The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—Sadowa was another Waterloo in its
strategy, if not in its influence upon the fate of an
Empire. The invading army of Bohemia stretched
far and wide over a slightly undulating country, and
from the centre of its line a high road led directly to
the headquarters of the enemy. Along this road
Prince Frederick Charles advanced with his main
army, while auxiliary forces to the right and left at-
tempted to turn the Austrian flanks. Sadowa was his
llougoumont. The brunt of the battle fell upon those
who attempted, on the one side, to take, and on the
other to keep, this position. The peaceful little vil-
lage on the River Bistritz was eight days since the
scene of an encounter which, for mingled fierceness
and duration, cannot be matched by any battle since
the end of the great war. On that Tuesday morn-
ing, July 3, its wooden cottages stood among orch-
ards thick with the fruit of summer, apparently in
perfect security. Before night came the cottages
were mere charred wood and dying embers, the
orchard trees were flayed and scarred and broken,
and the Bistritz itself ran a discoloured stream, bear-
ing its tale to those who could not see the ruins of
Sadowa. The Bistritz at Sadowa runs from about
N.N.E. to S.S.W., and nearly parallel on its east
side is the course of the Upper Elbe between Joseph-
stadt and Koniggratz. On the morning of the
3d Prince Frederick Charles was at Milowitz, on
the right bank of the Bistritz, and little more than
six miles from Sadowa. At Neubidschau, ten
miles on the right, was General von Bittenfeld with
the Bth Division, and about the same distance on
the left, stretching from Miletin, on the Bistritz,
further to the east, on the left bank, Was the Crown
Prince, with the army of Silesia. Between these
extreme lines lay the Prussian forces, parallel to the
Bistritz, 250,000 strong, under the immediate con-
trol of the Prussian King. The Austrian force was
correctly believed by the Prussians to be nearly
equal to their own, and though it was known to be
strongly posted along the left bank of the Bistritz,
Prince Frederick Charles determined on taking the
high road which leads from Milowitz across the
stream at Sadowa towards Koniggratz, so as to fall
upon its centre, orders being sent to the Crown
Prince and General von Bittenfeld to attempt to
turn the enemy. Five miles brought the main army
a little after 7 o'clock to Dub, whence the road
descends for a mile and a quarter to the bridge
of Sadowa. It was from the crest of the hill at
Dub that our correspondent with the Prussian
army looked down on that Tuesday morning upon
what was to be before sunset the scene of a most
sanguinary conflict. At his feet was Sadowa, on
his right, a mile further down the stream, was
Dohilnitz, and, still a mile beyond,. Mokrowens,
and between the two, but standing back from the
stream, the schloss of Dohalicha ; on his left, some
two miles up the river, was the village of Benatek.
All along the opposite banks were thick woods cover-
ing the side of the valley, and on the crest, a mile
and a half above Sadowa, stood the church spire
of Lipa, close behind which lies Chlum, or Klum:
The Austrian forces were posted along the left
hank, under cover of the woods, and it is evident
that as long as they could keep such a position
they were able to neutralise- in great measure
the terrible advantage of the needle-gun. The firing
began at half-past 7 o'clock, but about a quarter
before 8 the Prussians had brought up their field
batteries and the struggle commenced. The Aus-
trian guns seemed to appear, says our correspon-
dent, as if by magic, on every point of their position.
From every village along the course of the stream,
from Benatek down to Mokrowens, came flashes of
fire and whizzing shells among the Prussian artil-
lery, dismounting guns, killing men and horses, and
splintering carriages in all directions. Shells were
even thrown up the slop towards Dub, one of which
bursting among a squadron of Uhlans killed four
men close beside the King. For two hours the can-
nonade continued with terrible vigour on each side,
the Austrian artillery officers not only having the
better position, but also knowing . their ground,
but towards ten the Austrian batteries on the Prus-
sian right at Dohilnitz, Dohalicha, and Mokrowens,
were forced to retire a little up the hill, and it was
resolved to carry the villages along the stream. Be-
natek, meanwhile, caught fire on the left, the Prus-
sian 7th Division made a dash upon it, and after
desperate hand-to-hand fighting in the midst of the
flames secured the position. A simultaneous attack
was made on Sadowa, Dohilnitz, and Mokrowens,
and the slaughter on both sides was for an hour
tremendous ; the Prussians were able to fire more
quickly, but they were obliged to fire pretty much
at random, while the Austrian Jagers did terrible
execution on their assailants. The Prussians
almost paved their way with dead and wounded,
and when to help their infantry they turned their
artillery on the villages, and Mokrowens and Dohil-
nitz both caught fire, still the Austrians did not
yield. Our correspondent with the Austrian army
from his station tower at Koniggratz saw the vil-
lages burst into flames one after another, but the
unbroken line of the Austrian forces maintaining its
ground in the centre, and apparently advancing on
its left, still gave promise of victory to their arms.
At length, about 11, the Prussians having secured
villages on the river, attempted to seize the opposite
slopes, and it was then that the 27th Regiment en-
tered the woods above Benatek, 3,000 strong, with
90 officers, to come out of them 300 or 400 rank
and file and two officers alive and unwounded. The
Prussian artillery was brought to the far side of the
Bistritz, and began to play upon the new position
which the Austrians had taken up on the slope, but
for nearly four hours they failed to produce an
impression. The Austrian artillery made fatal
practice, the needle gun did not tell, and repeated
charges of infantry served to carry forward the
front a few hundred yards up the slope only to be
repelled again. The position was most critical.
The Prussian right wing had been advancing at an
early period of the morning against Nechanitz, but
it had since become stationary, and the observers
from the Koniggratz watch tower distinctly saw
the Saxons, who formed the Austrian left, re-
pulsing their assailants. Prince Frederick
Charles, in command of the centre, was, like
Napoleon at Waterloo, earnestly praying that
the Crown Prince, his Grouchy, might appear
to turn the enemy's right. The result of the
battle was so doubtful that the cavalry was
formed to cover a retreat should it be found neces-
sary, and General von Rhetz was sent off to look
after the Army of Silesia. At three he returned
with the welcome intelligence that the Crown
Prince was pressing the Austrian right ; at half-past
three the columns of the Crown Prince were seen
moving along the crest over Benatek against Lipa,
and at the same hour it became evident to the Aus-
trian Commanders and to the Koniggratz observer
that the battle was lost. It was, in fact, a ques-
tion whether the Army of Silesia might not cut
off the Austrian forces from their base, and pre-
vent the retreat to Koniggratz and thence to Par-
dubitz. Our correspondents with the Austrian
army appear, indeed, to think that the battle
might yet have been saved. The Austrian cavalry
—perhaps the finest in the world—had scarcely
been engaged, and had a Murat been present to
have led it against the advancing columns of the
Crown Prince the battle might have been won. The
opportunity, if it existed, was lost ; the whole army
fell back along the high road to Koniggratz, and
the struggle into that citadel across the pontoon
bridges which had been thrown over the Elbe was to
some extent a reproduction of the horrors of the re-
treat from Leipsic. What effect a rout so complete
may have upon the Austrian Empire we do not here
discuss. The military lessons of the battle are suf-
ficient for our consideration at present, and a little
reflection will show that the Battle of Sadowa
did not disprove the supremacy attributed to the
needle-gun. In that part of the field where the
advantage of the needle-gun was neutralized by
the disposition of the Austrian forces among
the woods on the left bank of the Bistritz
the result was doubtful, if, indeed, the victory did
not lie with the Austrians. The fate of the contest
was determined by the arrival of the Silesian army,
moving in comparatively open country, and it seems
but reasonable to attribute the facility with which
the Crown Prince turned the Austrian right to the
possession of the weapon which had before proved
so potent. The defect of strategy for which
General Benedek is blamed, is not having covered
Lipa and Chlum, was probably rather a defect of
means. The army of Silesia was a new force com-
ing into the field, and as the Prussians were esti-
mated in their own camp at 250,000, while the
Austrian forces, excluding the baggage-guard at
Koniggratz, are estimated at 190,000, it is evident
that General Benedek was, independently of the
disadvantage in small arms, in imminent danger of
being overpowered. I he Austrian artillery, on the
other hand, is confessed to have been exceedingly
effective, and to have done great execution. The
success of the Austrians on the banks of the Bist-
ritz is another proof of their bad strategyin not re-
sisting the Prussian armies in the passes from
Saxony and Silesia, for the disaster which has
since followed disaster shows that it was only
where natural advantages countervailed the advan-
tage of a breech-loading rifle that any equality of
force between the combatants was possible.
ITEHALD.—The same day which brought us that
earnest and welcome assurance from
Lord Derby
that his Administration would consider it one of
their earliest and most pressing duties to consider
carefully what measures can be taken to relieve the
sick poor chargeable on the State from the
systematic neglect, maltreatment, and cruelty
which have lately been brought so prominently un-
der the eyes of the public, has brought also an of-
ficial document which in some detail confirms and
explains all that has been said by the unofficial

persons who have for the last twelve months
performed the duty of the Poor-law Board for it
in this respect. This parliamentary paper just
issued is the report of Mr. Farnall, poor-law
inspector, on the infirmary wards of the several
metropolital workhouses, and their existing arrange-
ments. It has apparently occupied upwards of five
weeks to print this not very elaborate report, which
the Ministers of the day made their stalking-horse
in persistently refusing to give either explanations
or pledges of any sort. Nothing, they said, could
be done or said, and no dog must bark until this re-
port was published, for until then nothing could be
said to be officially known on the subject. To be
sure Mr. Villiers during the last ten years, and up
till the period of the recent exposures, would have
indignantly resented any insinuation that he was
not perfectly informed of the state of the infirmaries
over which he was assumed to preside ' • but when
these disclosures became so frequent and so detailed
in their horrors as to provoke an almost unexampled
outburst of public indignation at the indolence or
incapacity which could have tolerated their exist-
ence, then we were told that these statements were
very painful, and that there was no reason to believe
that they were exaggerated, but that the Board
must have more complete official information on the
subject before it could take any measures or make
any promises ; and with this answer, repeated in
various phraseology, successive deputations and in-
terrogatory members of Parliament have been put
off. This magical report now appears • it is dated
the 2d of June, and is printed on the 10th of Jully,
so that some five weeks have been occupied in print-
ing a document for which the whole nation has been
waiting, which has been several times asked for in
both houses, and which after all only occupies a
few pages of large type. Whatever the explana-
tion which may be offered, or whatever the motives
of this delay may have been, we have less reason
than others to regret it, for it will leave to a Con-
servative Administration the glory of effecting
social reform which is urgently called for by the con-
science of the nation, and of which the plan already'
laid down by eminent members of the Conservative
party before their accession to office, and in their
capacity of private citizens, is, in the pages of this
report, accepted in all its details and supported by
evidence of an irrefragable character. It is the plan
which was in the first instance propounded in de-
tail by Mr. Ernest Hart to that meeting at Willis's
Rooms, at which Lord Carnarvon presided, and
in which Lord Burghley, Sir James Fergusson,
Mr. Davenport Bromley, and other eminent mem-
bers of the Conservative party took part ; which
the Workhouse Infirmaries Association, represented
by the Earl of Carnarvon, formally submitted to
Mr. Villiers, when a deputation from that associa-
tion, headed by the noble earl, waited upon the
then President of the Poor-law Board. Mr. Villiers
gave a conditional assent to the suggestions that the
guardians' organisation had broken down ; that the
existing houses were inadequate and unfit by their,
construction for the reception of the thousands Of
sick and decayed parishioners legally entitled tO
shelter in them; that buildings properly con;
strutted, on suitable sites, in or near London, and
provided with nurses and resident medical officers,
were required ; and that they could best be Bur,'
ported by a general sick rate levied so as to fall
equally upon the whole metropolis ; and should he
governed by a board elected from the general 1304
of ratepayers in the metropolis. The condition vial
that the details set forth by the association, and
stated by the Earl of Carnarvon, should be con:
firmed by an officer of the board specially- deputed
to make a general inquiry into the state of these
infirmaries. We were already prepared to state,
from the facts which had come to our own know'
ledge from our own inquiries, some of which have
been laid before our readers in the articles on Lon-
don pauperism, that there was a solid substratunl
of fact for the allegations made. All the recent
public investigations have confirmed that conic"
lion, and the report of Mr. Farnall, which we are
i
happy to find to be a plain, clearly-written, and
very able document, sets forth in detail the reason
which irresistibly conduct him to the same con"
elusion. Instead of 1,000 feet of space, which is the
allowance of sick convicts, or 1,500 feet, which l°
the space apportioned to the chance sick inmate
admitted into hospitals, whose claim is accident er
sudden illness, the space allotted to the sick poor
legally chargeable on the state averages only bv„,v,
feet, and sometimes falls as low as little over 2ir"
feet (the lowest is Marylebone, 206 feet.) In plaee
of an average of 90 superficial feet per bed, it "i
49 feet per bed, the lowest being 18 feet. A larg" ,
proportion of the infirmaries are incapable of
provement, and some could be made more or leek
suitable by extensive building operations, the moat
costly of which would, however, have to be carded
on, under existing arrangements, in the district
already most heavily loaded with rates and a yell
small number could be made respectable by less elc'
tensive alterations. As a general result, to mall
the wards suitable merely with regard to space, any
leaving aside defects of construction in the irrerae;
diably bad wards, the accommodation would ha,
to be doubled. The difficulties in carrying out tow
patchwork in each house Mr. Farnall justly de:
scribes as being in themselves almost insuperable.
There remain the larger questions of administration!
the provision of resident medical officers (at preselv
there are only three for 18,000 disabled and illlbee;
cile persons) ; the substitution of trained nurses I%
the pauper class whom he condemns, as all Londe,.
has had reason to condemn them, as ignorau7
feeble, cruel, and untrained ; and the indisposition
of the guardians to fulfil satisfactorily the duties
:0
managing great hospitals even if they had the me°
and the knowledge, and competence of the Poej:
law Board to control them. He concludes, in
most the words which we have used on former cea-
sions, by advising that proper hospital estabill
ments should be built in or near London, ruled an,
supported in the manner which we have indicatsi
We suppose we must be content to say, Sat cilovj
sat bene ; and, as the report is a good one, tO
satisfied that we have got it at last. We anticips'io
that the present Administration will not nee
this question as the last has done.