Page 104 - 150° Anniversario II Guerra d'Indipendenza - Atti 5-6 novembre 2009

104 150° anniversario della ii Guerra d’indipendenza. atti del conveGno

command” - („Führungsgrundsätze” in German) in the Austrian army, which
led to military disaster.
Beginning with the supreme command, the difficulties are easily visible.
Until 1848 the Hofkriegsrat in Vienna (the Court War Council) was a
clumsy institution, which was over long periods unable to organize an effec-
tive army and make successful operations of the forces of the Habsburg
Empire possible.
The establishment of the „Kriegsministerium”, the Ministry of War in
1849, gave only the possibility to reform the high command and the admin-
istration of the army, because in 1851 the Armeeoberkommando (Army
Supreme Command) was created. The emperor – nominally the „Commander
in Chief” of the armed forces - tried to control the chain of command with his
„Militärzentralkanzlei”.
The real power of command was in the hands of the „Generaladjutantur”
(Bureau of the Adjutant General). The Director of the Generaladjutantur,
Feldmarschallleutnant Karl Ludwig Grünne, undermined with the
„Adjutantencorps” the position of the Chief of Staff of the Army
Feldmarschallleutnant Heinrich Freiherr von Hess systematically. Grünne
also had a really negative influence on the operations of the Austrian forces
in Italy. His unclear and mostly unnecessary orders for his old friend and
commander of the Second Army, Feldzeugmeister (general of the artillery)
Franz Graf Giulay, enlarged the chaotic command situation, which was
already bad enough through the military ineffectiveness of Giulay, who laid
down his command a week before the decisive battle of Solferino.
So the unity of command failed from the beginning not only with the
arrival of Hess on the 3 of June and of Emperor Franz Josef on the 17 of
th
rd
June, who made Hess his Chief of staff and tried to command the now two
armies under Feldzeugmeister Graf Wimpffen (First Army) and General der
Kavallerie Graf Schlick (Second Army)
In 1859 the Austrian land forces were definitely not in a condition for
fighting a short and decisive war against French army units.
On paper the Austrian land forces consisted of four armies with twelve
Army Corps and three military governates (Temesvar, Agram, Dalmacia).
These four armies consisted of nominally 30 divisions with 78 brigades,
62 infantry-regiments (four of them came in 1851 from the territorial border
regiments of Transsylvania), 14 border infantry regiments, eight “Kaiserjäger”-
battalions and 32 battalions of light infantry (Jägerbataillone).
An Austrian army corps was composed of two to three Infantry divisions
with between one and three cavalry brigades.