THE AUSTRIAN PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.
DETAILS OF PREPARATION.
(By Telegraph from our Special Correspondent, Mr. Charles Lowe.)
Thorn, April 29.
To-night the Emperor (who continues to display wonderfully good spirits and energy) gave a banquet in the hastily furbished-up rooms of the gloomy old Schloss, in honour of Feldzeugmeister Baron Beck, the Chief of the Austrian Staff, who, pending the progress of his well-thought-out mobilisation and massing scheme, which he had set a-going by a simple order from Vienna, had hastily run up here by rail to concert united action with his German colleague, Count von Schlieffen, the present occupier of Moltke’s high and responsible office. From a trustworthy source I gather that this was the substance of Baron von Beck’s communication:—
It had been discovered, beyond all doubt, that the main objective of the Russian invasion was Lemberg, in the direction of which Dragomiroff was concentrating immense masses of troops, drawn from the 4th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th Army Corps, in the rear of whom other forces, furnished by the remoter 13th, 16th, 17th and other Corps, were pushing up as fast as the defective railway system of the country would allow them. Austria, on her part, had resolved to combine her defensive forces into three armies—one of about 300,000 strong, in East Galicia, on the Dniester; another, about as half as strong (150,000), on the San, with its back on Przemysl, that tremendous bulwark of Middle Galicia; and a third, of about 120,000, near Cracow, that almost equally formidable place d’armes, and key of Western Galicia on the Upper Vistula.
But these numbers do not include a force of eight independent Cavalry Divisions, each of four Brigades, or four regiments, which are to be ranked along the Galician frontier at the likeliest points of danger from the mass-raidings of Russian horsemen.
THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA AT AMBULANCE WORK.
Such were meanwhile the relative dispositions and prospects on either side of the Austro-Russian border, while, on the other hand, General Gourko, the hero of the Balkans, was concentrating at Warsaw an army consisting of the 5th, 6th, 14th, 15th Corps, and other troops, for the double purpose of holding the Germans in check, and of operating towards Cracow, on the Austrian left flank. Moreover, the 2nd Russian Corps from Wilna, and the 3rd from Riga, seemed to be marshalling on the lower Niemen with the view of looking over into Königsberg; and of these Muscovite troops in the Baltic Provinces, no less than in Western Poland, Baron Beck trusted that the Germans would give a good and satisfactory account.
As a token of his complete satisfaction with the Baron’s lucid and hopeful exposition of the military situation, the Emperor, at parting, which was very cordial on His Majesty’s part, conferred on the distinguished Chief of the Austrian Staff the Red Eagle of the first class (with swords), and, at the same time, intrusted him with an autograph missive for his august master at Vienna.
(By Telegraph from our Special Correspondent, Mr. Charles Lowe.)
Thorn, Later.
From my correspondent with the Army of the Baltic at Königsberg I learn that its mobilisation is now complete, and that Count Waldersee (who has had a bad fall from his horse, but is better again) is burning to make a dash across the frontier and pluck a leaf from the laurel-wreath of General Gourko.
The 2nd, or Pomeranian Corps, has meanwhile been appointed to cope with any descent from the Russian Fleet on the Baltic shore; while the 9th Corps has been similarly left in Schleswig-Holstein for the double purpose of frustrating any attempted landing in that quarter, and also of keeping an eye on Denmark, whose hearts are practically with the Russians, and who have not yet forgotten the Redoubts of Düppel.
On the other hand, the fortification of Breslau is proceeding at a rapid rate, Prince Pless and the Duke of Ratibor having lent a little army of their miners to do the necessary pick and spade work; while the Army of Silesia (under Prince George of Saxony) is now echeloned along the railway line, parallel to the Russian border, between Kreuzburg and Tarnowitz—in utrumque paratus—that is to say, ready either for a front march across the frontier on Czenstochau, on the Warsaw railway, or for a flanking movement of support in the direction of Cracow, as occasion may demand.
The Austrians, we know, are well forward with their concentration; but owing to the fact that the telegraph wires of the Russians have now ceased to speak to the outer world, and that travellers are neither allowed into nor out of Russia, we are still very much in the dark with regard to their massings and their movements. To-morrow, however, we mean, if possible, to try and penetrate a little the veil of this mystery.