The Austrians.

Allowing for the fact that the Austrians would be fighting the campaign over familiar ground, they nevertheless were at a distinct disadvantage when it came to mobilisation and supply. Like the French their forces were stretched even during peacetime owing to the commitments of trying to cover their straggling empire. Divided into four Army Commands, the strongest was the 2^nd Army with three under strength corps in northern Italy and along the coastal areas around the Adriatic Sea.

Also like the French, the Austrians had problems with the “real” strength of their available forces, and the numbers conjured up on paper. There were never more than some 220,000 men available in Lombardy, Istria and Dalmatia, and at the decisive battle of Solferino Franz Josef could scarcely scrape together 120,000 men, ‘Clearly Austria’s failure to preserve her pre-eminence in Italy and Germany sprang from largely the breakdown of her army organisation and her recruiting system.’ [1]

The Austrian officer class was also to show how indolent it had become in understanding any new proposals placed before them. When asked by the Prussian military attaché in Vienna in 1854 if his Austrian colleagues were interested in Kriegsspiel, used to train Prussian staff officers, he found that once they became aware that it was not a game played for money they lost all interest. [2]

Austrian uniforms

In 1859 the Austrian infantry were armed with the Lorenz rifled musket, but their Jäger battalions were the only ones who really became proficient in its use. This was to prove a great handicap as the new rifle could have given them the edge in defensive tactics, and could have been a decisive factor in breaking the French attacks had it been used in more skilled hands. But the Austrians still clung to outdated manoeuvres on the battlefield, preferring compact battalion columns and the bayonet to the detriment of all else

Austrian cavalry was arguably the finest in Europe at this time. Mounted on Hungarian horses, the heavy cuirassier regiments were well trained and led, while the light cavalry divisions consisting of dragoons, hussars and uhlans (lancers) proved themselves far superior to anything the French could bring against them. [3]

All Austrian artillery was smoothbore, consisting of 12 and 6 pound cannon plus howitzers, basically unchanged since the Napoleonic Wars. In addition each field artillery battery had a rocket section attached to it, though exactly what these weapons actually achieved is debatable. Tests were inconclusive, and no military artists who depicted the battle scenes of 1859 and 1866 ever seem to show them in action.