But Pardubitz will be a standing reproach to the'
Prussians in a military sense. It is an easy hour's
inarchfor cavalry from the field of Koniggratz. It was
4.30 p.m. when the Austrians retreated. Their pon-
toons were principally at Opatovic, three miles
below Koniggratz, and not covered by the guns of
the fort. The Crown Prince had some 13,000 or
14,000 sabres which had not been used at all. The
cavalry under Prince Frederick Charles mustered at
least 10,000. But these horsemen, who have been
maintaining their superiority on all occasions to the
Austrian horse, not only never ventured to press
them as they covered the retreat--not only refrained
from moving towards Pardubitz, but never appeared
even near Opatovic. They had four hours clear day-
light, but the retreating Austrians and the cavalry
which covered them to the last were plied with shot
and shell, instead of sabre and lance, and the
cavalry did not approach Pardubitz till about noon
on the 4th of July, some of the Austrian rear-guard
having only entered it an hour before on their way
from the field. Had they swept round the Austrian
Rank, and made their appearance on the road be-
tween Holic and Hohenmauth on the morning of
the 4th of July, they might have swept up half an
army for their pains. At all events, they have not
left themselves any ground to taunt their late enemy
with want of enterprise.
The road from Politz towards Koniggratz crosses
the Elbe north of the city, and the Austrians burnt
the bridge—but not till they had got over. The
Prussians laid down pontoons and crossed on July
4 and 5. All along the highway, which is much cut
up by artillery and waggons, the fields on each side
are trampled down, and are marked with the ashes
of cooking and bivouac fires. The houses and vil-
lages were deserted as they came on. Now the
people have returned, and are busy in the fields,
and cattle and geese have come forth from their
hiding-places and possess their pastures once more.
The peasantry are poor and ill-clad, but not ragged.
It would be miserable, indeed, if the women wore
tattered garments, for their costume this summer
time is of the lightest, and consists of ahandkerchief
tied over the head, and a simple short toga confined
at the waist by a band, and making a liberal display
of stout stockingless legs and bare feet. A journey
of a couple of hours at a slow pace brought us to
the railway between Pardubitz and Koniggratz, on
which there is now only one train a day for pas-
sengers, and as it had left on our arrival we had
hired an open chaise to take us to Smiric by
way of Chlum, for it was doubtful whether we
could enter either Josephstadt or Koniggratz. The
lofty tower of the latter fortress, rising above the
dome of the churches, and the spires and chim-
neys of the place came in sight, but after driving
along the high road for a couple of miles the
coachman turned off towards the left and proceeded
in a north-westerly direction, and a mile and a half
more took us out on the high road from Konig-
gratz to Sadowa. Here the traces of the fight began
to show themselves, and never ceased to multiply.
The red cowhide knapsack, the soiled blue cap, the
battered shako stripped of its brass ornaments, the
cooking tins, water bottles, shoes, leather sword and
bayonet sheaths, here singly, there in little heaps,
mingled with white leathern caps, pouches, belts,
and cartouche-boxes, lay by the roadside and dotted
the fields. At the squalid hamlets children toddled
about with Austrian caps, and the obsequious pea-
sant as he uncovered his head did not seem to care

particularly to put on the substitute for a hat he
had in his hand, lest the passengers should take
umbrage at his appropriation of Government pro-
perty. At Chevta, which is spelt Wsetar on some
maps and plans, where an obstinate encounter took
place between 2 o'clock and 3 o'clock and a little
later, the blackened ruins of houses stand by the side
of the road or lie in masses of rubbish at the base
of the chimney stacks. The houses which remain
are filled with sick and wounded. The largest dis-
plays a white flag to denote that it is an hospital,
and a few men in Austrian and Prussian uniforms

looked out with pale faces to see who broke the repose
of the village. Men with white bands with a red
cross—the badge agreed upon at the Genevese con-
ference—moved in and out, attending patients in

the houses, and a few women of the place were simi-
larly engaged. Before entering the village the
mounds by the roadside, freshly turned up, denoted

where the dead lay.

Horses and men were near to.

gether, but the resting-places of the latter were
often marked on crosses, on which were written in
pencil the number of those whose remains were
below, and sometimes the number of the regiment.
The officerswere generally interred separately.
The heaps of knapsacks and of such debris here
grew into mounds, for the peasants had cleared
them off the fields by the roadside. The graves in
rows and the crosses grew thickly ; but there was a
more dreaded evidence of the scene that was enacted
here six weeks ago. A faint odour, which had been
perceptible for some time, became dreadful and over-
powering, The coachman, puffing with all his
energy at his pipe, exclaimed, " I must drive on,

gentlemen." It is dangerous to stay here. All
around are sick." We lighted cigars and drove on.

"Ah ! there is Lipa," said my comrade. " No,"
said I, " that is Chlum ; Lipa is further on." " No,
that is Lipa. lam quite certain." " Well, that, I
assure you, is what the Austrians call Chlum, and

what I called Chlum, and if you and the Prussians
called it Lipa all the discrepancy is explained, for
there was, we admit, a fight at Lipa, but we say
there was none at Chlum till the Prussians got into
it and the Austrians tried to drive them out."
"Coachman, what place do you call that?" "That,"
said the driver, "is Chlum." There could be no
dispute in the case. Here was a matter of great
doubt solved at once. The maps of the district are
all imperfect ; none of the inhabitants remained
after the battle, and the Prussians made a mistake
between Lipa and Chlum, which is perpetuated in
all their maps and plans of the battle, so Club
casuists and military critics are hereby informed,
and warned accordingly, that Chlum and Lipa are
different places. The world may be saved much
argument by this simple solution.
My visit to the field of Koniggratz, if it does no
other service, will at least save your readers who
take an interest in military affairs a good Teal of
acrimonious controversy and abortive dispute. It
will be recollected that Benedek in his telegraphic
despatch—the only one published by the Austrian
Government relative to the battle, although it is
understood an official report will be issued as soon
as the commission of inquiry has finished its labours

—stated that the fog and smoke enabled the Pros_

sians to get unperceived into an important position,

and that this circumstance determined his retreat.

The position alluded to was the village of alum.

Your Austrian Military Correspondent, who was on
the field with the reldzeugmeister and his Staff, gave

your readers an account of what occurred in detail,
and with perfect accuracy so far as all which came
under his personal observation was concerned, and
Your Correspondent who now addresses you endea-

voured to do the same. The former related how
Benedek was suddenly informed that the
Prussians had got into Chlum, whi.,ll had been
left unguarded, and how, riding t ) the spot to
see if it could be true, he and his staff were re-
ceived by a volley, which struck down three of
his officers, and left no doubt of the presence of
an enemy in the centre of his position and in a place
from which he in vain tried to drive them. The
latter, narrating what he saw from time to time,
marked the advance of the Prussians along the
ridge and their sudden appearance in Chlum, and
the unsuccessful attempts to retake it. On the other
hand, your Militarycorrespondent with the Prussian
Army, who was on the field with Prince Frederick
Charles, gave his account of the victory without re-
ference to Chlum, but in later and more detailed
accounts of particular parts of the battle he stated
that Chlum was the scene of a fierce engagement ;
it was occupied and defended resolutely, and it
was inferred that Benedek's report was an excuse
for defeat. So as we both journeyed together
towards the spot
.yesterday there rose above the
plain the well-known, broad-based rounded hill,
with a small dark grove on its flattened top,
above which was a square white church tower,
with a tiny black spire, which to him was
Lipa and to me was Chlum. The real Lipa
lies at the other side of the hill of alum,
nearer to Sadowa. The wood around Lipa was
strongly held, and the village itself was defended
by some earthworks of no great strength, which
were taken in reverse when the Prussians got into
Chlum, which is high above Lipa, at half an ordi-
nary musket shot. As Chlum stands a couple of
hundred yards from the main road to Sadowa,
we got out and walked up the hill, and the
chaise was sent round to gain the village of
Chulm by a rough path. The hill on which the
Austrians lay in heaps as they advanced or retreated
from their fatal and unsuccessful efforts to recapture
the position was covered with stubble, and here and
there the dry yellowish mounds of the graves broke
the level surface, and the black and white crosses
on the summit and inside the churchyards rose over
Austrian and Prussian alike. On gaining the
wooden paling round the little church it was most
interesting to perceive that the ground fell rapidly
away behind it towards Nedelist, and that in the
hollow formed in the plain on the left of Cilium,
looking towards Koniggratz, there runs almost in
a ravine a cross country road right in the direction
of the march of the Crown Prince's army. There
can be no doubt that the men who first occupied
Cilium got in up that narrow path, and that they
could not be perceived either by the men who were
defending Lipa or by those who lay below Chlum
between it and Koniggratz. The Austrians down
in the village at the foot of Chlum towards Lipa
were taken in the rear, and those in Nedelist at-
tacked by the Prussians under the Crown Prince's
left were exposed to a cross fire. In fact it was
the centre of • the whole position, and the vast
masses of the Crown Prince's army which had been
visible from Koniggratz sweeping along over the
plain by the Big Tree, although they were stre-
nuously resisted on their left, managed to get in
through a gap made in the Austrian line to an un-
guarded and vital point. The spot where Prussia
stole a march on her rival, and snatched from her
for ever the place in Germany for which she had
struggled so long, is now quiet enough, but tourists
have found it out, and Germans are flocking to it
daily. Although the church alone is visible from
the south and east, and indeed from all quarters
except the ground close behind it, there is a village
or the remains of one, on the slope of the hill
towards Sadowa, and the blackened chimneys of
the houses which burnt so fiercely stand up
through the trees amid all that is left of the
secluded Bohemian hamlet. In the direction of
Lipa and Sadowa the trees have been cut down
to form an abattis ; a trench was made across
the road, and there is a parapet and epaulements
for two batteries, which demonstrate the value
placed on the position by the Austrians. But they
neglected the church itself, and the top of the hill,
and the left of the village. The moment the Crown
Prince's troops got a footing there the columns on
their right dashed in and carried the batteries and
epaulements,_ their guns hurried up to the hill, and
victory was gripped in the talons of-the Black Eagle.
The church stands in a small orchard and grove of
trees used as a burial-ground. A peasant girl ran
with the key to open the door, and we entered the
building, which had been filled with wounded, and
used as an hospital for a short time, but is now clean
though it bears marks of the Austrian shell inside

It is restored to its proper use, but the congregation
must be very small. A profound silence reigned in
the building and in the ruined hamlet below. We
mounted the stairs to the little belfry, and the sites
so deeply engraved on the memory came out like
impresses of the photograph. There, facing us, was
Koniggratz, with its towers and spires so clear that
with a glass one could read the time on the face of
the clock tower, and could see the little pillars of
the gallery above. There was the plain in which
the cavalry were massed before they moved into the
smoke, too late to save the day; there the big tree
again—the tree at which I looked so often that day,
little thinking that at the very same time the Crown
Prince was directing the march of his army by the
very same object. There were the plains over which
he advanced, driving the Austrians, too weak in
numbers and spirit to resist, right before him from
the big tree towards Koniggratz. I now saw how
it was that the Prussians, whom I observed marching
along by the Big Tree, disappeared at a certain
point, and I also perceived how it was quite possible
to get unperceived into Cilium. There was no rea-
son, however, to find fault with Benedek's descrip-
tion of his position. It was not strongly intrenched.
It was, on the contrary, only partially intrenched,
and some of the works were never occupied.
With the better, or more properly with the less
imperfect, information which writings and de-
spatches have removed from the category of igno-
rance as to movements of troops and the advance
and retreat of columns of smoke and the outbursts
of fierce fires which prevailed throughout the raw,
cold, and wet day of July 3 it is justifiable to main-
tain, after a careful examination of the ground-1,
that Benedek occupied a position far beyond his
means of resistance and full military defence ; 2,
that he neglected to protect his right flank, and did
not take adequate measures to check the advance of
the Crown Prince ; 3, that personally he did not
take up a proper position to control the field ; 4,
that the Prussians ought to have completely crushed
the Austrians, and did not exhibit energy in pursuit
or in the handling of their cavalry ; 5, that the ad-
vance of the Crown Prince upon the Big Tree was
almost unopposed ; 6, that the neglect of Chlurn was
unpardonable. There were blundearsdoynebt
oththeyswideerse
but the Austrians blundered most, n
very near beating Prince Frederick Charles at
Sadowa.

Directly in the rear of Chlum, and some distance
back towards Sadowa, there is still remaining an
epaulement which would cover a battalion and another
with embrasures for eight field pieces. On the right

of these intrenchnients, about a mile and a quarter

away, I saw another earthwork for eight guns and

another epaulement; and more to the right again,
in front of the wood of Mashloved, there is another

earthwork for a field battery and some earthworks
for infantry. These are very much of the same

nature as those thrown up by the Russians at the
Alma, except that they are more formidable and of

a more permanent character, having
small service
magazines counter sunk in the parapet for the guns,
at least, in the case of the Lip. batteries.
It is
evident that though these works did offer great
obstacles to the direct attack of Prince Frederick
Charles and Fransky they were turned by the
Crown Prince, who got into the rear of the line. The
Crown Prince had, I believe, a protected field battery
to silence—the others he turned. Still the position
was " partially intrenched," and if, as the Austrians
say, guns were not put in some of the works and
others were rendered useless because the enemy
turned them, the fact demonstrates that the Aus-
trians were not skilful enough to place their works
in the most advantageous positions. If Benedek had
any idea the Crown Prince was coming down on his
right flank, and he certainly ought to have taken
such a contingency into his calculations, he should
have compensated as far as possible for his inferio-

rity of numbers by protecting his right with the aid
of intrenchments when once he had decided to accept
battle at Koniggratz, and he had part of the Ist and
all the 2d of July to intrench himself. The value of
such works is best shown by the strenuous resist-
ance made at Sadowa and Mashloved to Prince Fre-
derick Charles and Fransky—resistance which at one
time was belieVed by Benedek to have been crowned
with success, and which made all but M. Bismark
gloomy. The day was waning as we descended
the hill of Chlum and proceeded across country
through Nedelist and Sindrasec and Trothina to
Smiric in search of lodging and food. All these
places had suffered in the battle, were scathed by fire,
shattered by shell and musketry, but here, as at
Chlum, there were more houses spared from the
conflagration than a spectator of the smoke and
flames could have supposed, and the severity and
magnitude of the combat were rather to be esti-
mated by the prodigious quantity of accoutrements,
knapsacks, leathern belts, shoes, and pouches, and
by the graves than by the condition of the houses.
In all of them were wounded and sick ; in all the
men with white bands and red crosses on their arms,
the surgeons and the nurses, and the nameless legion
of the recruits in the great and glorious army of mercy.
Austrians and Prussians live together in suffering
amity, and legless and armless discuss the unification
of Germany ;and the mechanicism by which it was
worked out in these secluded nooks, and although
they are not furnished with luxuries they are well
enough off to give them a fair chance of recovery.
Perhaps it is too late for an English mission, but there
wouldbe no difficulty in getting access to the sick and
wounded, and the only obstacle would be in transport
of stores and in procuring lodgings. It was nearly
night when our chaise halted before the Ilostence of
Smiric with an unpronounceable Tzech name ren-
dered into Grunen Baum ; but the landlord, and,
what is more, the landlady, resolved to give us nei-
ther board nor lodging, averring that the only rooms
in the house were engaged for gentlemen—grand
Prussian officers—coming from Prague to visit the
battle-field. Smiric, it appeared, was also full of sick
and wounded. The latter were hopping and creep-
ing along to look at the strangers. After a good deal
of open air diplomacy it was arranged that we were
to be permitted to enter the house to eat, and hav-
ing established that point the concession was made
of letting us sleep till the Prussians came. A mes-
sage was despatched next morning at dawn to see if
quarters could be obtained at Josephstadt, and per-
mission to enter the place for my companion in-case
we could not get back to Pardubitz, and, in great
terror of Prussians, we retired to our beds and slept
till morning. It was near noon before the courier
returned from Josephstadt with a sort of chaise and
a pair of horses ; but from what he said of the feel-
ing of the military residents and of the condition of
the place it did not appear desirable for one who
had served with the Prussians to enter the walls,
and, for similar reasons, I resolved not to accept an
invitation to visit the fields of Nachod and Skalitz
with a Prussian general and his chief of artillery,
who were coming from Prague, and proposed call-
ing on their way to take your correspondent with
them. A detailed account of our visit to the whole

front of the battle-field might prove rather uninte-
resting, as it would be but a repetition of the same
phrases. From Horonowes, which lies in the centre
of Benedek's right, passing by Trothina, we visited
the Big Tree, which, however, resolves itself into

two big trees, and from it could see Mashloved,
where Fransky's column was opposed so resolutely,
Trothina, Nedelist, Banatek, Chlum, and all the
plain down to the Elbe, and Koniggratz, with its
tower. Chlum is somewhat over three miles from the
tower as the crow flies. Thence we visited the villages
in detail, and drove round to Sadowa, and walked
up the hill of Dub. The struggle in the wood be-

,ween Lipa and Sadowa must have been most san

guinary, and trees are cut to pieces in several places
by the fire, but the Austrians held it till their
centre was forced.

At Sadowa, which at ono time by one of the
freaks of nomenclature promised to become known
as the place from which the name of the battle was
derived, there are no epaulements or intrenched
works of any description visible. The village does
not bear many traces of the combat which raged
in the adjoining wood from 8 o'clock in the morn-
ing till nearly 4 o'clock, and at one time was de-

ci,iedly in favour of the Austrians. Horn's division
was forced to retire. Mansteiner's division suffered
so much that he had to promise his men should nut
retire unless they marched over his dead body.
The King, uneasy and perplexed, asked more than
once, " Well, what are we going to do now ?"
Had not the Crown Prince, for whose slow.advance
they were waiting and longing, Made his appear-
ance and carried Lipa, Benedek's cavalry would
have been down on Prince Frederick Charles's
struggling army, and his reserves would have been
sent to the support of the Austriani, contending so
bravely against the Second Army. In that case
Herwarth, who was forcing the position occupied
by the Austrians and Saxons at Nechanitz with the
7th Army Corps and part of the Bth, would have
been isolated, and his left flank would have been
exposed and turned ; but it is evident that unless
Benedek could have stopped the First Army he
could not have profited very materially by defeating
the army of Prince Frederick Charles, as a most
formidable antagonist was appearing on the scene
whose army was nearly equal in guns and men to
the whole of the troops Benedek could dispose of
to meet the combined attack. The dead lie thick
indeed—mounds with roughly-made crosses, with
such inscriptions as these :—Hier ruhen 9 tap-
fere Preussische and Oesterreichische Krieger."
But few are named, and in some spots almost
every sod beneath one's feet is, indeed, a soldier's
sepulchre. It was nearly sunset before we turned
back from Nechanitz, and 10 o'clock before we
reached Smiric. There are stories of marauders and
robbers prowling about the villages and hunting the
battle-field, but there were none of them to be seen
on this occasion, and the . moonlight did not tempt
even a ghost to wander forth and flit through the dark
alleys of the blood-stained pine groves, clothed with
the gloom and noiselessness of the grave itself.
Prince Albrecht, who commanded the cavalry on
the day of the battle, visited the field, and the
French military attaché to the . Embassy at Berlin
also went over the ground in company with two
Prussian majors. Tourists were also there in con-
siderable numbers ; but if they listened to the stories
of their local guides they had very erroneous ideas
of the battle. This little village has awakened sud-
denly and found itself famous. The key of the small
church is a valuable property, and opens the way to
a mine of paper currency. The most ignorant of the
resident peasantry have become oracles in respect
to the greatest battle since Waterloo. The Prussian
Engineers are surveying the ground, and when they
have done the map ought to be very perfect, for they
have taken six weeks to lay it down, and have not
done yet. All the plans hitherto drawn are, with-
opgwurriototuhce:ecscld.oeption, erroneous more or less, and rather
more than less, and the military student must wait
a little
neloalneotgoner for a tolerably correct idea of the
Prussian
visitth e 2s3kdao
tote
euerar
officers,
and Military
N a elho
returned
i n eon Correspondentihpitahneyr
on my road to Moravia, taking Koniggratz on my
way.

Men have written books in prison, but there is no
case of the governor of a fortress in a state of siege
doing so. It must be because governors are in
that case generally provided with some active,
healthy occupation,—they were attacked by an
enemy or had something to keep them from idle
amusements. If the governors of Theresienstadt,
Josephstadt, and Koniggratz do not produce works

they will lose a great occasion. The former officer
has, indeed, had an excuse. O'n the day the truce
expired, being ignorant of its pi •olongation, he sal-

lied out on the Prussians, e .ttacked them with
vigour, and took some prisoners back with him.
This offence has been condone. The governor of
Josephstadt, however, has had no such plea to offer,
for he was shut up on the 29thi of June last, and till
August 2 he had no relations with the outer world,
and he then only establish ad some very limited
channels of intercourse with external mankind over
his drawbridges. Lately he . was visited, not long
after sunset. He was in bed- —a military philosopher.
" For," said he, "I have iaothing to do ; there is
none to talk to ; nothin&a t. be seen or to be done,

and so when I have seen the reports and had my
supper I go to bed and•read till I fall asleep." The
publishers of the world ought to compete for a cer-
tificate from such a competent judge of a lively
work. When the Crown Prince marched down
towards Koniggratz he left a brigade to cover Jo-
sephstadt, and so the brigade looked at the garrison
and the garrison looked at the brigade till peace
came. The governor of Koniggratz.had a moment
of excitement. On the sth of July the Prussians
established two batteries in the afternoon, and began
to throw projectiles into the town. Their range was
accurate. The shells fell in the houses of the Platz.
But the guns of the work began toreply, and as the
gunners knew the distances to a foot, the Prussians
were very soon obliged to retire out of the way of
the smooth-bores, and to take up rifled artillery dis-
tances. Then they made a miscalculation, for all
their shots for the rest of the evening flew far above
the housetops, and plashed into the inundations at
the other side of the walls. These three fortresses
or fortified places of Theresienstadt, Josephstadt,
and Koniggratz have played a remarkable part
in the campaign, little as they have done.
The first blocked up an important railway com-
munication which would have been most useful
to the Prussians ; the second detained a portion of
their army, and gave Benedek apoint d'appui when
he swung round his army from Dubenec to Konig-
gratz ; the last served to save the Austrian army
from the worst results of their defeat. Olmutz, too,
gave Benedek shelter, and by its very name deterred
the Prussians from any attempt to complete his
discomfiture. The day of fortified places in war is
not clearly so closed as economists and trajectorists
have asserted and prophesied, and these works al-
ways exercised a greater influence than the soldiers
in garrison could have exercised over the enemy's
calculations had they been in the open. Even when
cut off and quite isolated they retained nearly all
their original force, and in that respect, as in others,
such as the control of roads, differed from detached
corps of equal magnitude in the field. Did not the
sister fortresses contend for the honour, Koniggratz
might claim the honour of being the place where
Dulness holds her Court. The waters of the inun-
dations are still out, and spread their marshy folds
around the green mounds, above which rise the
houses and spires of the place. The road winds
along a causeway raised above the marsh, and the
trees which shaded it for many years now lie in ruin
by its side, for they were cut down in order to give
the cannon free vista. A few women washing in the
water and some white-coated soldiers looking on
are the onlypopulation visible. Over drawbridge and
moat the postchaise rattles and jolts, lazily waking
up the guards who are seated in the shade and
dreaming over their dinners, and then emerges in
the quaint dreary Platz, surrounded by high houses
with arcaded streets like those of Chester. The shops
are nearly all closed, and there is not a sign of life
in the place, except that some Austrian officers and
soldiers can be seen creeping along„out of the sun,
and a batch of Prussian prisoners, under the charge
of a Hungarian sentinel, with fixed bayonet, are
going out to take a " constitutional" round the town.
Civilians there are none. There was one, but he
apparently retired to digest his wonder at the sight
of a vehicle and a traveller inside the fortress. The
tower door was open. The guardian of the tower
who lives high up amid the ropes and machinery of
the clock with his wife and children, in a littleroom,
taking no note of time save by its loss, was at home,
and after a giddy clamber in the dark by a spiral
staircase, and up ladders in black voids, peopled
only by the great throbbing ticks of the clock, it
was pleasant to see the daylight let in through his
little window, and then to emerge on the gallery
and gaze on the well-known scene, which has not
changed in the smallest, though the Austrian empire
has covered the hills and plains with the wreck of its
German " hegemony" and of its Imperial grandeur.
It was a relief to escape from the silence and
mournful associations of Koniggratz. The carriage
rumbled over the drawbridges and out of the portals
without let or hindrance, and no one enquired if
French or Prussian engineer had come out en bour-
geois with plans of the whole defences in his pocket-
book. The road beyond the Prague Thor passes
through a suburb nearly deserted, and by a sad inter-
vention of houses blown up to leave free play for the
guns, and the great trees still line the inundation
with their prostrate trunks. The traveller who may
desire to visit Koniggratz need not fear any mistake
as to the scene of the battle. Forseveral miles be-
fore he comes to the gates he can see the white
church of Cldum, with its black, stumpy spire, rising
out of a dark grove on the top of a hill, to the right
and left of which there is a green ridge, flat and
bare, till on the left it is bordered by the woods
of Nechanic, and on the right the Big Tree is
seen, and then comes a bare plain, terminated by
the undulating ground and the trees over Horo-
nowes. Unless the tree be cut down after it has
been made one of the bases for the Prussian survey,
the natural features of the ground are so marked
that no agricultural processes will alter it, and the
field of Koniggratz will remain for many a year as
it is—the site of one of the most interesting and
momentous battles of the world. At Kuklena, out-
side the city, the first Prussian soldier came,in view,
and there were few windows in any of the hamlets
and villages on the way to l'ardubitz which did no

exhiEt, ',be brass spike and frontispiece and the shiny
black leather of the helmet Vith which so much of
Germany is familiar, put there to hang out of the
way, or as a token of occupation. If the stories of

the people, which are only told in strict confidence,
are to be credited to any extent, the occupation so
typified has been a sore burden on the laud. Let

every. Englishman bless thesea and thewavesthereof
and be thankful that his coast is more substantial

:han that which Shakspere assigned to Bohemia.

Sydney Smith's picture of England invaded may be
somewhat exaggerated, but we see under our eyes
the people of countries famous for deeds of arms in
olden times groaning under the load of 300,000
foreign soldiers. Cushion it as we may, the iron
saddle galls to the bone.

consequent distress, and afford them such succour
as seemed necessary, but to see to the condition of
drains, cesspools, and the like, the state of the water
used for domestic purposes, and to the execution of
cleansing and disinfecting processes where they were
urgently required. In a self-reliant spirit they had
organised and conducted this work, both in appre-
hension and in the actual presence of the epidemic,
and it was not until they had exhausted their local
means, obtained from various sources, that they had
applied to the Mansion-house Committee for as-
sistance. Dr. Tripe, the local medical officer of
health, who accompanied the deputation, stated
incidentally that there were in that part of London
4,800 houses, the rent of each of which was under
£2O a year.

Dr. A. CLARK, physician to the London Hospital,
who has often, at the meetings of the committee,
had to lament to some of the local authorities who
came there, and especially those from a poor dis-
trict in Southwark the other day, the little energy
shown, and often the entire neglect, in the cleansing
of drains and cesspools, and in other sanitary works,
took occasion greatly to commend the precautions
taken by the Hackney authorities, as being in a high
degree calculated to arrest the spread of the malady,
and therefore worthy of all imitation.

Of all the relief which the Mansion-house Com-
mittee has been enabled, through the public bounty,
to dispense in money and in kind, to the hundreds
of poor patients and convalescents at their own
homes, in the last three weeks, probably none has
been more suitable or more grateful than the port
wine, arrowroot, corn-flour, and other nourishing
diet which they have given through the local com-
mittee. One of their own body, Mr. A. Johnston,
a member of the firm of Morewood and Co., of
Upper Thames-street, has from the first afforded
warehouse room for all such stores—of course free
of all charge. By the spontaneous kindness of va-
rious firms of wine merchants three pipes of port
wine have been presented to the committee for dis-
tribution during the last three weeks. This stock,
however, is now all but exhausted, and the committee
with regret have had occasion within the last few days
to say to local authorities who have applied to them
that for the present at least they have little or no
port wine at their disposal for the sick and convale-
scent.

We have been requested to correct a slight error
which crept into the report of yesterday in that part
of the statement made by Mr. John Abel Smith,
M.P., on Tuesday in reference to the funds supplied
to the temporary hospital iu Commercial-street,
Whitechapel. It appears that almost the whole
amount hitherto furnished has been supplied by the
Bishop of London's Fund and the Mansion-house
Committee, and the hospital is in want of further
assistance.

At the meeting of the committee on Tuesday, Mr.
E. H. Palmer, a director of the Bank of England,
and a member, with other gentlemen, of the managing
committee of the Hospital, disclaimed for himself
any merit attaching to the attempt to establish it,
which he said was entirely due to Miss Sellon and
the other benevolent ladies acting in concert with
her.