Koniggratz

Background.
Opposing Armies.
Opening Moves.
The Battlefield.
The Battle.
Prussian Army
Austrian Army
Saxon Army
Photographs
Bibliography

The Battle.

The morning of July 3^rd dawned grey and damp as the Prussian units moved forward towards the Bistritz River line. The principle objective, as far as Friedrich Karl was concerned, was to drive in the Austrian outposts and, after establishing a firm hold on the right bank, to push on into the heart of Benedek’s position. Only after great difficulty did Moltke persuade Friedrich Karl that his task was limited to pinning down the enemy until the Second Army came in against the Austrian flank. To that end, at 7 a.m., Moltke ordered the 8^th Division to move forward towards Sadowa while the 3^rd and 4^th divisions, keeping in line with the 8^th, advanced to the south of the main highway, against Unter-Dohalitz and Mokrowous. The 5^th and 6^th divisions followed in the wake of the 8^th. Between these forces, the combined cavalry corps kept in contact with the Army of the Elbe. Out on the left, Lt. General Eduard Friedrich von Fransecky’s 7^th Division moved against the village of Benatek, using a single cavalry division to keep in touch with the rest of the First Army. A good deal of discretion was given to the commander of the 7^th Division, an enormous responsibility really, since ha had to contain the Austrian right until the crown prince arrived on the field.

On the Prussian right, Bittenfeld’s Army of the Elbe reached Alt Nechanitz at about 8 a.m., marching in a cold mist and drizzling rain that had been falling since dawn. During that time, the Austrian and Prussian artillery had been exchanging shot for shot, with neither as yet doing any great damage. At Nechanitz, the Saxon and Austrian outposts fell back in good order to their main positions around Problus. From there they poured a destructive fire into the Prussian ranks as the latter emerged from the smoke of battle. Bittenfeld showed no great hurry in getting his troops across the river, believing that he would be isolated should the Austrians mount an offensive against the Prussian centre. Therefore, by 10 a.m. Brig. General von Schöler’s advance guard of some seven battalions, finding itself without support, was forced back by a spirited counterattack from Nieder Prim to the Hradek-Lubno ridge, led by the Saxon Life Brigade.

In the centre, the 8^th Division cleared Sadowa of its defenders at 8:30 a.m., while on the right the 4^th Division attacked Unter-Dohalitz, and the 3^rd Division pushed into Mokrowous. Like the Saxons, the Austrians fell back in an orderly manner to the high ground. Almost all the villages along the Bistritz were now on fire-the smoke and haze made it impossible for the Prussian’s to see their enemy clearly, while the defending Jäger battalions poured a continuous fire at the mere sound of the advancing columns. The 3^rd Division also now came under fire from part of the massive battery of guns ranged from Langenhof to Lipa, halting the Prussians for almost four hours. The 3^rd Division’s troops were ordered to find what cover they could until the enemy battery could be outflanked.

The 8^th and 4^th divisions, after advancing from the river line, found that they, too, were prey to a good number of the Austrian guns. Forced to use the trees of the Holawald and the crumbling ruins of Ober-Dohalitz for protection, they received such a pounding that some units made desperate yet futile attacks against the bristling ridge of cannon. Whole battalions dashed forward, only to be cut down in swaths by the measured range of Austrian fire.

The royal headquarters had by this time moved to the Roskosberg to the rear of Sadowa. From that vantage point the King of Prussia had a good view of the punishment his two divisions were receiving in the Holawald. Seeing some bloodied battalions retiring, he rode forward, shouting that he was going to lead them back again so that they could “fight like brave Prussians.” Staff officers tactfully managed to restrain their monarch, but by 10:30 a.m. the losses incurred by the 8^th and 4^th divisions were mounting significantly, without any obvious relaxation in the Austrian barrage. The 7^th Division, too, was receiving a tremendous hammering on the left.

The dilatory behaviour of the commander of the Army of the Elbe found no counterpart in Fransecky’s makeup. His 7^th Division was to perform prodigies of valour and improvisation as it took on almost one-quarter of the Austrian army. As already mentioned, the Austrian IV Corps and II Corps were overlooked from the north by the heights of Horenowes. Both corps commanders had decided, with the approval of their respective chiefs of staff, to move their front 90 degrees to the west, taking station along a line extending from Chlum and Maslowed, and leaving only five battalions and a light cavalry division to guard the approaches from the north.

After he had sent out couriers to the crown prince’s Second Army requesting urgent assistance for his right flank, Fransecky’s troops took the village of Benatek at 8 a.m. Consolidating their position there, they then debouched from the village in the direction of Maslowed. Suddenly they came under heavy fire from the Sweipwald wood, which had been presumed clear of enemy units. The Prussian advance guard under Colonel von Zychlinski now halted its forward movement until the 26^th and 66^th regiments came up to join it. Then, at 8:30 a.m., Zychlinski threw the combined force, some 5,000 men, against the Sweipwald, pushing the defenders back up the wooded hillside toward Cistowes. There, Lt. General Tassilo Graf Festitic’s IV Austrian Corps had recently come into line after moving from the right flank. In a series of counterattacks, Festitic’s battalions suffered appalling casualties as they advanced in column formation against the rapid fire of the Prussian needle guns. By 9:30 a.m., three full brigades had been used up, to hardly any avail. Festitic’s himself was wounded, but his second- in- command, Lt. General Anton von Mollinary, rather than forming a defensive line at Maslowed, was even more determined to evict the Prussians from the wood. Calling on the assistance of Lt General Carl Graf Thun von Hohenstein’s II Corps, Mollinary threw still more troops into the corpse-littered wood.

At 10 a.m., Brigadier General Emerich Fleischhacker’s Austrian brigade went in with the bayonet, drums beating and flags unfurled. By now, all the Prussian 7^th Division’s reserves had been used up in holding back these suicidal attacks, and Fransecky sent for help from the 8^th Division on his right. Two fresh regiments arrived just in time to pour a hail of bullets into the tightly packed Austrians, driving them back once again to the edge of the wood.

Waving his sword like a dervish, Mollinary sent in yet another full brigade. These fresh troops, under Colonel Carl von Pöckh, drove into the Prussian front and left flank, forcing them, in turn, to fall back to the farthest outskirts of the wood. It now seemed as if one final push would unhinge the entire Prussian left flank and send it back across the Bistritz in rout.

But it was not to be. At 11 a.m., the right flank of Pöckh’s brigade came under a tremendous fire from the direction of Wrchownitz. In a matter of minutes the brigade commander was dead and more than 2,000 of his men were killed or wounded. The Prussian Second Army had arrived on the field.

The Prussian 1^st Guard Division had marched from Dobrawitz as soon as its offices had received Fransecky’s appeal for help. They were now descending the low hills in front of Wrchownitz, catching the Austrians in flank as they attacked the Sweipwald. Not far to their rear came the 2^nd Guard Division, its advance guard already near Zizelowes.

Away to the south- east, the Prussian VI Corps under General von Mutius was heading straight for Racitz, the 11^th Division on the right of the Trotina River and the 12^th Division on the left. Both divisions were as yet unblooded in battle, but their men were eager to prove themselves in action before the arrival of their more experienced brothers in V Corps, which was still some distance to the rear.

With the annihilation of Pöckh’s brigade as a fighting force, and the imminent arrival of the entire Prussian Second Army, Benedek realized the full implication of the errors made by Mollinary and Thun in moving their corps from their prepared positions. True that during the fighting in the Sweipwald the Austrian commander had been preoccupied with the vision of a counterattack against the whole Prussian First Army, but he should not of cancelled an order to Lt. Field Marshal Wilhelm Freiherr von Ramming’s VI Corps to fill the gap on the right. It was now far too late. All Benedek could do was order the IV and II Corps to fall back to their original positions between Chlum and Nedelist. That proved not only difficult, owing to the amount of commitment given to the fighting in the Swiepwald, but also fatal to the morale of troops who had been under the impression they were winning the battle. The result was that the whole force fell back in great disorder, taking a good part of Thun’s corps along too. Thun himself seems to have given up the battle as lost and marched two full brigades towards the Elbe bridges.

Over on the Prussian left wing, the Army of the Elbe was, at last, making some headway against the Saxons. At 3 p.m. the Prussian 14^th and 15^th divisions captured Problus and Nieder Prim. The Saxon crown prince, seeing his position about to crumble, sent in a strong counterattack to gain time for the retreat of his remaining forces. Once again Bittenfeld fell into a torpor, and after diving back the Saxon attack, the Army of the Elbe halted. Bittenfeld still had the fresh 16^th Division at hand, but was content to consolidate his position around Problus. Thus, the chance of a double envelopment of Benedek’s army was lost.

The right flank of Benedek’s position was about to fall apart in any case. His troops had been forced out of Maslowed, and the high ground to the north was in Prussian hands. Along the lower Trotina River, the five battalions of Henriquez’s brigade were driven back, while the Austrian gun line had also retired to a position between Langenhof and Wsestar. There the Austrians formed a line containing more than 120 cannon.

The commander of the Prussian 1^st Guard Division, Lt General Friedrich Hiller von Gärtringen, now saw that the hinge of the whole Austrian position rested on the village of Chlum and its high ground. I the village itself, the Austrian brigade of Brigadier General Carl von Appiano had, as yet, not become aware of the tide that was about to break over it. Than, when it did, his troops were forced out of the village and streaming back toward the rear, taking their reserves along with them. One lone cavalry battery, under Captain August von der Groeben, endeavoured to stem the Prussian advance. Its first salvos were answered by such a crippling enemy fire from all sides that with the space of five minutes he was killed, together with 53 men and 68 horses. Groeben is little remembered today. A crude monument erected on the spot bears the poignant inscription “The Battery of the Dead.”

By 3 p.m. all Benedek could do was order a general retreat. Mollinary and the Austrian VI Corps commander, Field Marshal von Ramming, both begged their chief to counterattack, but he had by now lost all control over the battle. At 3:15 p.m., without a direct order, Ramming took it upon himself to send forward two fresh brigades to retake Rosberitz and Chlum. At the same time, the Austrian guns at Langenhof redoubled their fire to cover the attacks.

In a fierce fight, the Prussian 1^st Guard Division was forced out of Rosberitz and back to Chlum, pursued by the bloodstained battalions of Brigadier General Ferdinand Rosenzweig von Dreuwehr’s Austrian brigade. Three guns were captured, but the only thing their valiant counterstroke achieved was to bring still more Prussian units to the assistance of the 1^st Guard Division. The 2^nd Guard Division now came into action, together with elements of the Prussian I Corps. These units, joined in a well-timed attack by the 11^th Division (from the direction of Nedelist), smashed into Rozenweig’s brigade and sent it reeling back in its turn toward Rosberitz. There the Austrian I Corps and VI Corps made a gallant effort to contain the Prussian masses, and only after suffering immense losses were they gradually forced back.

The battle was now firmly in Moltke’s pocket. Only the fire from the Austrian artillery delayed the victorious Prussians as they moved ever nearer to cutting the Sadowa-Königgrätz road. It was now, too, that Benedek played his last card by sending in the cavalry divisions of Brigadier General Carl Graf Condenove and the prince of Holstein to attack westward and break up any pursuit by Friedrich Karl’s First Army.

In the charges and counter charges that followed, the Austrian cuirassiers, uhlans and dragoons not only threw the Prussian cavalry into disarray and made pursuit by them very unlikely; they also held back the Prussian infantry for more than half an hour. The cost, however, was terrible: 64 officers, 1,984 men and 1,681 horses.

The cavalry attacks, plus the bloody attacks sent in by the I Corps, were successful in containing the Prussian advance and allowing the retreating Austrians to reach the Elbe. At 9 p.m., the last shots were fired by their horse artillery. Moltke now halted the carnage, and in the gathering dusk his men sank to the ground exhausted.

Panic reigned in Königgrätz, where the Austrians became jammed together in one chaotic mass of men, wagons and horses. The only luck that Benedek had during the day was that no Prussian pursuit was forthcoming.

The losses incurred by the Austrians and Saxons amounted to 1,372 officers and 43,500 men killed, wounded or missing, of whom almost 20,000 were taken prisoner. The Prussian losses were much lower: 360 officers, 8,812 men killed, wounded or missing, more than half of whom came from the First Army. Moreover, the disproportionate difference in the wounded and missing between the two antagonists was increased by the Austrians, who never signed the Geneva Convention. Consequently, their medical personnel, who were unprotected by the Red Cross and classified as combatants, withdrew with the rest of the Austrian army, thus leaving many men on the field who could otherwise have been administered to rather than being left to bleed to death or to be captured.

The Austrians now decided that to carry on the struggle would be futile, and a five-day armistice was arranged, subsequently extended to August 2^nd. The final peace terms were signed at the Blue Star Hotel in Prague on August 23^rd. From that time until the outbreak of World War I, Prussia would be the undisputed head of the German confederacy-and one of the most awesome military powers in the world.

Graham.J.Morris 
January 2003.