Battle of Königgrätz

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Königgrätz, battle of (battle of Sadowa) (1866), the decisive clash of the Austro-Prussian war. On 3 July 1866, Austria's North Army of 240, 000 men under Benedek stood on rising ground between the village of Sadowa and the fortress of Königgrätz. They awaited the approach of 245, 000 Prussian troops grouped in three armies under the nominal orders of Prussia's King Wilhelm I and the operational command of Moltke ‘the Elder’.

Whereas the Austrians arrived at Königgrätz by chance, the Prussians had planned to fight there. In June, Moltke had deployed Prussia's three armies on a 310 mile (500 km) arc from Halle in the west to Breslau in the east precisely so that he could rapidly invade Bohemia and sweep Benedek's densely concentrated, slow-moving North Army into a ‘pocket’ (Kessel) on the Elbe. The plan succeeded admirably. Descending from the north-east, Moltke's Second Army inflicted a sequence of bloody defeats on the Austrians in the last week of June and herded Benedek's increasingly ragged army westward into the grasp of Moltke's first and Elbe Armies, descending from the north-west. Trapped, Benedek decided to fight a defensive battle at Königgrätz.

Moltke intended Königgrätz to be a classic ‘pocket battle’ (Kesselschlacht). Heavy rain on 3 July nearly ruined his plans. His First and Elbe Armies arrived before Sadowa wet and exhausted. Second Army did not reach the field until late afternoon. Benedek therefore enjoyed a considerable advantage for most of the battle. He had 240, 000 men against just 135, 000 Prussians. Yet Benedek did nothing with this advantage, and stopped an attempt by a subordinate (Gen Anton von Mollinary) to swing North Army's right wing forward to encircle the two Prussian armies at Sadowa before the arrival of the third. This Austrian flanking attack, pushed forward by Mollinary and pulled back by Benedek, foundered in Swib Forest, where small parties of Prussian riflemen lacerated the confused columns of Austrian infantry filing in and out of the wood.

Saved by Benedek's inaction, Moltke had time to await the arrival of the Prussian Second Army, which struck Benedek's weakly guarded right flank at dusk. Hit from all sides, North Army dissolved in a defeat which the gallantry of its cavalry and artillery rearguards mitigated but could not avert. Königgrätz ought indeed to have been the classic pocket battle, a ‘second Cannae’. With the Elbe at his back, Benedek had no line of retreat. Yet Moltke's pursuit was too slow. Prussian reserves of infantry and cavalry were stuck in a muddy knot of wagons behind the lines, and did not come up in time to seal shut the pocket at Königgrätz. Most of Benedek's army escaped across the Elbe in the night. However, the Austrians lost 44, 000 men in the course of the day, compared with Prussian losses of just 9, 000. North Army retreated to Vienna in such a weakened, demoralized state that the Austrian emperor had no option but to agree to an armistice on 22 July 1866.

Bibliography

• Craig, Gordon A., The Battle of Königgrätz (London, 1964).
• Wawro, Geoffrey, f (Cambridge, 1996)

— Geoffrey D. W. Wawro