![]() Prussia, Austria and Italy spent the spring of 1866 preparing their armies.The Prussian Minister-President (prime minister), Otto von Bismarck, brokered an alliance with Italy, a country also seeking to throw off Austrian control, so that the Austrians would have to fight on two fronts at the same time, splitting the strength of its armies. Prussia saw the dispute as an opportunity to become the dominant power in the German Confederation and began preparing for war with Austria. By 1866, Austria and Prussia had reached a stalemate over how their new Danish territory should be governed.Their eldest daughter was married to a Prussian prince and their eldest son to a Danish princess, but this did not stop the two countries from going to war against each other. This war had been the first sign of the failure of the plan of Britain’s Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to bring peace to Europe by marrying their children into various royal families. In 1864, the two states had led an invasion of the Danish territory of Schleswig-Holstein. ![]() ![]() It had conscription for its army, meaning that there was always a force of well-trained soldiers to call on, and could arm itself with the latest in modern weaponry thanks to the industrialist and manufacturer Alfred Krupp. Although Austria had been the leading power in Central Europe for some time, Prussia was a state on the rise, growing in wealth and military strength. Austria was ruled by Emperors of the Habsburg dynasty, while Prussia was a kingdom ruled by the Hohenzollern family.The dominant powers in this organisation were Austria and Prussia. In the middle of the 19th century, Germany was not a unified country, but a group of individual states belonging to a confederation.In 1870-71, Prussia attacked France and captured the Alsace-Lorraine region, and after this Germany became a unified nation under the Prussian Emperor Wilhelm I. The result of the war was that Prussia became the dominant German state.The war also became known as the Seven Weeks’ War, the Fraternal War, and the German War.An armistice was signed on 22 July 1866 bringing the war to an end.The decisive battle was fought on 3 July 1866 at Königgrätz and was won by the Prussians despite early Austrian success with artillery.From 26-29 June 1866, there were battles at Hühnerwasser, Podol, Münchengrätz, Skalitz, Burkersdorf and Gitschin.On the same day, 27 June 1866, the Austrian army managed to prevent the Prussians from advancing any further at Trautenau but lost many men in the process.The Battle of Nachod on 27 June 1866 was the first major clash of the Austro-Prussian War and resulted in the Prussian Second Army securing a mountain pass so they could reach Austrian territory and ultimately link up with the other Prussian forces.Although the Hanoverian army defeated a Prussian force at the Battle of Langensalza, it was forced to surrender when it became boxed in by other Prussian troops. While some Prussian troops were invading Austrian territory in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic), other forces fought the German states of Hanover, Kassel and Saxony.Italy declared war on Austria on 20 June 1866, forcing Austria to split its armies to defend its borders along two fronts.Prussia invaded the neighbouring German states of Hanover, Saxony and Hesse on 15-16 June 1866.Five days later, the German Diet (a meeting of the confederation of the independent states of Germany) voted to mobilise troops to fight Prussia. On 9 June 1866, Prussian troops marched into Holstein.Like Germany, Italy was fighting to unify as one country and free itself from Austrian control. In April 1866, the powerful Prussian politician Otto von Bismarck negotiated an alliance with Italy.Also, many of the other states did not want to be dominated by Prussia in a unified Germany, leading them to side with Austria in the dispute. Although many Germans wanted a unified country, there were disagreements about whether this should include German-speaking Austria or not.In 1864, Prussia and the Austrian Empire had together invaded the Danish territories of Schleswig and Holstein, but by 1866 they were disagreeing over how to rule the captured lands.The ruling families of Austria and Prussia, the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns, both wanted supremacy in central Europe. Germany in the mid-19th century was not one country, but divided into many independent states, of which Prussia was the most powerful and militaristic.Let’s find out more about the The Austro-Prussian War!
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