War

June 14, 1866.

Prussia declared war on the grounds that Austria had mismanaged Holstein.

On the very day war was declared, Prussian forces on the western front struck the northern German states with lightning speed, swiftly taking over their government institutions and railway hubs.

Thanks to the House of Habsburg's years of prestige and marriage alliances within the Austrian Empire, only a few small German states with virtually no military strength supported Prussia. Every state of any real size stood with Austria.

At the previous German Confederation assembly, Prussia's proposal to resolve the German question through force had been rejected by the many states in attendance.

That assembly made Prussia realize that it essentially had no allies in the German territories, so after war began, Prussia swiftly declared war on those small northern German states.

At the time, Prussia was divided into two parts on the map, with these scattered German minor states lying between them.

Most of those small states were surrounded by Prussia, yet they had swallowed bear hearts and leopard gallbladders, daring to stand with Austria. The Prussian Army, which had no regard for martial virtue, naturally did not negotiate with them, launching war directly and taking over their governments.

Prussia's resolve to unify all of North Germany and achieve the Little Germany plan was unprecedented. Since these small states refused to know what was good for them, they could only be wiped out.

It was one thing for those somewhat stronger southern states to oppose Prussia, but you little states and free cities had virtually no military strength, sat right in Prussia's belly, and still dared to make such a clamor.

As Prussian forces from the western front rolled directly into the northern German states by rail, those small states naturally lacked the power to stop them, and Prussia successfully seized control of their administrative authority.

First, eliminate those ungrateful little states to prevent them from stabbing Prussia in the back, while also completely securing traffic across Prussia's east-west railway network.

The Bohemian theater was the main battlefield of the Prussian-Austrian War. Both sides had gathered hundreds of thousands of troops there, but Prussia was clearly more efficient than Austria.

For one thing, in 1862, Prussia's von Roon implemented several military reforms, ensuring that all Prussian citizens were subject to conscription.

Before that, the army's size had been set long ago without taking population growth into account, making conscription unfair and unpopular.

Although some Prussians remained in the army or reserves until the age of forty, around one-third of them—more in certain regions where industrialization had caused sharp population growth—were assigned only minimal duties in their hometown forces.

Universal conscription over three years expanded the active army and gave Prussia a reserve force comparable to Austria's in size, yet superior to it.

Prussia also considered that if France under Napoleon III attempted to intervene in Prussian actions, it could use its reserve system to call up an equal or greater number of troops to oppose Napoleon III's army.

For Prussia, enlistment meant continuous training and drills. Some Austrian commanders, however, routinely granted infantry conscripts permanent leave and sent them home shortly after enlistment, retaining only a group of long-service soldiers in the barracks or on duty.

Thus, when Austrian conscripts were recalled to their units after war broke out, they practically had to begin training from scratch.

As a result, the Prussian Army was better trained and more strictly disciplined than the Austrian forces, especially its infantry.

Although Austrian cavalry and artillery were as well trained as their Prussian counterparts, and Austria possessed two elite heavy cavalry divisions, weapons and tactics had advanced since the Napoleonic Wars, and cavalry charges had become obsolete.

The Prussian Army was organized by military districts based on local areas, each district containing a corps headquarters and its subordinate units. Most reservists lived near their regimental depots and could be mobilized quickly.

Austria's policy was to ensure that troops were stationed far from their homes, preventing them from participating in separatist rebellions.

Conscripts on leave and reservists recalled to their units during mobilization faced journeys that could take weeks before they could report, making Austria's mobilization far slower than that of the Prussian Army.

Meanwhile, Prussia's railway system was more developed than Austria's. Railways made it possible to supply more troops than ever before and allowed forces to move rapidly through friendly territory. Prussia's more efficient rail network enabled its army to concentrate faster than the Austrians.

Reviewing his plan to von Roon, Moltke said, "We possess the immeasurable advantage of being able to transport our 285,000 field troops over five railway lines and concentrate them in almost twenty-five days... Austria has only one railway line; gathering 200,000 men will take her forty-five days."

Elder Moltke had also said earlier, "Nothing could be more welcome than having the war we must have now."

The Austrian army in Bohemia was led by Ludwig von Benedek.

It had once been considered to possess the advantage of "central position," as it could concentrate its strength to launch successive attacks along the border regions.

But Prussia's faster concentration offset that advantage. By the time the Austrians had fully assembled, when they concentrated on dealing with one Prussian army, they could not stop the other two Prussian armies from attacking their flanks and rear, threatening their lines of communication.

In the south, Italy's presence forced Austria to disperse its forces to fight the Kingdom of Italy, and Austria had even already withdrawn from Venetia on its own initiative.

The course of the war had been unfavorable to Austria from the start. The decrepit Austrian Empire had no choice but to seek aid from Napoleon III, but Napoleon III still underestimated Prussia. He agreed to Austria's request, yet delayed intervening.

On June 23, Prussian forces advanced directly to the line from Zawidów to Zittau and concentrated there.

On June 26, the Battle of Traun took place between the Prussian and Austrian armies.

Moltke, chief of the Prussian General Staff, meticulously planned the battle formation and concentrated firepower against Austria. When the Austrian forces massed to invade Silesia, he shifted troops into Saxony and Bohemia to join King Wilhelm I, whose large army had long been assembled there.

On July 3, the Prussian Army launched a full-scale offensive and defeated the Austrian forces at the Battle of Königgrätz, also known as the Battle of Sadowa. The Austrians held the numerical advantage, yet their casualties were seven times those of the Prussians, all because the Prussian Army had superior equipment and better strategy.

Apart from Saxony, the other states had only limited impact on the war. Hanover's army defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Langensalza on June 27, but was soon surrounded by a large force and surrendered. The Prussian Army fought Bavaria head-on along the Main River, battling at Nuremberg and Frankfurt. Würzburg in Bavaria was besieged by the Prussians, but did not surrender even by the armistice.

Austria, however, achieved unexpected results in its war against Italy, defeating the Italian army at the Battle of Custoza on June 24 and in the naval Battle of Lissa on July 20, Lissa being present-day Vis in Croatia.