THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
377 
according to their own commanders’ discretion. It is at any rate a matter 
of fact that when Chlum was found to be in the enemy’s hands, when the 
very occasion arose for which reserves are kept back, Benedek had no mass 
of troops ready for retaking it. The account given by the “ Times” military 
correspondent who was present with the staff at the moment, shows what an 
absence of provision there was; and other accounts only corroborate the same 
general view ; the first detachment sent to recover Chlum consisted of only 
two battalions, and the Commander-in-Chief himself rode over the field to 
look for more. Whatever new light may be thrown on the transactions of 
the day, I cannot think it possible that this will be satisfactorily explained. 
Thus, as a strategist, the trusted leader of the Imperial forces was 
powerless to arrest the course of events; as a tactician he failed to handle 
the troops skilfully in battle ; and with his failure the last chance of success 
was lost to the Austrian arms. 
Here, to avoid taxing your attention too much, I must draw to an end. 
The foregoing remarks suggested themselves to me as being likely to convey 
to an un-military audience some idea of the causes to which the Prussian 
victory was due. To military listeners I should have preferred to touch 
lightly on the national and other general features, devoting the space thus 
saved to showing in what points the late events have illustrated military 
theories, or are likely to influence future practice ; or I should have treated 
the subject at greater length, and reserved that portion for a second lecture. 
The peculiar circumstances of the case have prevented me from now doing 
either one or the other. I can therefore only mention one or two points 
which it would be instructive for a military student to examine. 
In the first place the needle gun was used under circumstances so exactly 
calculated to develop its superiority and exaggerate its moral effect, that all its 
merits as a quick-loading weapon were brought into play, whilst none of the 
anticipated objections about the difficulty of supplying ammunition were 
felt. I only met with one case of difficulty in that respect, but it was an 
important example,* and it seems to me still an open question how far 
disasters may in future attend on a want of proper supplies caused by 
accident or mismanagement. If it could be reasonably expected that ammu¬ 
nition would never be wasted, there would be little to fear about its being 
exhausted. But young and half-trained soldiers, such as fill the ranks 
after the first two or three years of a war or even sooner, always have been 
subject to a habit of useless firing, and it will need a wonderfully careful 
supervision, if not a radical change in human nature to prevent their 
doing so. To expect that they should remain steady in front of an enemy, 
after the ammunition is exhausted, is to expect more than that they should 
refrain from wasting their shots. The American experience, I have heard, 
was that if the machinery of a man’s repeating rifle went wrong in action, or 
if by any other cause he was unable to go on firing, he threw down his 
weapon, and to use their own vulgar but expressive term, he “ skedaddled.” 
The Prussians brought into the field men of a different stamp and the war 
did not sweep them off, their successes also were generally easily won, conse¬ 
quently on this important question no sound experience has been gained* 
* See note D, p. 381 s 
