The German war of 1866, generally known as “the Seven Weeks’ War,”
presents many features of interest to the student, the statesman and
the soldier. It closed a strife of centuries between opposing nations
and antagonistic political ideas. It resulted in the formation of the
North German Confederation, and thus planted the seeds of a nation,
which germinated four years later, during the bloody war with France.
It banished Austria from all participation in the affairs of Germany,
expelled her from Italy, and deflected her policy thenceforth towards
the east and south. It demonstrated that preparation for war is a more
potent factor than mere numbers in computing the strength of a nation;
and it gave an illustration on a grand scale of the new conditions
of war resulting from the use of the telegraph, the railroad and
breech-loading firearms.
It is not the intention here to consider any but the military features
of the great Germanic contest. Beginning the subject at the period when
the quarrel between Austria and Prussia over the provinces that they
had wrested from Denmark, passed from the tortuous paths of diplomacy
to the direct road of war, we will consider the relative strength of
the combatant nations.
As the advocate of the admission of Schleswig-Holstein as a sovereign
state in the Germanic Confederation, Austria gained first the
sympathy, and then the active alliance, of Bavaria, Hanover, Saxony,
Hesse-Cassel, Würtemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau. Prussia
aimed at the incorporation of the duchies within her own territory;
and, though loudly championing the cause of German unity, her course
was so manifestly inspired by designs for her own aggrandizement, that
she could count on the support of only a few petty duchies, whose
aggregate military strength did not exceed 28,000 men. As an offset to
Austria’s formidable German allies, Prussia had concluded an offensive
and defensive alliance with Italy, whose army, though new and inferior
in organization, armament and equipment, to that of her antagonist,
might be relied upon to “contain” at least three Austrian army corps
in Venetia. The main struggle was certain to be between the two great
Germanic nations.
At a first glance Prussia would seem to be almost hopelessly
overmatched in her contest with Austria. The latter nation possessed
an area more than twice as great as the former, and in contrast
with the Prussian population of less than 20,000,000, it could show
an aggregate of 35,000,000 people. But a more careful examination
discloses the great superiority of the Prussian kingdom. The population
of Prussia was almost exclusively German; that of Austria was a
heterogeneous aggregation of Germans, Czechs, Magyars, Poles, Croats
and Italians, bound together in a purely artificial nationality.
The Austrian national debt amounted to nearly $1,550,000,000; the
annual expenditures so far exceeded the revenue as to cause a yearly
deficit of more than $16,000,000, and the nation was threatened with
bankruptcy. On the other hand, the Prussian national debt was only
$210,000,000, the revenue exceeded the expenditures, and the finances
were in a healthy condition. But the great superiority of the northern
kingdom over its opponent lay in the organization, armament, equipment
and _personnel_ of its army.
The old adage, “Experience is a severe, but good, schoolmaster,” is
true of nations as well as individuals. A crushing disaster, bringing
with it humiliation, sorrow and disgrace, is often the birth of a
stronger, better, life in the apparent victim of misfortune. The
greatness of Prussia was not born in the brilliant victories of
Rossbach, Leuthen and Zorndorf. It was in the bitter travail of Jena
and the treaty of Tilsit that birth was given to the power of the
kingdom. Forbidden by Napoleon to maintain an army of more than 42,000
men, the great Prussian war minister, Scharnhorst, determined to create
an army while obeying the commands of the conqueror. There was no
stipulation in the treaty as to the length of service of the soldiers;
and after a few months of careful instruction and almost incessant
drill, they were quietly discharged, and their places were taken by
recruits, who were soon replaced in the same manner. Thus the little
army became, as it were, a lake of military training, into which flowed
a continuous stream of recruits, and from which there came a steady
current of efficient soldiers. When the army of Napoleon returned
from its disastrous campaign in Russia, there arose, as by magic, a
formidable Prussian army, of which nearly 100,000 men were trained
warriors.
The success of the Prussian arms in the final struggle with Napoleon
was so manifestly due to the measures adopted by Scharnhorst, that his
system was made the permanent basis of the national military policy.
The “Reorganization of 1859” nearly doubled the standing army, and
made some important changes in the length of service required with the
colors and in the Landwehr; but the essential features of the Prussian
system are the same now as in the days of Leipsic and Waterloo.
Every Prussian twenty years of age is subject to military duty. The
term of service is twelve years, of which three are with the colors,
four with the reserve and five in the Landwehr. The number of soldiers
in the active army is definitely fixed at a little more than one per
cent of the population, and the number of recruits annually required
is regulated by the number of men necessary to keep the regular force
on its authorized peace footing. A list of the young men available for
military service is annually made out, and the selection of recruits
is made by lot. There are but few exceptions; such, for instance, as
young men who are the sole support of indigent parents. Students who
are preparing for the learned professions are permitted to serve as
“one-year volunteers,” on condition of passing certain examinations
satisfactorily, and furnishing their own clothing and equipments.
The name of a man convicted of crime is never placed on the list of
available recruits; and however humble the position of a private
soldier may be, his uniform is the honorable badge of an honest man.
Every young man may be called up for draft three years in succession.
Those who are not drawn for service at the end of the third year are
passed into the Ersatz reserve, in which are also men whose physical
imperfections are not sufficient to exempt them entirely, where they
are free from service in time of peace, but from which they may be
called in time of war to replace drafts from the reserve. In time of
peace the military demands upon the soldiers of the reserve or Landwehr
are very light. A soldier participates in at least two field maneuvers,
aggregating about sixteen weeks, during his four years of service in
the reserve. He is also required to attend muster once every spring and
autumn. During his five years in the Landwehr he is generally called
out twice for drill, the drill period not exceeding fourteen days.
The active army is the regular army, or permanent establishment. When
the decree for the mobilization of the army is promulgated, this force
is at once put upon its war footing by drafts from the reserve. The
depots are immediately formed, and one-half of the troops stationed
therein are drawn from the reserve; the other half being recruits from
the Ersatz reserve. As these two classes become exhausted, the depot
battalions are filled from the Landwehr, the youngest classes being
taken first; or, if needs be, the entire Landwehr is called out in
battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, or even army corps, and
sent into the field. After exhausting the Landwehr, there still remains
the Landsturm, which embraces all able-bodied men between the ages of
seventeen and forty-nine years who do not belong to the active army,
the reserve, or the Landwehr. Though the calling out of the Landsturm
would imply the exhaustion of the organized forces of the nation, it
would be more than a mere levy _en masse_, as it would bring back into
the army many soldiers whose twelve years of service would not have
been completely forgotten in the midst of civil vocations.
The machinery for the rapid mobilization of the army is kept in perfect
order. Each army corps, except the Guards, is assigned to a particular
province. The province is divided into divisional districts, which are
again subdivided so that each brigade, regiment and battalion has its
own district, from which it draws its recruits both in peace and war.
A register is kept of every man available for military duty, and in
time of peace every officer knows just what part he is to perform the
minute mobilization is decreed, and each soldier knows where he is to
report for duty. The secret of the efficiency of the German military
system lies in the division of responsibility, and the thorough
decentralization, by which every man, from the monarch to the private
soldier, has his own especial part to perform.
In 1866 the active army, on a war footing, comprised nine army corps,
and aggregated 335,000 men. Each corps consisted of twenty-four
battalions of infantry, sixteen batteries of artillery, twenty-four
squadrons of cavalry, one battalion of rifles, one battalion of
engineers, an engineer train, and a military train conveying ammunition
and subsistence, quartermaster’s and hospital supplies. Each infantry
battalion numbered 1,000 men. Three battalions formed a regiment,
two regiments a brigade, and two brigades a division. Each battery
contained six guns. Four batteries were assigned to each infantry
division, two batteries of horse artillery were attached to the cavalry
division, and four batteries of field and two of horse artillery
constituted the reserve artillery of each corps. Each squadron of
cavalry numbered about 140 sabres. Four squadrons composed a regiment,
two regiments a brigade, two brigades a division. A regiment of cavalry
was attached to each infantry division. Each corps numbered about
31,000 combatants, except the Guards, which numbered 36,000--having
four additional battalions and eight additional squadrons. During the
campaign under consideration, the cavalry of an army corps consisted of
only one regiment to each division of infantry; the cavalry division
being taken from each corps, and merged into the corps of reserve
cavalry.
The depot troops consisted of a battalion for each regiment of
infantry, a squadron for each regiment of cavalry, an _abtheilung_ [3
or 4 batteries] for the artillery of each corps, and a company for each
rifle battalion, engineer battalion and train battalion. The army in
the field was constantly kept up to a full war strength by men drawn
from the depots. The fortresses were garrisoned by Landwehr; and on
troops of the same class devolved the duty of pushing forward to occupy
invaded territory, and to relieve the active army from the necessity of
leaving detachments to guard its communications.
This is a brief outline of the organization that enabled a nation of
less than 20,000,000 people eventually to bring 600,000 soldiers upon
the theatre of war, and to place a quarter of a million of them upon
the decisive field of Königgrätz.
The Austrian regular army, when placed upon its war footing, numbered
about 384,000 men; and by calling out all of the reserve, this force
could be raised to a formidable total of 700,000. But in organization
and system of recruitment the Austrian army was inferior to its
antagonist, notwithstanding its war experience in 1849 and in the
struggle with France and Italy ten years later. The superb system by
which Prussia was enabled to send forth a steady stream of trained
soldiers to replace the losses of battle was wanting in Austria;
and the machinery of military administration seemed deranged by the
effort required to place the first gigantic armies in the field. The
difference between the two military systems is shown in a striking
manner by the fact that the mobilization of the Prussian army of
490,000 men, decreed early in May, was completed in fourteen days, and
by the 5th of June 325,000 were massed on the hostile frontiers; while
the mobilization of the Austrian army, begun ten weeks earlier than
that of Prussia, was far from complete on that date.
Nor was the superiority of the Prussian to the Austrian army, as
a collective body, greater than the individual superiority of the
Prussian soldier to his antagonist. As a result of the admirable
Prussian school system, every Prussian soldier was an educated man.
Baron Stoffel, the French military _attaché_ at Berlin from 1866 to
1870, says: “‘When,’ said the Prussian officers, ‘our men came in
contact with the Austrian prisoners, and on speaking to them found that
they hardly knew their right hand from their left, there was not one
who did not look upon himself as a god in comparison with such ignorant
beings, and this conviction increased our strength tenfold.’”
The Prussian army was the first that ever took the field armed entirely
with breech-loading firearms. In the War of Secession a portion of
the Federal troops were, towards the end of the struggle, armed with
breech-loading rifles; but now the entire Prussian army marched forth
with breech-loaders, to battle against an army which still retained
the muzzle-loading rifle. Great as was the superiority of the needle
gun over the Austrian musket, it would seem but a sorry weapon at
the present day. The breech mechanism was clumsy, the cartridge case
was made of paper, the accuracy of the rifle did not extend beyond
300 yards, and its extreme range was scarcely more than twice that
distance. Yet this rifle was the best infantry weapon of the time, and
it contributed greatly to the success of the Prussians. The Prussian
artillery was armed mainly with steel breech-loading rifled guns. These
guns were classed as 6-pounders and 4-pounders, though the larger piece
fired a shell weighing 15 lbs., and the smaller one used a similar
projectile weighing 9 lbs.[1] Shell fire seems to have been exclusively
used, and the shells to have been uniformly provided with percussion
fuses.
In the Austrian army the artillery was provided with bronze
muzzle-loading rifled guns, classified as 8-pdrs. and 4-pdrs. The
infantry was armed with the muzzle-loading Lorenz rifle.
The German allies of Austria could place about 150,000 men in the
field; Italy, about 200,000.