My MA Thesis-The Battle of Königgrätz -3 July 1866-Part # 1

I am currently working on completing my MA in European History.  All I have left to finish is writing my actual thesis which I have been planning for the past 3 years ever since I started my MA program.  I am going to write my thesis about the Battle of Königgrätz during the Seven Weeks War between Austria and Prussia in 1866.  Specifically, my thinking leads me to believe that there is more than the Prussian possession of the Dreyse Needle Gun to account for their victory.  Accordingly, I have been researching this battle and reading books about it for the past 4 years since I wrote my first paper about it while completing my BA in Military History.

This battle fascinates me because it has been virtually ignored in English historiography as indeed the German Wars of Unification as a whole have been despite the fact that these wars led to the creation of modern Germany and in a way are precursors to the two World Wars of the early twentieth century.  I have spent so much time studying this particular campaign and battle that I can trace the outlines of the campaign and battle in my sleep.  Hopefully someone else that reads this will find it fascinating or at least interesting as well.

Below is a picture I took last year looking over the Swiepwald, the most fought over portion of the battlefield.

Overview of the Swiepwald looking North

This series of blog posts will be about a combination of the battle itself and my journey (hopefully not too painful) of writing my thesis.