Thanks for your comment Steve!
I hope you had a good birthday party with your family yesterday.
Regards
Santi
Thanks for your comment Steve!
I hope you had a good birthday party with your family yesterday.
Regards
Santi
It went well Santi... although I was still sober at the end of the day!by TabsTabs1964
Thanks for your comment Steve!
I hope you had a good birthday party with your family yesterday.
Regards
Santi
This is fascinating reading Santi! Thank you very much!
The plan for today was to follow the alphabetical order and go up Bremen, Hamburg and Hessen.... but a couple of days of vacation, quite rainy, have made me change the plan, it is obvious that I am not Prussian...
So that this history of the German Empire is clearer to everyone, perhaps we should take a parenthesis and talk about the rivalry that existed for half a century between the two most powerful German states: Prussia and Austria.
Because we all know that there cannot be two roosters in the same hencoop and that in the end…. only one can remain.
The fight for German hegemony between Austria and Prussia
After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, European nations met at what was called the Congress of Vienna with the goal of reestablishing the borders of the states of Europe.
The Congress of Vienna 1815
There was created the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) that was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe.
Its reason for being was to maintain the security of the many small states that formed it.
From the first moment, its undisputed leadership corresponded to Austria, which was by far the largest and most powerful Kingdom.
There was still more than half a century left for German unification, but the confederation also housed another very powerful kingdom: Prussia, which would continue to rise during the following decades.
It’s said that the German Confederation only worked when the interests of Austria and Prussia coincided.
Willhelm I was proclaimed King of Prussia on January 2, 1861 in Königsberg castle (East Prussia), he was 64 years old.
Coronation of Wilhelm I at Königsberg Castle, 18 October 1861
The Emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph I was then 31 years old. Both will be the rulers of their countries when the time comes for direct confrontation for the supremacy of the German states.
As the 1860s began, the leadership clash between Austria and Prussia drew inexorably closer. So, Austria and Prussia watched each other and tried to learn from any experience that would allow them to prevail when the time came.
So, in this parenthesis we will talk about three battles from three wars that will allow us to better understand this exciting story.
The Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 during the American Civil War in which Austria and Prussia were OBSERVERS
A Prussian and an Austrian in an oak tree on Seminary Ridge
Although it may seem strange, the first one we talk about is the battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, during the American Civil War.
And what it’s about is discovering what a man with a top hat was doing perched on the branches of an old oak tree and a hussar, with a waxed mustache in a dress uniform, at the foot of that same tree, at dusk on July, 2 1863.
Don Troiani’s painting “Decision at down”
And that oak tree was in Seminary Ridge, Gettysburg Pennsylvania. And both men watched the General in Chief of the Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, standing thoughtfully making probably the most important decision of his entire military career, watched in turn by Lieutenant General A. P. Hill, Major General John B. Hood and Lieutenant General Longstreet, all three sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree.
Because the man at the top of the tree was a captain in the Prussian Army and the one standing next to the tree was an Austrian Army Major...
Foreign observers in American Civil War
As we all know, several European military observers visited the CSA during the Civil War. The most famous was Sir Arthur Freemantle, Lt. Col. of Coaldstream Guards, who wrote about his experiences in "Three Months in the Southern States."
Lt. Col Freemantle portrait
Cover of "Three Months in the Southern States"
The Prussians Scheibert and von Borcke; the Austrian (of British origin) Fitzgerald Ross and the English Fremantle and Lawley, among many others.
The writings of these foreign witnesses left their mark on the literature about the Army of Northern Virginia. All of them shared sympathy and admiration for the Confederate cause.
The foreign officers were keen observers and wrote extensively about the war. Like Scheibert, they were very interested in artillery, siege operations, field fortifications, cavalry and about the increasing firepower of the infantry.
British Lieutenant Colonel Garnet Wolseley (later British Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief) also visited the Confederates and developed a deep admiration for Robert E. Lee. By the way, in 1870 President Grant sent Phil Sheridan as an observer of the Franco-Prussian War.
An Austrian observer - Captain FitzGerald Ross, 6th Austrian Hussars
Ross, a Scot who served in the Austrian army, was educated at the universities of Heidelberg and Gottingen. He entered the United States through Canada and followed a complicated route to Confederate lines. Captain Ross offers a revealing account of the South in his book "A visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States." He unapologetically embraced the Confederate cause, filled his account with memorable descriptions of prominent rebel officers.
FitzGerald Ross in Gettysburg (according to Don Troiani's research imagination)
He witnessed the Battle of Gettysburg, then went to Richmond, Charleston, and then Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he watched the fighting from Confederate General Braxton Bragg's lines. He also visited the Gulf Coast, Mobile, Alabama.
In the book "Don Troiani's Civil War" [page 96] it’s said: "Other foreigners who joined the group of generals and staff officers were... Captain FitzGerald Ross, whose uniform braided in gold and waxed mustaches denoted his membership in the 6th Austrian Hussar Regiment."
FitzGerald Ross book
Near the Peach Orchard on the afternoon of July 2, he wrote, “Longstreet rode up the line and down again, occasionally dismounting, and going forward to get a better view of the enemy’s position.” Watching an artillery duel while with Longstreet, Ross overheard a conversation that revealed the moment’s tension: “As we passed [William] Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade the General came up eagerly to Longstreet; ‘I wish you would let me go in, General; I would take that battery in five minutes.’ ‘Wait a little,’ said Longstreet, ‘we are all going in presently.’ The men were as eager as their leader, and those in the front line began to pull down the fence behind which they were crouching. ‘Don’t do that, or you will draw the enemy’s fire,’ said Longstreet, who sees and hears everything.”
An artistic recreation of General Longstreet thoughtful
A few days after the battle, with the army in retreat toward the Potomac River, Ross listened while Lee “spoke very openly on the subject of the late campaign.” Had he known that George G. Meade concentrated all of the Federal army at Gettysburg, Lee stated, “he certainly should not have attacked him: indeed, it had not been his interest nor his intention to bring on a great battle at all.”
Last edited by TabsTabs1964; 01-06-2024 at 09:25 PM.
A Prussian observer - Captain Justus Scheibert
As a Prussian observer of the American Civil War, Captain Justus Scheibert was on the Confederate side for seven months beginning in 1863, participating in the well-known battles of Chancellorsville, Brandy Station, and Gettysburg with Generals Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart among others. His book titled “Seven months in the Rebel States during the North American War, 1863” is a literary reference of this war.
Hauptmann justus Scheibert (the man at the top of the tree)
Scheibert kept a diary and “Seven Months” stands up well when checked against other sources. Nearly two-thirds of the narrative takes Scheibert through the Chancellorsville Campaign, to the Battle of Brandy Station, and into Pennsylvania during Lee’s invasion in June–July 1863
Scheibert spent considerable time at Lee’s and Stuart’s headquarters and crossed paths with his countryman von Borcke, and with Fremantle, Lawley, and Fitzgerald Ross. All five mentioned one another.
Scheibert book
On the evening of May 1, 1863, Scheibert first saw Stonewall Jackson. Camped with the army’s headquarters staff after the first day of fighting at Chancellorsville, he noticed Lee “peering thoughtfully into the distance, as if he were expecting someone.
General Stonewall Jackson
After some time, a thin man with black beard, black hair, and somewhat stooped posture dismounted. In spite of his weather-beaten countenance, this man had features more like those of a thinker than of a warrior. With an attitude of great respect, he approached the General, who shook hands with him in a manner that revealed sincere pleasure and esteem. The newcomer was the famous Stonewall Jackson.”
Last Meeting of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville
Pieces of shrapnel broke the quiet atmosphere of Spotsylvania’s Wilderness, recalled Scheibert, passing overhead “with monotonous whirring, sending down twigs and leaves.” Soon the two generals commenced a “serious, eager conversation” that resulted in plans to strike the Union right flank on May 2. When their conference concluded, they rose, twice shook hands, and “Jackson rode away.” “I wonder,” mused Scheibert, “whether the friends suspected that this would be their last handclasp.”
At Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, Scheibert joined Fremantle in climbing an oak tree on Seminary Ridge. “From here the battlefield lay before us like a panorama,” he remembered: “On July 2 and 3, therefore, I did not move a step from the tree, from where I frequently had to report what I saw.” The tree afforded a clear view of the failed Pickett–Pettigrew assault, which Scheibert did not believe portended disaster: “15,000 men, two and a half divisions, … had made a vain, though bloody attack, with heavy losses, but the other six and a half divisions were completely intact.”
Picket's Charge - Library of Congress
His conclusion about Lee’s crucial decisions during the battle rings true: “Excessive disdain for the enemy, who fought better, however, in his own country than anywhere else, caused the simplest plan of a direct attack upon the position at Gettysburg to prevail and deprived the army of victory.”
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