The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-19 00:00:00

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
HEAD-QUARTERS, OLMUTZ, July 12.
The Feldzeugmeister is in the city getting his
army into shape, and working with the inexhaustible
energy and spirit which are characteristic of the gal-
lant but not fortunate soldier. Although he is over
60 years of age, there are few men of half his years
who could equal General von Benedek in his power
of enduring fatigue in the saddle or at the desk, and
he spares neither himself nor his staff night or day.
But he is now only second in command. He is send-
ing away vast portions of his army to the new Com-
mander-in-Chief, Archduke Albrecht, at Vienna,
and he will soon be left with only a garrison and a
covering army of operations at Olmutz, ready to drop
on the Prussian flank and rear, and especially adapted
for such a task. It is only right here to correct the
impression that Count Henikstein, Count Clam-
Gallas, and General Krismanics, &c., were removed
after and in consequence of their conduct at the
battle of Koniggratz. Count Clam-Gallas was de-
prived of his command after the action of Jicin, and
Count Henikstein and the other staff officers were
suspended before the battle of July 3. Gen. Paum-
gartten, Commander-in-Chief of district of Galicia
and Bukovina, arrived in camp the day before the
battle to take Count Henikstein's place, but he did
not disturb the arrangements of his predecessors.
General Krismanics and Count Clam-Gallas have
been released from arrest, but the former Chief of
the Staff still remains in military confinement. The
whole of the staff is to be reorganised—a hard mat-
ter to accomplish in the face of an enemy, as we
know—and there will be attempts made to cure de-
fects in administration and in the army itself which
recent events have revealed very largely. The Aus-
trian army had been for some time on a peace foot-
ing, the establishments were much reduced when
the war broke out, and the sudden effort to assume
the proportions suited to such a contest has strained
and twisted the machinery of all the establishments
very severely.
To find oneself in Olmutz in a defensive position,
while accounts come in on all sides of Prussians
here, there, and everywhere, is rather startling to
one who left Vienna with the idea that he was about
to witness a grand invasion of Silesia, or, at all events,
a successful resistance to the enemy's attempt to in-
vade Bohemia amid the passes of the Giant Moun-
tains. Such, however, is the hard logic of accomplished
facts. When Benedek moved from Olmutz to Joseph-
stadt he intended to invade Silesia and march
upon Berlin. The question yet to be determined is
whether he could have set out sooner, and whether,
if he could, the delay was attributable to himself or
to others more timid and hesitating. It will pro-
bably be found that his army was not ready for an
extensive campaign, even when Benedek resolved to
march northwards, and that he was exceedingly
anxious to assume the offensive before he actually
began to move his columns. His army was in
full march northwards for the frontier when the last
of his divisions was suddenly attacked on its right
flank—so suddenly that the action was described as
a surprise. Instead of forcing the passes and pouring
his army into Silesia, Benedek found the passes
forced and in the hands of the enemy, and Bohemia
already flooded with their troops. Whose fault was
it that these passes were left so lightly guarded at
all ? Your military correspondent with the Prussian
army has enabled your readers to judge of the diffi-
culties an enemy who sought to penetrate these de-
files would have had to meet if the Austrians had
occupied them in force and defended them with skill
and resolution. But the Prussians had fairly de-
bouched before the Austrians had come up with their
main bodies to arrest their progress. They were on
the heights above—the Austrians in the lower
ground. Then the needle-gun began to make itself
felt, and the wounded men brought to the rear, in
passing through the lines of the army, spread won-
derful tales of the terrible weapon which multiplied
the enemy fivefold, and swept away battalion and
squadron before they could cross bayonet or ply
sabre with the Prussians. The day of Skalitz was
most mortifying and astonishing. It showed the
Prussians were in force, and that their hold was not
to be shaken off without a tremendous effort. This
effort Benedek determined to make, and it certainly
was to no fault of his disposition that the defeat at
Jicin can be attributed. That defeat disconcerted his
scheme, for he could not move against the Prussian
army in front of him, while another powerful army
was advancing on his flank and rear. So he fell back
upon Koniggratz, and there accepted the memor-
able battle which will be famous in the world as long
as history lives. It cannot be asserted that his ge-
neral idea in his order of battle was defective. His
position was well chosen. The reserves were too
closely packed, perhaps, and as the disposition of
the Austrian army was almost semi-circular, with
the wings thrown back towards the Elbe, and the
centre projecting beyond Klmn, with a bend
towards Sadowa and Nechanitz, it followed that
when the Prussians forced back the wings they got
a converging and even a cross fire on the narrow
space where the second line and reserves were cooped
up in rear of the centre, and from higher ground
pressed on them to rout and destruction. Then, as
there was no position at Brunn in which an army could
take its stand to resist a victorious enemy, Benedek
turned to the east as he retreated, and drew up at
Olmutz, whence he had started little more than a
fortnight before. The Prussians did not attempt to
molest the retreat of his main body, but made
straight for Pardubitz and Prague, and then pro-
ceeded to push their main column into Moravia, and
to occupy Brunn preparatory to their great move-
ment against Vienna.
The city of Olmutz is surrounded by regular for-
tifications, to which the skill of the engineer officer,
Colonel von Scholl, has given increased strength.
which is augmented every day. It is situated on
low grounds, watered by the sluggish course of the
March, and although there are high hills on one side
of it they scarcely come near enough to afford bases for
a bombardment or commanding fire on the place.
The fortified city, however, is a mere centre or
citadel for a. system of forts, which hem it
completely in, crossing their fire on all the ap-
proaches, and rendering it absOlutely necessary for
batteries
before enemy to silence them from regular
before he can approach the proper enciente. These
forts are generally constructed of a strong masonry,
and are for the most part casemated works, with
earthworks outside. They are said to number no
less than 30 great and small, and, probably,
there may be more, but I should think the
former estimate exaggerated. An army if it
could be fed might lie securely within their
embrace. But it would not be safe to leave Olmutz
without a garrison of at least one corps d'armee
and with such a force the position would prove of
immense importance as it hangs on the rear of the
Prussian communications with Silesia, and connects
Austria still with Bohemia through her hold on
Koniggratz and Josephstadt. As the Prussians ad-
vance they must mask these fortified forts as well
Thereseinstadt. They must leave garrisons at
Prague, at Brunn and similar places. It is true
that the Austrians'
must diminish their army to put
men into their works to guard them, but the drain
of the Prussians is far greater, even though they are
more numerous, and the moral and military effects
of holding these posts in
a country otherwise over-
run by the enemyeLss,
poor very great, and all in favour of
Austria, who needs,
bleeding soul, all the
help she can receive, but is not yet reduced to ask
mercy from her foe.
It would be exceedingly reprehensible to sa
word about the defences of Vienna. We all know
onenow
.
that there is the Danube, and it may readily be
imagined that the Austrians are not going to aban-
don their capital without a fight for it. The con-
clusion to which so many people in England havecome that the war in over is certainly very hasty
and ill-founded, so far as Austria is concerned. The
" seven days' war" is a pretty antithetical phrase,
but it is nothing more. The resources of the State in
men are not sapped; and although the army has
lost much of its confidence it has not lost any of its
courage. Already the vanguard of the army of
Italy—the advance of some 60,000 of the flower of
the Austrian army, all Germans and Hungarians—
has reached Salzburg ; and Benedek has sent down
day after day reinforcements to the army which
now lies around Vienna till it represents a great