484 THE FOREST AND THE FIELD. 



My opinion is that it was not, although it gave 

 the invaders great advantages over the defenders 

 at close quarters. The game was lost because 

 the Austrian troops were badly handled from the 

 beginning to the end ; and I will enumerate half- 

 a-dozen blunders in strategy, any one of which was 

 sufficient to have lost an empire. 



The Austrians ought never to have allowed the 

 Prussians to occupy Dresden, and troops ought to 

 have been concentrated in Saxony. Austrian inac- 

 tion in the beginning of the war gave the Prussians 

 their first great advantage. 



The frontier passes of Bohemia ought to have 

 been guarded, as a comparatively small force could 

 have held them against the invaders, whilst the 

 main army might have made a grand coup. 



Benedek, instead of despatching an inferior 

 force to engage the right wing of the Prussians, 

 should have fallen upon it with his whole army, 

 and exterminated it before any communications 

 could have been established with the left corps. 

 Gablenz was sacrificed at Trautenau, Ramming at 

 Nachod, Leopold at Skalitz, Festetics at Prausnitz 



