The IId Corps at Kukus, on left of IVth;
The VIIIth Corps near Kasow (one brigade in line on left of IId Corps, the other brigades as reserve);
The VIth Corps on the left of the VIIIth;
The 3d Reserve Cavalry Division on the left of the VIth Corps;
The 2d Reserve Cavalry Division on the extreme left wing;
The Xth Corps, in reserve, between Stern and Liebthal.
Five army corps and four cavalry divisions were thus concentrated on a line five and one-half miles long. The nature of the ground was unfavorable to the interior communications of the line, but it was, in the main, a strong position, with the Elbe on its front, and the fortress of Josephstadt protecting its right flank.
The junction of the Prussian armies now seemed assured, and the strategical situation was decidedly against Von Benedek. His great fault was his failure to decide promptly in regard to the army which he should contain while throwing his weight upon the other. Placing an exaggerated value upon his interior position, he does not seem to have considered that every hour of Prussian advance diminished his advantages; and he was, apparently, unable to make his choice of the two plans of operations which presented themselves. His best move, if made in time, would have been against Frederick Charles. True, his communications could have been quickly cut, in this case, by a successful advance of the Second Army across the Elbe; while in moving against the Crown Prince, his communications could not so readily have been seized by Frederick Charles. But, on the other hand, topographical features made it an easier matter to contain the Second Army than the First Army and the Army of the Elbe. If the Austrian field marshal had learned the lesson taught at Atlanta, Franklin and Petersburg, he would have made use of hasty entrenchments. The Xth Corps and VIth Corps, strongly entrenched, could certainly have held the passes against the assaults of the Crown Prince. The ground was admirably adapted to defense, and the entrenchments would have more than neutralized the superiority of the needle gun over the Lorenz rifle. To have invested and reduced the entrenched camps, if possible at all, would have required much more time than Von Benedek would have needed for disposing of Frederick Charles. To have advanced by the road leading to Olmütz or Bömisch Trübau, the Crown Prince would have been compelled to mask the passes with at least as many troops as garrisoned the camps at their outlets, or his own communications would have been at the mercy of the Austrians. This would have left him only two corps; and an invasion of Moravia with this small force, every step of the advance carrying him farther away from Frederick Charles, would have been an act of suicidal madness, which he would not have seriously contemplated for a moment. When Osman Pasha, eleven years later, paralyzed the advance of 110,000 Russians, by placing 40,000 Turks in a hastily entrenched position on their right, at Plevna, he showed plainly how Von Benedek might have baulked the Second Army with entrenched positions at the Silesian passes.
Leaving, then, two corps to take care of the Crown Prince, the Austrian commander would have had (including the Saxons) six corps, and nearly all of the reserve cavalry and artillery, to use against Frederick Charles. Count Clam-Gallas, instead of undertaking the task of holding the line of the Iser, should have destroyed the bridges; and opposing the Prussians with a strong rear-guard at the different crossings, obstructing the roads, offering just enough resistance to compel his adversary to deploy and thus lose time, but avoiding anything like a serious action, he should have fallen back via Gitschin to form a junction with Von Benedek. He could thus have gained sufficient time for his chief to arrive at Gitschin as soon as Frederick Charles; and the army of the latter, numbering not more than 130,000 men,[8] would have been opposed by an army of fully 200,000 Austrians. What the result would have been we can best judge from the course of the battle of Königgrätz before the Crown Prince arrived upon the field.
Hozier, Adams, Derrécagaix and (above all) the Prussian Official History of the Campaign of 1866, claim that the best move of Von Benedek would have been against the Crown Prince. If we consider the successful passage of the defiles by the Second Army as a thing to be taken for granted in Von Benedek’s plan of campaign, there can be no doubt that the Austrian commander should have turned his attention to the Crown Prince, and that he should have attacked him with six corps, as soon as the Prussians debouched from the defiles of Trautenau and Nachod. The line of action here suggested as one that would probably have resulted in Austrian success, is based entirely on the condition that the Second Army should be contained at the defiles, by a force strongly entrenched after the American manner of 1864-5; a condition not considered by the eminent authorities mentioned above. After the Crown Prince had safely passed the defiles, Von Benedek had either to attack him or fall back. The time for a successful move against Frederick Charles had passed.