1866 - At the End was the Battle of Koeniggratz - Gabor Orban

The scholarly inquiry of the causes of Austrias defeat in 1866 is almost asold as the war against rising Prussia itself. Already in the immediateaftermath of the conflict, considerable energy was devoted to identifying thesources of failure. At the time, responsibility was attributed to themisjudgements of the high command, and above all to the commander-in-chief ofthe k.k. North Army, Feldzeugmeister Ludwig von Benedek. This one-sidedinterpretation, together with the broader debate surrounding the so-calledquestion of guilt (Schuldfrage), was later treated with increasing nuance. During the twentieth century, historians sought the origins of the defeat atboth political and military levels. From a military perspective, research hasprimarily examined developments in armaments technology, the (strategic-)operational miscalculations of the campaign, and the structural deficiencies ofthe k.k. Army, which stemmed in large part from severe budgetary restrictions. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been devoted to battle tactics. In 1866, Austria entered the war against Prussia with a tactical doctrinenearly sixty years old, based on an overestimation of the historical traditionof military values. This volume examines precisely this neglected aspect. Within the broadercontext of armed conflicts since the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars againstFrance, it introduces and systematically analyses Austrian military doctrine,with particular emphasis on tactics. The stu
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