Friedrich Engels 


The Manchester Guardian. 
Nr. 6197, 28. Juni 1866 


No. III. 


The first great battle has been fought, not in Bohemia, but in Italy, and the 
Quadrilateral has again given the Italians a lesson in strategy. The strength 
of this famous position, as indeed of all fortified positions of any value, 
consists, not so much in the high defensive capabilities of its four for- 
tresses, but in their being so grouped in a country with strongly-marked 
military features that the attacking force is almost always induced, and of- 
ten compelled, to divide itself and attack on two different points, while the 
defending force can send its whole combined strength against one of these 
attacks, crush it by superior numbers, and then turn against the other. The 
Italian army has been induced to commit this fault. The King stood with 
eleven divisions on the Mincio, while Cialdini with five divisions faced the 
Lower Po, near Ponte Lagoscuro and Polesella. An Italian division counts 
17 battalions of 700 men each; consequently, Victor Emmanuel would 
have, with cavalry and artillery, at least 120,000 or 125,000 men, and Cial- 
dini about half that number. While the King crossed the Mincio on the 
23d, Cialdini was to cross the Lower Po and act upon the rear ofthe Austri- 
ans; but up to the moment we write, no certain news have arrived of this 
latter movement having been effected. At all events, the 60,000 men whose 
presence might, and probably would, have turned the scale on Sunday last 
at Custozza, cannot, so far, have obtained any advantage at all commensu- 
rate to the loss of a great battle. 

The Lake of Garda lies encased between two spurs of the Alps, forming, 
to the south of it, two clusters of hills, between which the Mincio forces its 
way towards the lagoons of Mantua. Both of these groups form strong mili- 
tary positions; their slopes towards the south overlook the Lombard plain, 
and command it within gun-range. They are well known in military history. 
The western group, between Peschiera and Lonato, was the scene of the 
battles of Castiglione and Lonato in 1797, and of Solferino in 1859; the 
eastern group, between Peschiera and Verona, was contested during three 
days in 1848, and again in the battle of last Sunday. 

This eastern group of hills slopes down on one side towards the Mincio, 
where it ends in the plain at Valleggio; on the other side, in a long arc, fac- 
ing south-east, towards the Adige, which it reaches at Bussolengo. It is di- 
vided, from north to south, in two about equal portions by a deep ravine, 
through which flows the rivulet Tione; so that a force advancing from the 
Mincio will have first to force the passage of the river, and immediately af- 


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terwards find itself again arrested by this ravine. On the edge ofthe slope, 
facing the plain, and east of the ravine, are the following villages:—Cus- 
tozza, on the southern extremity; further north, in succession, Somma 
Campagna, Sona, and Santa Giustina. The railway from Peschiera to Ver- 
ona crosses the hills at Somma Campagna, the high road at Sona. 

In 1848, after the Piedmontese had taken Peschiera, they blockaded 
Mantua and extended their army from beyond that place to Rivoli, on the 
Lake of Garda, their centre occupying the hills in question. On the 23d 
July Radetzky advanced with seven brigades from Verona, broke through 
the centre of this over-extended line, and occupied the hills himself. On 
the 24th and 25th the Piedmontese tried to re-take the position, but were 
decisively beaten on the 25th, and retreated at once through Milan beyond 
the Ticino. This first battle of Custozza decided the campaign of 1848. 

The telegrams from the Italian head-quarters about last Sunday's battle 
are rather contradictory; but, with the assistance of those from the other 
side, we get a pretty clear insight into the circumstances under which it was 
fought. Victor Emmanuel intended his Ist corps (General Durando, four 
divisions or 68 battalions), to take up a position between Peschiera and 
Verona, so as to be able to cover a siege ofthe former place. This position 
must, of course, be Sona and Somma Campagna. The 2d corps (General 
Cucchiari, three divisions or 51 battalions) and 3d corps (General Delia 
Rocca, ofthe same strength as the second) were to cross the Mincio at the 
same time, to cover the operations of the Ist. The Ist corps must have 
crossed near or south of Salionce, and taken the road ofthe hills at once; 
the 2d seems to have crossed at Valleggio, and the 3d at Goito, and ad- 
vanced in the plain. This took place on Saturday the 23d. The Austrian bri- 
gade Pulz, which held the outposts on the Mincio, fell slowly back on Ver- 
ona; and on Sunday, the anniversary of Solferino, the whole of the 
Austrian army debouched from Verona to meet the enemy. They appear to 
have arrived in time to occupy the heights of Sona and Somma Campagna, 
and the eastern edge of the ravine of the Tione before the Italians. The 
struggle then would principally be fought for the passage of the ravine. At 
the southern extremity the two corps in the plain could co-operate with the 
Ist Italian corps in the hills, and thus Custozza fell into their hands. Grad- 
ually the Italians in the plain would advance more and more in the direc- 
tion of Verona, in order to act upon the Austrian flank and rear, and the 
Austrians would send troops to meet them. Thus the front lines ofthe two 
armies, which were originally facing east and west respectively, would 
wheel round a quarter circle, the Austrians facing south and the Italians 
north. But, as the hills retreat from Custozza to the north-east, this flank 
movement ofthe Italian 2d and 3d corps could not immediately affect the 


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position oftheir 1st corps in the hills, because it could not be extended far 
enough without danger to the flanking troops themselves. Thus the Austri- 
ans appear merely to have occupied the 2d and 3d corps by troops suffi- 
cient to break their first impetus, while they launched every available man 
upon the Ist corps, and crushed it by superior numbers. They were per- 
fectly successful; the first corps was repulsed, after a gallant struggle, and at 
last Custozza was stormed by the Austrians. By this, the Italian right wing 
advanced east and north-east beyond Custozza, appears to have been seri- 
ously endangered; consequently a new struggle for the village took place, 
during which the lost connection must have been restored, and the Aus- 
trian advance from Custozza checked, but the place remained in their 
hands, and the Italians had to re-cross the Mincio the same night. 

We give this sketch of the battle, not as a historical account—for which 
every detail is as yet wanting—but merely as an attempt, map in hand, to 
reconcile the various telegrams relating to it amongst each other, and with 
military common sense; and ifthe telegrams were anything like correct and 
complete, we feel confident that the general outline ofthe battle would ap- 
pear to be not very different from what we have stated. 

The Austrians lost about 600 prisoners, the Italians 2,000, and a few 
guns. This shows the battle to have been a defeat, but no disaster. The for- 
ces must have been pretty equally matched, although it is very probable 
that the Austrians had less troops under fire than their opponents. The Ital- 
ians have every reason to congratulate themselves that they were not driven 
back into the Mincio; the position of the lst corps between that river and 
the ravine, on a strip ofland between two and four miles wide, and a supe- 
rior enemy in front, must have been one ofconsiderable danger. It was un- 
doubtedly a mistake to send the main body of the troops into the plain; 
while the commanding heights, the decisive points, were neglected; but the 
greatest mistake was, as we pointed out before, to divide the army, to leave 
Cialdini with 60,000 men on the Lower Po, and to attack with the remain- 
der alone. Cialdini could have contributed to a victory before Verona, and 
then, marching back to the Lower Po, have effected his passage much more 
easily, if this combined manœuvre was to be insisted upon at all hazards. 
As it is, he seems no further advanced than on the first day, and may now 
have to meet stronger forces than hitherto. The Italians ought, by this time, 
to know that they have a very tough opponent to deal with. At Solferino, 
Benedek, with 26,000 Austrians, held the whole Piedmontese army of fully 
double that number at bay for the whole day, until he was ordered to re- 
treat in consequence of the defeat of the other corps by the French. That 
Piedmontese army was much superior to the present Italian army; it was 
better schooled, more homogeneous, and better officered. The present 


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army is but of very recent formation and must suffer from all the disadvan- 
tages inherent to such; while the Austrian army ofto-day is much superior 
to that of 1859. National enthusiasm is a capital thing to work upon, but 
until disciplined and organised, nobody can win battles with it. Even Gari- 
baldi's "thousand" were not a crowd of mere enthusiasts, they were drilled 
men who had learnt to obey orders and to face powder and shot in 1859. It 
is to be hoped that the staff of the Italian army, for their own good, will re- 
frain from taking liberties with an army which, if numerically inferior is in- 
trinsically superior to theirs, and, moreover, holds one of the strongest posi- 


tions in Europe. 


The Manchester Guardian. 
Nr. 6201, 3. Juli 1866 


No. IV. 


Suppose a young Prussian ensign or cornet, under examination for a lieu- 
tenancy, to be asked what would be the safest plan for a Prussian army to 
invade Bohemia? Suppose our young officer were to answer,—"Your best 
way will be to divide your troops into two about equal bodies, to send one 
round by the east of the Riesengebirge, the other to the west, and effect 
their junction in Gitschin." What would the examining officer say to this? 
He would inform the young gentleman that this plan sinned against the 
two very first laws of strategy:—Firstly, never to divide your troops so that 
they cannot support each other, but to keep them well together; and, se- 
condly, in case of an advance on different roads, to effect the junction of the 
different columns at a point which is not within reach of the enemy; that, 
therefore, the plan proposed was the very worst of all; that it could only be 
taken into consideration at all in case Bohemia was quite unoccupied by 
hostile troops; and that, consequently, an officer proposing such a plan of 
campaign was not fit to hold even a lieutenant's commission. 

Yet, this is the very plan which the wise and learned staff of the Prussian 
army have adopted. It is almost incredible; but it is so. The mistake for 
which the Italians had to suffer at Custozza, has been again committed by 

the Prussians, and under circumstances which made it ten-fold worse. The 
Italians knew at least that, with ten divisions, they would be numerically 
superior to the enemy. The Prussians must have known that if they kept 
their nine corps together they would be at best barely on a par, as far as 
numbers went, with Benedek's eight corps; and that by dividing their 
troops they exposed the two armies to the almost certain fate of being 
crushed in succession by superior numbers. It would be completely inexpli- 


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cable how such a plan could ever -be discussed, much less adopted, by a 
body of such unquestionably capable officers as form the Prussian staff—if 
it was not for the fact of King William being in chief command. But no- 
body could possibly expect that the fatal consequences ofkings and princes 
taking high command would come out so soon and so strong. The Prus- 
sians are now fighting, in Bohemia, a life-and-death struggle. If the junc- 
tion of the two armies at or about Gitschin is prevented, if each of the two, 
being beaten, has to retire out of Bohemia, and, by retiring, to get further 
away again from the other, then the campaign may be said to be virtually 
over. Then Benedek may leave the army of the Crown Prince unnoticed 

while it retires towards Breslau, and follow up, with all his forces, the army 
of Prince Frederic Charles, which can hardly escape utter destruction. 

The question is, Will this junction have been prevented? Up to the mo- 
ment we write we have no news of events later than Friday evening, the 
29th. The Prussians, beaten out of Gitschin (the name of the place, in Bo- 
hemian, is spelt Jicin) on the 28th by General Edelsheim, claim to have 
stormed the town again on the 29th, and this is the last information we pos- 
sess. The junction was not then effected; at least four Austrian and parts of 
the Saxon army corps had then been engaged against about five or six Prus- 
sian corps. 

The various columns ofthe army ofthe Crown Prince, as they descended 
into the valley on the Bohemian side of the hills, were met by the Austrians 
at favourable points where the valley, widening out, allowed them to offer a 
larger front to the Prussian columns, and to attempt to prevent them from 
deploying; while the Prussians would send troops, wherever practicable, 
through the lateral valleys, to take their opponents in flank and rear. This is 
always the case in mountain warfare, and accounts for the great number of 
prisoners that are always made under such circumstances. On the other 
side, the armies of Prince Frederick Charles and Herwarth von Bittenfeld 
appear to have got through the passes almost unopposed; the first engage- 
ments took place on the line of the Iser river, that is almost midway be- 
tween the starting points of the two armies. It would be idle to try to disen- 
tangle and bring into harmony the fearfully contradictory, and often totally 
unauthenticated, telegrams which have come to hand these last three or 
four days. 

The fighting has been necessarily very much chequered in its results; as 
new forces came up, victory favoured first one and then the other side. Up 
to Friday, however, the general result appears to have been, so far, in favour 
of the Prussians. If they maintained themselves in Gitschin, no doubt the 
junction was effected on Saturday or Sunday, and then their greatest 
danger would be passed. The final fight for the junction would probably be 


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fought with concentrated masses on both sides, and decide the campaign 
for some time, at least. Ifthe Prussians were victorious, they would be at 
once out of all their self-begotten difficulties, but they might have obtained 
the same, and even greater, advantages without exposing themselves to 
such unnecessary dangers. 

The fighting appears to have been severe. The very first Austrian brigade 
which met the Prussians in battle, was the "black and yellow" brigade, 
which, in Schleswig, stormed the Königsberg, near Oberselk, the day before 
the evacuation of the Dannevirke. It is called black and yellow after the 
facings of the two regiments composing it, and was always considered one 
of the best brigades in the service. They were, however, beaten by the nee- 
dle-gun, and above 500 men of one of its regiments (Martini) were taken 
prisoners after they had charged the Prussian lines five times in vain. In a 
later engagement, the colours of the 3d battalion of the Deutschmeister reg- 
iment were taken. This regiment, recruited in Vienna exclusively, is con- 
sidered the best in the whole army. Thus the very best troops have been al- 
ready in action. The Prussians must have behaved splendidly for an old 
peace army. When war was actually declared, a totally different spirit came 
over the army, brought on, chiefly, by the clearing-out of the small fry of