THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
367 
Situation of the Austrians at the close of the Campaign, 
Before the truce, which was at first fixed for five days only, had expired, 
the Austrians had evacuated Presburg, and assembled their whole forces on 
the south bank of the Danube. This amounted to an avowal that they could 
not venture to remain in front of the Prussians without such a protection as 
the river afforded. Perhaps it was the wisest, and at any rate it was the 
most prudent thing they could do, for there is no military operation more 
hazardous and difficult than to cross such a stream as the Danube is, in that 
part of its course, in face of a watchful army. The courage and self-confidence 
of the Austrian infantry had been so much shaken, and the issues of all the 
combats had been so invariably against them, that there is nothing to lead 
one to suppose the fortune of war would have suddenly turned in their 
favour. 
Otherwise,—had the Austrians been able to meet the Prussians on any¬ 
thing like equal terms, they would have forfeited, by clinging to the opposite 
bank of the Danube, the best chance of re-establishing themselves in Moravia 
by a single blow. With the river between them and the Prussians they 
could only act defensively. If the Prussians attacked them they might 
succeed in repelling the attack with loss ; but they could do no more. Had 
they occupied a line facing the west, with the left flank touching the Danube 
they would have been in a position offering great advantages for the 
offensive, whilst it combined many of the requirements of a good defensive 
position. 
Thus placed they would have had the river March to protect their front, 
and the Carpathian mountains to hinder any rapid pursuit in case of retreat. 
Hungary, which was now their main resource would have been effectually 
covered, and the bridge at Presburg would have secured their junction with 
the troops defending Vienna. Looking at it from the offensive point of 
view they would have been ready to improve any opportunity that might 
occur by falling upon the Prussians where they stood, or by threatening 
their flank more to the rear. 
Nothing also would have more hampered and checked the Prussian 
attempts on Vienna than the presence of an Austrian army along the river 
March. It would have prevented a large part of the army from being 
employed in forcing the passage of the Danube, and it would have 
deterred them from establishing one portion of their army on the right hand 
bank unless it had most ample means of communicating with the other. In 
fact the Prussians would have been obliged to force this position as a 
preliminary to attempting Vienna, and in disposing their army to do so 
they would have had to change their front to the left. The roads by which 
they communicated with Prussia, or in other words their lines of communi¬ 
cation, would then be on their flank instead of in their rear, and in case of 
a defeat they might be altogether cut off from their supplies. There can, 
I think, be no doubt, that in a strategical point of view, the line of country 
between the river March and the Carpathian mountains should have been 
occupied and held by the main body of the Austrian army*; but the 
* This opinion is also held by the author of the “ Operations of War,” who brings forward most 
of the points above-mentioned in tho article which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine for August, 
