The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-20 00:00:00

.RMY.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
HEAD-QUARTERS OF THE ARMY OF THE NORTH,
OLmtrrz, July 13.
Yesterday was distinguished by an incident of a
personal character, which I shall narrate merely in
order to give some idea of the difficulties which
beset one in my position. Early in the morning I
got, for the first time, my pass from the acting
chief of the Staff. The document had long been
promised, but in the confusion of the marching be-
fore and the retreating after the 3d of July I had
not been able to obtain it, and was subjected to in-
termittent arrests and perpetual stoppages and in-
terrogatories—a sort of nomadic torture chamber—
in consequence. There it was at last, the Haupt
Quartier Staff seal, and a flattering description of
my personal appearance on a printed form, and an
order to all whom it might concern to let the bearer
go to and fro without let or hindrance. It was early
in the day. There was nothing doing at Olmutz.
My horse had arrived at last from Vienna. The
weather was charm ing—a hot breezy day. The Prus-
sians were said to have been seen in the neighbour-
hood of Littau, or Leittau, a town about 11 miles
east and north of Olmutz ; and so my comrade and
I resolved we would take a ride in that direction,
and started off to see the country and the camps,
and get a breath of fresh air. We passed out of one
of the gates, and were soon on a fine high road
lined with trees, which was, of course, alive with
soldiers and camp equipages, and with country
people coming in to sell their produce in the ever-
hungry army. There were forts on all sides rising
out of the cornfields dotted with men at work, and
there were poppy fields bright as a pre-Raphaelite
painter's landscape, and there were fields still
brighter with patches of gaily accoutred cavalry
and white and green coated soldiery, and there
was a glorious sweep of hill side and forest
glade rising above the course of the march, and
stretching away on the right to Prussian Silesia.
And so we cantered on, gaily returning
the salutations of the peasants, and now and
then of an officer on his way to Olmutz. There was
no music in the camps; no bands playing; none of
the strains which enliven a soldier's rest and march
alike. The last time the martial music for which the
Austrian army is so famous was heard is only ten
days gone by, and yet it seems an age. It was
when the second line was advancing at Koniggratz
to an assured victory. A beaten army is never
very cheerful, but this is one of an elastic character,
and perhaps some judicious., erry-making would do
it good, and revive the spirits of the men. There is a
good deal of marching about, but affairs of outposts
and enterprises appear to be carefully avoided.
Drumming there is to a limited extent as compared
with a French army, and bugling as compared with
our service is deficient, but there is a habit of sound-
ing a quick or two at intervals on the line of march
to brisk up the men,which has a pleasant, inspiring.
effect. There were many small detachments march-
ing along, and the road before us was thick with the
dust of many feet of horses and men and the wheels
of waggons. In less than half an hour we were out-
side the main body of the army, and no more bivouacs
were to be seen in the fields, only a stray Uhlan or
Lancer now and then, or an orderly with despatches,
and the peasants in little knots as usual, the women
always laden, or dragging heavy handbarrows, the
men smoking as they walked along with their beasts
of burden. Once came up a ragged Bohemian.
"My Lords," said he in a whisper, motioning us to
stop, "Look there! A man is sitting by the roadside
under the tree yonder; he does nothing but write,
write, write, in a book. Will you, my Lords, see if
he is not a spy." A very suspicious Bohemian. When
we came up to the man who wrote we asked him
what he was doing, for it was pleasant to do a little
bit of the Inquisition on one's own account, and we
spoke as having authority. The man who wrote was
awfully alarmed, and at once proceeded to satisfy
us that he was merely summing up claims he had, a
small dealer and chapman; against sundry peasant
customers at Littau, and so, warning him to be care-
ful and do so no more, we rode on, and as we rode
resolved to pay that townlet of which the spires rose
before us in two respectable elevations a visit before
we ascended a tall hill on the left, which promised a
good view of the surrounding country. The hostinec
of the Black Bear invited us to refresh man and
beast, and so we rode into the stableyard under the
inn gateway just as a light carriage entered and
stopped at the door. A lady got out and entered the
inn, and when the horses were put up we followed.
The public room was not very tempting. A group
of men sat at a table smoking and drinking beer,
and listening to two gendarmes who were settling
the affairs of the nation with great gravity. There
was a suspicion of onions and trichnia mingled with
the smoke of quaint vegetable matter and doubtful
sckinken not calculated to promote appetite, and so
the landlord, at our request, opened the door of the
inner room, which was clean and neat, and therein
we entered and sat down while the handmaiden was
preparing a schnitzel of veal. The door of the end
of the room opened soon after, and the lady whom
we had seen getting out of the carriage came in and
sat down at another table and addressed herself in
silence to some refreshment. After a while the other
door opened and in came the two gendarmes we had
seen sitting in the outer room. They asked for our
passes. These were produced. Then each taking
one proceeded to read it slowly and to compare our
descriptions with the owners. Mine excited some
discussion between the two on a question of age and
stoutness, but on the whole it was in my favour, and
the two gendarmes folded up the passes, returned
them, and left the room with a lingering air, as if
they were loth to part and would like to take us up
for the mere sake of keeping their hands in prac-
tice. The schnitzel was consumed, and we were
thinking of leaving.
At this moment there was a clatter of horses'
boots in the little street, and a party of Uhlans—
possibly some eight or ten in number dashed
across the platz over the rude and slippery pavement
with reckless rush, scattering a group
of people at
the corner of the street, and
vanished. The lady
rose from her table at the end of the room, ran to
the window to look out, but the troopers had already
gone. " I beg you, gentlemen, to tell me what was
the colour of the men's facings and of their caps who
passed. Was it yellow?" "No, not yellow." "Then
it is not my husband's regiment," quoth the lady,
and then in the most natural way in the world she
began both to talk and ask questions. She was com-
ing to Olmutz to look for her children and for her
husband, who was colonel of the 6th Uhlans, and
the facings of his regiment were yellow, and the men
had yellow on their caps. She knew they were some-
where about. As to ladies being with their husbands
in war time it was not usual, but one lady had gone
through the campaign with her husband, and never
left him till fighting began, and so she wanted to
see how she herself could get on. Then the conver-
sation became general about the Prussians. They
had come to her house and had behaved very well--
that is, they had taken nothing forcibly, but they
asked for whatever they had a mind to want, officers
and men, and never paid a farthing for it. At
Troppan her father had seen 3,500 of them the other
day. They cost
the poor people 4,000 gulden a day
and
for their keep, lived at free quarters. Then we
had a peep out, and
lady,the
who had a very pretty
little gloved hand, leant
over the table and pointed
out the places where the
Prussians
alwl
tehree,
cofuonrtsrhye.
lived close to the fro t*
After a time her carriage was announl announced, and the-
lady bade us adieu with a pleasant s
and tripped
off, and we saw her driving off towards Olmutz. We
were leaving the room to go round for our horses,
when one of the gendarmes, a-younc,,, than with high
cheek-bones, stood in the way You must come to
the Chancellery," quoth he ; "you cannot leave."
The why or wherefore we could not learn, and so, to
the infinite satisfaction of all the people in the inn,
and all the children in the square, who were joined
by all the old people, male and female, we were
marched across to an archway in a big building,
where a jury of the most respectable Littauites, with
spectacles on nose, had empannelled themselves
to inspect us. The verdict was unfavourable and
instantaneous. We had eccentric hats. Did ever
any one ever see such preposterous boots and spurs?
Spies, not a doubt of it. I sat down on a bench to
await the arrival of an " authority," and my neigh-