The Great War of 189-: A Forecast

by P. H. Colomb; Archibald Forbes; Charles Lowe; F. N. Maude; John Frederick Maurice; David Christie Murray; Frank Scudamore

INTERVIEW BETWEEN GENERAL CAPRIVI AND THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR.

DISPOSITION OF THE GERMAN TROOPS.

(By Telegraph from our Special Correspondent, Mr. Charles Lowe.)

Berlin, April 23.

The excitement of the last few days has now calmed down into the serious and stolid determination, which is the most striking characteristic of the German race, and though it is known that, since the order to mobilise seven Army Corps was issued, M. Herbette, the French Ambassador, has had repeated interviews with General Caprivi, the nation is meanwhile content to suppress its suspicion with regard to the possible—nay, probable—policy of its western neighbour, and devote all its attention to the development of events on its eastern border.

Certain official telegrams which I have been allowed to peruse leave little doubt that, while the Russians are making a show of massing troops in the direction of Cracow, the real line of their strategic advance is towards the Lemberg side, whence a railway leads across the Carpathians to Buda-Pesth. It is argued here that, had the Russians merely to deal with Austria alone, the likeliest line of their advance would be by way of Cracow and its fortress, which they would endeavour to turn, and then strike for Vienna by the route which has been deemed, on the whole, the easier for them, namely, that which leads to the valley of the Danube across Austrian Silesia, and through the gap between the Bohemian and Carpathian mountains. But with a German army massed in Silesia, and menacing their right flank, the advantages of this route would be more than countervailed, and so the Russians seem to have chosen an invading route as remote as possible from the German base of attack, namely, viâ Lemberg and Stryj.

Meanwhile the mobilisation of the seven German Army Corps, enumerated by me in a previous despatch, is in full swing, the reserve men hastening to the colours with great alacrity; and as the railways are working night and day, all public traffic being suspended, the troops will soon be in the various positions assigned them. The 12th, or Royal Saxon Corps, it seems, is to be sent over to strengthen the Austrians, which will appear a wise and tactful disposition, when it is remembered how the Saxons fought shoulder to shoulder with the Austrians at Königgrätz; while Field-Marshal Prince George (brother of the King of Saxony) has been intrusted by the Emperor with the command of what is to be called the Army of Silesia, consisting of the 5th and 6th Corps, now swiftly concentrating between Breslau (which, being at present an open town, is undergoing rapid circumvallation by a ring of earthwork forts armed with Schumann gun-turrets) and Neisse, the Prussian Crown Prince’s point of departure for Bohemia in 1866. On the other hand, a Second Army, consisting of the 3d and 4th Corps, to be called ‘of the Vistula,’ and to be commanded by the King of Saxony, is swiftly massing round Thorn, that Metz of the East; while a Third Army, compounded of the 1st and 17th Corps (East and West Prussia), and denominated ‘of the Baltic,’ has been assigned to Count Waldersee, and is fast taking position on the line flanked by the fortresses of Königsberg and Lötzen, the task assigned to it being evidently an invasion of the Baltic Provinces and the consequent splitting up and diversion of the Russian forces from their southern objective. As to the First and Second German Armies (those of Silesia and the Vistula), a glance at the map will show that, roughly speaking, they form the base ends of a triangle whereof Warsaw is the apex, and that a well-timed advance by road or rail, for both are available, would enable them to effect a junction (on Moltke’s principle of marching separately and fighting combined, as applied with such brilliant success at Sadowa), and give decisive battle to the Russians somewhere near Warsaw.

But I may not indulge at present in a more detailed forecast of the impending campaign and its incidents. Suffice to say that the Germans promise to keep General Gourko, commanding the Russian forces in Poland, quite as busy as General Dragomiroff, commander at Kieff, and chief director of the operations against Galicia, will be kept by the Austrians themselves on their particular side of the seat of war.