The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-31 00:00:00

the Prussian army, but I regret to say I have had
no means of independent observation. There is,
however, one matter which deserves to be men-
tioned. I give the anecdote in the very words and
writing of the officer who furnished me with the in-
formation. Here is what he says :

" On the 22d, at one o'clock, the telegram arrived that a
five days' truce had been agreed upon between the two
headquarters. Some officers of the general staff were sent
to the enemy to acquaint them with this news ; notwith-
standing their waving white handkerchiefs in the air, as
they approached the Prussian positions, they were fired
at by the Prussians several times, and at different places ;
so were the parlenuntaires sent by the Austrian regiment
" King of Belgium ;" the chief of the general staff of the
2d corps, Colonel B. Dopffner, and Captain B. Devaux,
of the brigade Henriquez, were in the same case. The
Prussians fired at them at a very short distance, whence
they could not have possibly mistaken the generally ac-
cepted signs of peace."

The subject is worthy of notice, as it has excited
so much indignation among some officers here, and
it is all the more strange because the Prussian
officers who came to the Austrian lines and talked
with .the officers, expressed their desire for peace
and hoped there would be no more war. It is said,
indeed, that some Prussian officers took such an
extraordinary view of the nature of the truce that
they rode into Presburg and bought books and
maps at a stationer's, and were allowed to return
without any let or hindrance. When we got back
to Presburg the road to the bridge was as full of
troops marching to the other side as it had been in
the early morning. No sooner had the strains of
one band died away than another was heard far
down the dusty road, and hour after hour the stream
of guns, carriages, horses, and men flowed over the
river. Some of the regiments gave token in their
diminished ranks of the terrible ordeal which they
had undergone since they turned their faces towards
the North. One, for instance--the 21st—returned
with only 12 officers left out of 70 who started with
it. Others, such as the 2d Feldjager Battalion and
the 71st Regiment, looked as if they were quite
ready for service at a moment's notice, and the
artillery horses were in better condition than could
have been expected after the tremendous marches
they have been making. Benedek himself with his
staff is within a march of this. The Feldzeugmeister
has had a most difficult and dangerous move-
ment to effect, and has accomplished it with
signal success. Leaving a strong garrison in 01-
mutz and
.the redoubts which surround it, he
started on the 15th day after we arrived in Vienna,
in pursuance of his orders from the Archduke Al-
brecht, with three corps d'armee amounting to some
75,000 men, to reach the capital. His direct com-
munications were cut off by the enemy, and the right
flank of his army was exposed completely as he
turned southwards. On the day he started the
Prussian cavalry attacked his train and his reserve
artillery, which were covered by a weak party of
Austrians at a place called Traubek, between To-
bitschau and Prerau. The enemy's dragoons wore
white coats, and were mistaken for Austrian
Cuirassiers, nor was the error discovered till they
were on the guns and took 16 of them after a sharp
fight. These 16 guns were, lam assured, retaken
from the Prussians very soon afterwards in an en-
gagement in which a Prussian cavalry colonel and
nearly all his regiment were captured. It seems
rather singular that Benedek should have marched
with the train and guns on his right flank, unless he
thought the Prussians were on his left, as indeed
they were, for on the same day, in the afternoon, he
was attacked on his way near Prerau, and his Staff
had to cut their way through the Prussian horse,
but the enemy were repulsed and retired as reinforce-
ments came up. From 2 p.m. till 11 a.m. next day
the march continued--21 hours through a difficult
country in horrible weather, by Kremser, where the
left column turned to the eastwards by Mein to
Holleschau, and the right proceeded to Freystadtl—
more than 55 English miles. Thence they marched
by Wisowitz to Slawicin by dreadful roads over a
mountainous country in torrents of rain for 21 hours,
again towards the valley of the Waag. Turning next
day towards the Carpathians, Benedek led his army
bypasses so steep that with difficultyeight horses could
draw a light cart up the hills, and artillery horses
dropped dead on all sides through the defiles of the
Jawnnikberg and the Sieben-thaler-geberge towards
the Waag. The Prussians meantime, supposing that
he was trying by forced marches to turn them,
marched down the Marchthal, by Hradisch, Wessely,
Strasnitz, towards the south, but they do not seem
to have imagined Benedek would strike across the
mountains for the valley of the Waag. From
Fi a roadnc over
G:bdilong
on
nth
theeOlmutz and Vienna Railway, there
sleadingby Szenitz through the pass of
Carpathians to Tirnau, in the
Waag Valley, and if they had pushed across the
pass they could, it seems from the map, have occu-
pied Tirnau before Benedek got there. Probably
down on the left
coming down
and hastened to
e of their movements
made no further
chhe,yor to bar his march
ie tn ised
e ks certainm a
march,
theoavnyekr
fte
.r
te
Whatever
army,
har
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ye
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to the Danube, and the Feldzeugmeister reached
Trencsin in the Waag, whence the main ground
may
effort h toav have
h be
ne
eknß,
leads down the valley of the river by Leopoldstadt
to Tirnau and strikes the railway to Presburg, near
Wartberg. Here he had his right covered by the
Catpathians, and on his left were no enemies. Next
day Benedek's army marched to Neustadt, and then
in successive marches by Strassa and Vagy Kosto-
lau, arrived at Tirnau, whence they proceeded by
Bosing to Presburg.

JULY 26.
Postscript.—At 9 o'clock this morning Feldzeug-
meister Von Benedek entered the city of Presburg,
and is halting for the day at the Grunen Baum.
He came in with a sadly diminished staff, but it
was pleasant to find that the stories we had heard
of the death of some and the wounds of others we
knew were not true. His baggage and rear guard
are now coming in with the Hussars and Uhlans
who covered his march. To-morrow morning early
the Feldzeugmeister and his staff proceed to Vienna
to await the course of events. Austria is now strong
on the Danube.

Naval and Military Intelligence.

- -

MALTA, July 22.—Patras is for the present the
headquarters of the Mediterranean fleet. The Vic-
toria, flag ship, and the Royal Oak are at anchor
there. The Psyche, the Assurance, and the Wizard
are employed to carry the weekly mails. On the 4th
of July the Commander-in-Chief took his flag ship
to Corinth, and crossing the isthmus, inspected the
Gibraltar, which had come down to meet him on
the other side. Afterwards the admiral, accom-
panied by a large party of officers from the flag ship
and Royal Oak, paid a visit to Athens. The Com-
mander-in-Chief visited the King, who returned the
compliment at Patras on Monday, the 16th of July.
The whole of the English residents and all the Greek
officials were entertained at a ball on board the
Victoria. The King had been expected to arrive at
3 o'clock in the afternoon, but the Hellas, the screw
corvette which was conveying his Majesty to Corfu,
did not enter the bay until 11 o'clock at night.
Upon anchoring the admiral went on board the
Hellas and returned with the King,
who remained
dancing until nearly 2 o'clock. The Hellas then
steamed out of the harbour, the Royal Oak saluting,
and all the ships burned blue lights at the yard arms.
Mr. Erskine, the Minister, and the Secretary of
Legation, followed to Corfu in the Racer. The Re-
sistance has been despatched to Naples at the request
of the authorities there. The fire-warning signal
apparatus, which has now for upwards of 12 months
been fitted experimentally on board the unarmoured
screw frigate Mersey, at Portsmouth, by Mr. West,
electrician, of London, was last week practically
tested in its action under the superintendence of Capt.
W. C. Chamberlain, the officer in command of her
Majesty's ship Asia and the steam reserve at the port.
The principle of the system introduced by Mr. West
is to distribute over the ship's hold in certain pro-
tected positions a number of calorimeters, which are
connected by wires with a voltaic battery, an alarm
bell, and a dial plate in the captain's cabin. The
calorimeters are simply metal bottles partly filled
with mercury and fitted with boxwood stoppers.
Through the stopper projects downward the end of
a copper wire, which is suspended at such a distance
from the surface of the mercury that it requires a
fixed degree of heat to expand the mercury
and bring it in contact with the end o the