The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-24 00:00:00

THE AUSTRIAN ARMY.

(From the Special Correspondendent of the Times.)
PARDIMITZ, Aug. 17.

It was at this town the beaten Austrians who
could not cross the Elbe concentrated on the night
and morning after the battle of July 3, and some of
the cavalry who covered the retreat and were under
fire till night set in, did not reach it till 11 o'clock
in the forenoon of July 4. The train by which I
came on left Brunn at 9 45 a.m. this morning, and
has been travelling at the rate of about nine miles an
hour for the greater part of the day. It is filled
with officers going to Prague, and with soldiers re-
joining their regiments or going to hospital, and
there are very few civilians indeed, and I have en-
joyed the extraordinary spectacle of an army more
than 150 miles long, and not yet ended, for the
whole line is thickly occupied by the Prussians,
and not a village or town has escaped the guar-
dianship of a body of the blue coats. At Brunn
there was a singular gathering of railway carriages
—Saxon and Bavarian, Prussian and Austrian,
were coupled together in a friendly " unifica-
tion," and the " K. K. Priv." of the Kaiser were
yoked in locomotive embrace with " Koln and Mun-
den" and " Limlau and Augsburg," " Berlin and
Lobau," " Dresden and Nuremberg," but they were
all marked with the tokens cf present possession by
the Prussians. Men of the 3d, 10th, 18th, 42d,
44th, 50th, 58, G2d, and other regiments came on
as passengers, and were apparently much envied by
their comrades as the train bore them northwards.
Through the charming valley of Zweittawa the rail-
way passes with much tunnelling out into the open
country towards Zwittau, and the inclines are steep
upwards, so that the train took 1 hour 15 minutes
to go over 14i miles. As we approach each station
the path by the railway generally presented a lively
appearance, for the countrywomen in short petti-
coats, and handkerchiefs over their heads of gaudy
colours, trotted along the baskets of dairy and farm
produce to feed the little g arrison of Prussian sol-
diers, chatting and laughing as they went in the hope
of a good market. The Austrian Government is to
pay now for the maintenance of the troops, and the
billeting orders and receipts are sometimes used as
currency among the peasantry and small shopkeepers.
The arrival of the train was the great excitement of
the day, and, as it approached, the soldiery could
be seen coming across the fields and out of the cot-
tages to assist at the reception. Some of them ap-
peared to be quite domesticated on the premises ;
one great fellow was busily employed in shelling
peas for the good woman of the house, and another
was helping to fill a sack full of apples, the German
tongue being so far common in the country that it
serves to establiBh a means of communication be-
between the " enemy" and the people. At Boh-
misch Trubau the branch line to Ohnutz strikes off
to the right. The buffet at the station was
stormed by the hungry officers in the train, and a
halt of 20 minutes took place, during which some
of the staff of the Berlin Association for the
Relief of the Sick and Wounded went round among
the soldiers distributing supplies of food and
medicine to those in need of it, and looking after
the bandages of those who had been taken up at
the different stations. Two or three Austrians, who
were apparaently on parole as prisoners, came in for
a share of the good things, but if they were at all
patriotic their personal feelings must have been ex-
cited by the crowd of famished looking wretches at
the station, some of them partly clad in old Aus-
trian uniforms, stripped probably from the dead at
Koniggratz. These were said to be people who had
been driven out of their houses by the operations of
war, and who had returned to find only ruins. It
was nearly 5 o'clock before the train reached Par-
dubitz, a place only important as the spot at which
the line to KOniggratz and Joseplistadt branches
off from the line to Prague. I intended to proceed
to either of the two fortresses, but it appears the
train when it does start—and that is not certain—
does not stop at either, but halts at Smiritz, a village
between the two, some distance on the right of the
road, whert there is no accommodation for travellers.
It is doubtful if any stranger will be permitted to
enter either of the towns, and all the surrounding
villages are filled with sick and wounded, but as I
am very anxious to see in what condition they are
I hope to be able to get through the two lines of
Austrian and Prussian patrols and visit the neutral
ground marked out for the work of the surgeon and
the nurse, and; at the same time, to go over the field
of Koniggratz, to clear up, if possible, the great
Klum enigma, which is the mystery of one of the
most celebrated and signal victories we are likely to
see in this century. What is the use of history at
all if such a vital point cannot be determined at the
present moment, when the actors are all alive who
took part in the drama, and when recollections of
what occurred must still be fresh and vivid ? And
yet, here is Field-Marshal von Benedek, in an official
report—here are all his Staff and his officers to a
man, under a confident belief, which the Prussians
assert is quite destitute of foundation. If I ever
could trust my eyes on any point, it would be, and
it is, on the fact that the village which I take to be
Klum was left undefended, and that it was occupied
by the Prussians coming from the Austrian right
without a struggle, though a short struggle took
place between them when they were in possession
of it and some Austrian battalions from below the
rising ground. Klum must be identified. I now
hear that the big tree mentioned in my account of
the battle was selected by the Crown Prince as the
leading point of his attack, and that he actually
dot
oinrweteahtreeddrs tKcilleue ,m near
march of his battalions by it. It stands
eaanrdwohvi
eari
tTiof fold
ridge
on
otfhewgrhioor
Idsarwunsos
many Prussians marching in splendid order from
the right. The Prussians ask why Benedek did not
guard his right more effectually. The answer is
simple. He had no more men to put there than he
could actually place towards the Crown Prince, and
his reserves were not adequate to enable him to
supply his deficiency. Let it always be remembered
that in this crowning fight the Prussians were not
merely superior in arms, but vastly superior in
numbers and in artillery. They had at the lowest
estimate 235,000 men engaged, against 190,000,
and their artillery was to the Austrian three to two
guns at the least. Benedek hoped to beat Prince
Frederick Charles and the King before the Crown
Prince arrived, if he hoped to do anything at all ;
but the attack was made with a force and vigour
which demanded the whole weight of his army to
meet it with a fair chance of success, and about noon
it was evident that he was to be exposed to the
attack of another army almost equal to the whole
foof r hism o
ro
ow
thann t r ofooposr,
hwohuor
shNla,di
tbeen
tthe
e a
el roceandl
yy
When
he was beaten Austria was prostrate. The simple
reason of her wreck and ruin was that she had no
reserves. She had one army, and one only. Fart