{"id":386,"date":"2010-10-25T17:03:08","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T15:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.military-history.us\/?p=386"},"modified":"2014-01-03T09:55:38","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T07:55:38","slug":"koniggratz-the-battlefield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/2010\/10\/koniggratz-the-battlefield\/","title":{"rendered":"K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz-The battlefield"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went to K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz this past weekend for one final trip before I start writing my thesis and to refresh my memory about what the terrain looks and feels like.\u00a0 I have found that is difficult to really understand a battle and the course it took unless I have been to the actual battlefield or seen a very good terrain model.\u00a0 Terrain determines much more about the course of a battle than many people realize.\u00a0 Of course, rivers and mountains make a difference but so do small terrain features.\u00a0 Anyone who has ever visited Ypres and stood on top of Passchendaele Ridge looking into the salient can instantly see why the British had such trouble breaking out during WWI.\u00a0 The terrain at K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz is similar in a way because actually walking it while thinking about the course of the battle highlights some things for me that many of the standard accounts mention briefly, if at all.<\/p>\n

The first thing I notice is how strong the Austrian position is naturally.\u00a0 For all his faults as a commander, and they are many, Benedek chose a good position to defend from.\u00a0 Most of his front is steep hills in ridges running parallel with a river, the Bistritz,\u00a0to its front.\u00a0 The Austrians emplaced their artillery along these hilltops and they had sight-lines extending beyond the range of the guns.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

View from Saxon positions looking East.<\/p><\/div>\n

Views such as the ones above were duplicated all along the front.\u00a0 It was only on the Austrian right flank in the vicinity of Chlum and Maslowed that rolling hills interfered with these long range viewpoints.\u00a0 It was exactly at Chlum that the Prussian 2nd Army broke through on the afternoon of the battle.\u00a0 The one place where the Austrians could not see almost to the horizon.\u00a0 I do not think this was coincidental.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went to K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz this past weekend for one final trip before I start writing my thesis and to refresh my memory about what the terrain looks and feels like.\u00a0 I have found that is difficult to really understand a… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[32,10,20,23,11],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-technology","category-thesis-research-and-rambles","tag-austro-prussian-war","tag-koniggratz","tag-prussia","tag-research","tag-thesis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.military-history.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}