The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-15 00:00:00

-
TEE PRUSSIAN ARMY.

(From the Times' Military Correspondent•)
BERLIN, June 11.

The thermometer has risen considerably within
the last two days ; and the increased heat has been
attended with the near approach of pestilence. If a
similar change of weather has occurred in England
it will probably be hailed as the prelude of a pros-
perous harvest; but in Prussia the farmer is uncer-
tain whether his crops may not this year be grasped
while still standing to forage horses employed in war,
or be trampled down even within a few days by the
movements of troops or the charges of cavalry ; nor
can he himself be secure that he may not, enrolled
in the Landwehr, be an unwilling instrument in the
ruin of his own fortune. The plague, which has
been more or less prevalent in Europe for many
years past, which seems to sleep for a time only to
burst out with renewed vigour, has now struck
heavily into the heart of Prussia. The cholera is
reported to be present in three sides of.the capital,
and only within a short distance of the city. The
troops on the frontier, continually moved back-
wards and forwards to prevent their positions being
noted and reported across the border, have not as
yet suffered, nor is it so likely it should descend
upon them as upon the labouring classes, for the
latter, mostly out of work—to them identical with
food—have their blood thin and impoverished,
while the former, well tended and fed, enjoy an ex-
cellent medical administration, which omits no pre-
cautions that can ward off the disease.

When the army may in a few days be called upon
to commence a campaign, the positions of its compo-
nent parts are, of course, as much as possible kept
secret. Yet it is well known here that at present
the sth Corps, which is levied and recruited and
usually stationed in Posen, has, after being. can-
toned for some weeks in Silesia, fixed its head-
quarters at Landshut, in that province. It is under
the command of Gen. Steinmetz. Gen. Mutius,
commanding the 6th Corps, which is native to the
province, where the sth is now quartered with
it, has fixed his head-quarters at Altwasser.
The Ist and 2d Corps are cantoned round Mos-
cau. This is a small town situated on the Neisse,
where Prince Frederick Charles, commander of the
western wing of the whole army, has his head-quar-
ters. It is expected that the King will start from
Verlin either to-morrow or Wednesday to assume in
person the supreme command of all the forces in the
field. General Moltke is to be attached to him as
chief of the Staff, and General von Voigt Rhetz is
to be in a similar capacity with the Archduke Fre-
derick Charles. The latter general has a high re-
putation in the army for military skill, and it is
confidently anticipated that if science is to turn the
scales, the Austrian troops will not penetrate far
beyond the northern frontier of Saxony.
Many, in fact very many, people here still utterly
disbelievein the possibility of war, and smile when
the subject is mentioned in their hearing. Several,
on the other hand, take the most doleful view of
probable contingencies, and go about their ordinary
business with a calm though uncomfortable convic-
tion that in a few days after the opening of the
campaign Berlin must inevitably fall into the hands
of the Austrians, and its inhabitants be subjected to
forced contributions to feed and pay the hungry re-
giments of Gen. Benedek. Of course civilians alone
are here alluded to. All ranks in the army have the
highest confidence of being able, with a fair field
and a tolerable equality of numbers, to give a good
account of an invading army. A foreign war would
be naturally more palatable to them than an inter-
Germanic one; but if the Kaiser, as is the general
impression, is determined to force this contest upon
them, he will find the Prussian troops warm up to
their work with amazing celerity.
The inhabitants of the fortresses of Torgau on
the Elbe, and of Neisse in Silesia, have been ordered
to provide themselves with three months' provi-
sions incase of being besieged ; those of Kosel, also
in Silesia, have under the same circumstances given
evidence of a state of feeling which no one could
have anticipated in that province. When it is
remembered that Silesia has always been loudly
clamorous for the annexation of Holstein at any
price, and made itself remarkable for its anti-Aus-
trian sentiments, it could never have been expected
that as soon as this town was placed in a state of
siege the inhabitants, with the exception of 200,
should immediately leave it ; for Kosel is a city for-
tified with the express object of retarding an ad •
vance from Bohemia to Moravia into Silesia, and
its garrison is placed there not to defend the few
yarls of earthwork That form its fortifications, but
to prevent the property of the inhabitants and the
rich lands behind it from being overrun by the de-
stroying troops of an enemy. Surely it would
have been more worthy of the townspeople to have
remained to offer to the soldiers the succours which
are so gratefully received by the garrison of a be-
sieged place from the inhabitants, than to have de-
camped almost bodily on the first approach of danger
or hardship ?
The King has apparently been discussing the plan
of the campaign during the last three days. On
Saturday he had a long interview with General von
Schack, who commands the 4th corps d'armee, and
Prince Auguste of Wurtemburg, who is the general
of the corps of the Guards. He was afterwards en-
gaged for several hours with General von Roon, the
Minister of War, when Generals Moltke, von Alvens-
leben, and von Treskow were also present. Of
course nothing that passes at these secret meetings
ever ekes out, but a general impression is floating

about to-day that in the event of war being declared
it is expected that Austria will attack Silesia. This
step would almost drive the Prussians to advance
on Dresden, and thus Austria would cast upon the
Cabinet of Berlin the odium of being the first to in-
vade Federal territory. It is believed that imme-
diately the Prussian van crosses the frontier into
Saxony, the news of its advance will be telegraphed
to General Benedek's troops on the Bohemian fron-
tier of Saxony, and that they will at once move
upon Dresden. Should there be any foundation for
this impression, the race to Dresden will be a close
one. The Prussians have the longer distance
to go over, and as means will in all probability be
taken by Saxony to allow some part at least of the
Austrian army to travel by railway, the Austrian
advanced guard has a good chance of first gaining
possession of the Saxon capital. It is quite natural
to suppose that Gen. Benedek will attempt to carry
the war into Saxony and southern Brandenburg,
both because the line between the Bohemian fron-
tier and Berlin, his probable objective point, is

shorter by that route than by Silesia, and because
be is said to be desirous of taking advantage of the
flat plains of Saxony and of the Upper Spree for the
action of the much-vaunted Austrian cavalry. All
anticipations of a campaign must, however, be mere
speculations ; a single shower of rain, or the acci-
dental capture of an aide-de-camp carrying an order,
may mar the most skilful strategical combinations,
even after they have been carefully planned and
maturely considered; how much more liable to alte-
ration must ideas be which are formed before the
Opening of a campaign, when the positions of an
enemy whose movements are shrouded by a curtain
of mountains, can
bee barely be guessed at, and whose
numbers
calm' ohtaeven approximately ascertained.
The Italians probably given the Austrians
some reason to fear an attack on Hungary, for a
large Austrian army is reported to havel been carried
suddenly to the Bosnian frontier.army
this report is
well founded the nucleus of this is probably
some portion of the reserves of the force which is
now under the command of Gen. Benedek in Bolic-
sted that
mia and Moravia. Suspicions have long exi
an Italian contingent crossing the
Adriatic,
a,
mightand
basing itself on the eastern shore of that se'
make an advance into
against
with the-object of
supporting an insurrection in that province
Austrian rule. The idea has, however, been generally
considered rather chimerical; experience has so often
shown the danger of sending armies on distant expedi-
tions where their supports and supplies must be de-
ri vedfrom insurgent levies and a disaffected population
that few believed a campaign against this portion of
the Austrian empire could be seriously intended ;
yet the movement of a considerable army in that
direction, where already two dangerous enemies me-
nace his northern and western frontiers, seems to
prove that the Austrian Emperor and his advisers