The Brain of an Army: A Popular Account of the German General Staff

by Spenser Wilkinson

4. Upon the basis of this decision the movement of the troops to the frontier was arranged. The railway system, as has been seen, did not admit of moving the corps directly and speedily to Görlitz and Schweidnitz. Five railways in all were available, leading to points on the Prussian frontier facing the kingdom of Saxony and the Austrian Empire. They ended at Zeitz, Halle, Hertzberg, Görlitz, and Schweidnitz (or Neisse), places scattered along a curve some 250 miles long. The quickest practicable way of assembling the army was to use all these railways at once, and when the troops had thus been deposited on the frontier to continue the concentration by marches. The shortest lines of march to assemble the whole army would be the radii leading to the centre of the curve; but this was in the enemy's territory, so that these lines, if they had been for other reasons desirable, could not be adopted before war had been declared. The alternative was to concentrate by marches along the circumference, and this was the plan adopted. Each corps, as soon as its debarkation from the train was complete, was marched along the arc towards the point of concentration selected for it.

The corps from Posen and Silesia, collected at Schweidnitz and Neisse (grouped together as the second army under the Crown Prince), were moved to their right to Landshut and Waldenburg.[[8]] Those of Westphalia (half a corps) and Rhenish Prussia were detrained at Zeitz and Halle, and marched round the frontier of Saxony to the point where the Elbe emerges from that kingdom. These troops, with the reserve corps from Berlin, formed the Elbe army, destined to continue its eastward movement by the invasion of Saxony. The corps from Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Prussian Saxony, were combined into the first army, under Prince Frederick Charles. They were first assembled between Torgau and Cottbus, and then marched along the frontier towards Görlitz, reaching the western corner of Silesia (neighbourhood of Hoyerswerda) about the end of the first week in June, when the other movements described were also completed.

5. The staff was now anxious to begin the campaign. The three armies could not be united on Prussian soil without leaving some important district unprotected, nor await where they were the Austrian attack without the risk that one of them in isolation might be exposed to the blows of a superior force. This same risk only would be incurred in the attempt to meet by a concentric advance towards some point of Austrian territory; it would increase with every additional day allowed for the Austrian preparations. But the king still thought a settlement possible, and would not permit hostilities to commence.

6. On June 11, the Prussian staff learned that of seven Austrian army corps destined to operate against Prussia six were in Moravia, not in Bohemia, as had been supposed. The inference was, that the Austrians contemplated advancing upon Breslau by way of Neisse, for which movement the data obtained showed that they would be able to cross the Silesian border with five or six army corps by about June 19. To meet this invasion, if it should take place, the second army was moved to the river Neisse, facing south, and was reinforced by the guard corps from Berlin, and by the first corps, moved originally from East Prussia by rail to Görlitz, and now by marching transferred from the first army to the second. At the same time the first army continued its eastward march as far as Görlitz, where it would be near enough to reach Breslau as soon as the Austrians, if they should really invade Silesia, or, if not required in that direction, could be moved readily into either Saxony or Bohemia. These movements were effected by June 19.

The Elbe army was also to be moved to the east, to join the first army, but its most convenient route from Torgau to Görlitz lay through Dresden. While the changes just described were in the course of execution, the political situation also had changed. The hostile resolution of the diet on June 14 enabled the king to make up his mind. On June 15 war was declared against Saxony. On the 16th the Elbe army crossed the border; on the 18th occupied Dresden; and on the 19th, connection having been established with the first army, now about Görlitz, was placed under the command of Prince Frederick Charles. This prince concentrated the first army to the south of Görlitz, on the confines of Saxony and Silesia, close to the Bohemian border, while the Elbe army from Dresden rapidly closed up to his right flank. The intention was that both should advance as one army into Bohemia, and move, with the left wing skirting the foot of the Giant Mountains, to meet the second army. There had been no sign of an Austrian attack on Silesia, so the Crown Prince was ordered to prepare for a march westward into Bohemia to meet his cousin. On the 19th he was to send one corps in advance to Landshut, still keeping the rest of his force on the Neisse ready to face either south or west. A day or two later two more of his corps were withdrawn to the mountains, a single corps only remaining on the Neisse, and much trouble being taken to deceive the Austrians into the belief that the whole army was still there and was about to march towards Moravia. This was the position of both Prussian armies on June 22, when the telegram already quoted ordered them to cross the Bohemian frontier and to try to effect their union about Gitschin.

Sketch map 3—THE OPENING MOVEMENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1866.

It will be observed that from the first stage of the preparations one object, the concentration of as large a force as possible for the purpose of defeating the Austro-Saxon forces, had been followed by the chief of the staff. His arrangements were at first controlled by political considerations, the effect of which in the circumstances was to render impracticable the formation at the outset of a single army. Afterwards, before war had been finally decided upon, the armies were moved to meet the changed situation created by the Austrian arrangements at length known. The invasion of Saxony was a further stage in the general concentration. By June 22 it had become clear that the Austrians were not invading Silesia. The question was, whether to continue through Prussian territory the march of the first army towards the second—a safe course now that the Austrian position was known—or to take for both the shortest line of meeting, that into Bohemia, with the attendant risk to the second army. The bolder course was adopted, and was abundantly justified by success.

[[1]] The details of the operation of mobilization are kept secret, but the elementary principles have everywhere been copied from the Prussian system and may be explained in an imaginary example. Suppose a company to have a peace strength of 120 men and to pass each year forty men into the reserve, receiving instead the same number of recruits, the war strength being 240. The public announcement of the decree for mobilization makes it the duty of each of the 120 reservists to proceed directly to the headquarters of the company, where they will arrive, according to the distance from their homes, say on the first, second, or third day of mobilization. The captain has a nominal list of the whole company, and keeps in store under his own responsibility the complete new war kit for each of the 240 men. As they arrive the men pass the doctor, receive their kits, and are told off to their posts in the completed company. According to the care with which the rules have been framed (this is the staff's principal share in the work) so as to divide the labour, occupying every man from the general to the bugler and giving to each that work which he can best do, and to none more than he can do in the time allowed, will be the rapidity, ease, and certainty with which the whole mobilization will be effected.