The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-02 00:00:00

VIE AUSTRIAN ARMY.

PRL, Jusltyre2e7t.
in
(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
I am sitting here writing in ET
the ONE
open
t‘,ll this
roabvsecl thl ea
vplace,
ever
f hwe
ahri cdh fihe wt
hme
ire m bli evress of
atnhde
urleres'li't'
which even the burgomaster will admit to be
although it is for the time the head-quarters of Ge-
neral Zaitseck, commanding the division of Austrian
cavalry covering the centre of the army. It is near
noon, and we are all expecting the sound of the first
gun to proclaim the truce is over; for the Prussians
are already moving at the other side of the Danube,
in the Marchfeld, and I have just passed through
the whole corps d'armee of Hartung, marching to
take up ground a little distance to the left of
Haimburg, where the enemy may be expected to
attempt a passage. To account for what is going on
I may as well go back to the day before yesterday,
when I was in Presburg waiting for the coming of
this important day and hour. Count Thun, who
commanded there, had occupied the heights, or
wooded mountains, to the right of the town with a
considerable force of the Second Army Corps after
the action of last Sunday, July 23 ; but it was pretty
evident that the Austrians did not intend to renew
the combat at this side of the river, and I must also
say that a personal inspection of the scene of the
action, as well as the accounts of those who took
past in it, force me to qualify the opinion I expressed
before I had these advantages—that the Austrians
would have remained masters of Presburg had not
the news of the five days' truce put an end to the
combat. The brigade of Mondel did, indeed, oppose
the enemy with great courage and with splendid
obstinacy. The Mensdorff Hussars charged through
and through a much larger force of the Prussian
horse, but the Prussian infantry had, nevertheless,
actually got round on the right flank of the Aus-
trians, and were close over the town, and as they
were in great force, and had ample reserves, there
is no doubt they would have occupied the place,
having compelled the Austrians to surrender their
whole corps before the day was over. Just as I
write these lines (at 12.30 o'clock) my colleague
comes from the south-side of-the river near Pres-
burg with the news that "an armistice for four
weeks" has been agreed upon ; and I may now go
back to Vienna, as Presburg is evacuated, and the
bridge of boats floated away. The Prussians, fol-
lowing the tactics they have developed so largely
all through the ca k*
mpaign— an -mg and flanking—
just as Grant did with Lee in the last campaign be-
fore Richmond—starting the night before and early
in the morning from Bisternitz, struck off from the
high road to Blumenau before they were perceived
by the Austrian vedettes, and, creeping off to their
left, ascended the hills over Blumenau, while their
artillery posted on the slopes
swept the plain on the
proper left of Blumenau on
which the Austrian
artillery and guns were posted as soon as the enemy
were d4covered, and•
thus obtained a commanding
fire, the severity which •of might be estimated by an
inspection of the holes and the
furrows in the fields.
To my colleague I will • leave the task of giving a
detailed account of the action ; but as this was the
only battle-field the fortune of war has permitted
me to go over since I came out here, I h ad a singu-
lar satisfaction in riding• over it yesterday. It is
always interesting to go over the scene of a com-
bat, if one knows
how the opposing forces were
placed, when the attention is •
distracted by the
moans of the wounded and the •
horrible aspect of
the slain ; and now all
the Long Valley itself when a field-day is over. On
our right is the hamlet•
which gives its name to the
action, with its church nestled in the trees at the
foot of the hill, and nearly opposite • is the hamlet of
Haltenbrunn, into7NV which p • russian shells carried
iron and fire. On each of the hillocks • in front of us
stands a Lancer by his horse,
and lower down are
small pickets of the 9th Jager battalion. Beyond
hem a couple of miles
is Bisternitz, in which the
Prussian advanced guard is lying. The peasants
have cleared away all the relics of the fight,
and have sanded the dark stains on the light soil
which show where blood was spilt, and which caused
us to remember that only a few days ago the place
where these rustic Hungarians in long boots and
flapped hats are now turning corn sheaves there raged
an angry battle. The whole
attack could be divined from a survey of the ground,
and from one point of the position they gained be-
fore the fight had terminated the enemy must have
looked down on Presburg. N
ow, as we were riding
all over the place cn the last day of the truce, it
seemed very strange that there should be such a
small force at Blumenau and its Vicinity. Stranger
still, and absolutely vexatious, was it to observe that
not the smallest attempt hal been made to throw
earthwork, to loophole a house, up an
fieldwork—in fact, to do anything whatever to turn
the natural advantages of the place to account. A
feeble little trench was indeed visible in the plain,
about 3ft. high and 100 ft. long, but it was probably
the common cemetery of those who fell in the action.
As we returned, marvelling what manner of men the
Austrians might be, we saw that even the weak de-
tachments in the rear of the advanced post at Blu-
menau had been removed. Nearer the town there
were no troops at all, and at the railway station
there was a heavy train taking in stores and men,
which could only be meant to go towards Pesth on
the eastward, as the Prussians hold the rail beyond
Blumenau. In Presburg itself, however, all was
explained. The streets were filled with soldiers, as
they have been for the last two days, and convoys
of carts struggled slowly towards the bridge and to
the banks of the Danube, but as the whole of Bene-
dek's army had crossed over already it was evident
that these men and stores belonged to the Second
Corps and to the garrison of the capital of Hungary.
The Grunen Baum was still in military occupation ;
every room but our own was in the possession of
officers, and the loud tones of the Feldzeugmeister
himself, ringing through the partition wall, an-
nounced that the late chief of the great Nord Armee
had not left the city. The open-air restaurant,
screened from the boulevard by azaleas and shrubs
and glass partitions, was packed with white-tunicked
Hungarians, linesmen, cuirassiers, and dragoons, by
green-coated Staff, and officers in all the charming
variety of uniform of the Austrian light cavalry, but