A prompt pursuit would, however, have been impracticable, even if the Prussians had fully appreciated the extent of the Austrian demoralization. The concentric attacks, so magnificently decisive on the field, had produced an almost chaotic confusion on the part of the victors themselves. Owing to the direction of their attacks, the Second Army and the Army of the Elbe were “telescoped” together; and the advance of the First Army had jammed it into the right flank of the former and the left flank of the latter. At noon the front of the combined Prussian armies had been more than sixteen miles long. The front of this great host was now but little more than two miles; and men of different regiments, brigades, divisions, corps, and even armies, were now indiscriminately mingled together. Aside from this confusion, the exhaustion of the Prussian soldiers precluded pursuit. Most of them had left their bivouacs long before dawn, and it had been a day of hard marching and hard fighting for all. Many had been entirely without food, all were suffering from extreme fatigue, and several officers had fallen dead on the field from sheer exhaustion.
As a result of the exhaustion of the Prussians and the excellent conduct of the Austrian cavalry and artillery, Von Benedek slipped across the Elbe, and gained such a start on his adversaries that for three days the Prussians lost all touch with him, and were in complete ignorance of the direction of his retreat.
Thus ended the great battle of Königgrätz. The Prussian losses were 9,153, killed, wounded and missing. The Austrians lost 44,200, killed, wounded and missing, including in the last classification 19,800 prisoners. They also lost 161 guns, five stands of colors, several thousand muskets, several hundred wagons and a ponton train. The sum total of the killed, wounded and missing (exclusive of prisoners) in this battle was 27,656.
It is not necessary, for the present, even to sketch the retreat of the Austrian army upon Olmütz and Vienna; the masterly march of Von Moltke to the Danube; the Italian disasters of Custozza and Lissa; and the campaign in which the Army of the Maine defeated the Bavarians and the VIIIth Federal Corps.[13] Königgrätz was the decisive battle of the war. Austria could not rally from her disaster, and twenty-three days after the battle the truce of Nikolsburg virtually ended the contest.
COMMENTS.
It is not only on account of its great and far-reaching results that Königgrätz must be rated as one of the greatest battles of the world. In point of numbers engaged, it was the greatest battle of modern times; for the two contending armies aggregated nearly half a million men. In this respect it exceeded Gravelotte, dwarfed Solferino and even surpassed the “Battle of Nations” fought on the plains of Leipsic, fifty-two years before.
Yet, considering the numbers engaged, the loss of life was not great. The sum total of the killed and wounded was nearly 6,000 less than at Gettysburg, though in that sanguinary struggle the combined strength of the Union and Confederate armies was less than that of the Austrian army alone at Königgrätz.[14] In fact, of all the battles of the War of Secession, Fredericksburg, Chattanooga and Cold Harbor were the only ones in which the losses of the victors, in killed and wounded, did not exceed, in proportion to the numbers engaged, the losses of the defeated army at Königgrätz. A bit of reflection upon these facts might convince certain European critics that the failure of victorious American armies to pursue their opponents vigorously was due to other causes than inefficient organization or a lack of military skill. In the words of Colonel Chesney: “In order to pursue, there must be some one to run away; and, to the credit of the Americans, the ordinary conditions of European warfare in this respect were usually absent from the great battles fought across the Atlantic. Hence, partly, the frequent repetition of the struggle, almost on the same ground, of which the last campaign of Grant and Lee is the crowning example.” It is, perhaps, not too much to say, that had Von Benedek been a Lee, and had his army been of the nature of Lee’s army, even if defeated at Königgrätz, the next day would have found him on the left bank of the Elbe, under the shelter of hasty entrenchments, presenting a bold front to the Prussians; for there was no reason, aside from demoralization, for the retreat of the Austrians far from the scene of their defeat. Their communications were neither intercepted nor seriously endangered; their losses had not been excessive; and, but for their discouragement and loss of morale, there is no reason why their defeat at Königgrätz should have been decisive.
Not the least of the causes of the Austrian defeat was the autocratic policy of Von Benedek, which caused the entire management of the army to be centralized in his own person, and the plan of battle to be locked up in his own mind. However brave, willing and obedient a subordinate officer may be, there can be no doubt that his duties will be better done, because more intelligently done, if he has a clear knowledge of the part that he is called upon to perform. The higher the rank, and the more important the command, of the subordinate officer, the more certainly is this the case. Yet Von Benedek seems to have desired from his corps commanders nothing more than the blind obedience of the private soldier. On the day before the battle of Königgrätz all the corps commanders were summoned to headquarters; but Von Benedek, after alluding merely to unimportant matters of routine, dismissed them without a word of instruction as to the part to be performed by them in the battle which he must have known to be imminent. On the day of the battle the commanders of the corps and divisions on the right were not informed of the construction of the batteries, and were not notified that these entrenchments were intended to mark their line. Instead of being thrown up by the divisions themselves, these works were constructed by the chief engineer, without one word of consultation or explanation with the corps commanders. Had the commanders of the IIId, IVth and IId Corps been informed that their principal duty would be to guard against a possible, if not probable, advance of the Crown Prince, it is not likely that the line Cistowes-Maslowed-Horenowes would have been occupied by the right wing; but these generals seem to have taken up their positions with no more idea of their object or of their influence upon the result of the battle than had the men in the ranks.