Page 108 - 150° Anniversario II Guerra d'Indipendenza - Atti 5-6 novembre 2009

108 150° anniversario della ii Guerra d’indipendenza. atti del conveGno

eral staff officers as a minimum, Austrian corps and brigades often had offic-
ers in the positions of general staff officers, who were too young and inexpe-
rienced.
The reforms of the armed forces after 1859 brought some improvements,
but also avoided radical changes.
The new created ten “Landesgeneralkommandos” instead of the former
Army Corps, which had again to be established at the beginning of a new
campaign, had an establishment of 40 infantry brigades in total. With the
establishment of 18 new infantry regiments now 80 infantry regiments, 14
border infantry regiments, 32 light infantry battalions and eight “Kaiserjäger”-
battalions existed. But between the Corps and the Brigades there were no
Divisions existing as a necessary linking command level!
The reforms of cavalry tactics, which Colonel Baron/Freiherr von
Edelsheim introduced after 1860, made quite good progress and left good
chances of success against an enemy not adequately ready for defending his
positions.
The field artillery began to get rifled muzzle loading guns in 1863.
Regarding some of the tactical problems in Northern Italy in 1859, a quote
will be necessary.
In 1860 an anonymous Austrian officer wrote: „…No theater of war
requires so much from the troops and their commanders like this one (the
regions of Northern Italy are meant). Die difficulties of command, the sup-
port, the use of masses of troops and the artillery fire afford the individual
value of the units and the individual fighting men, which nowhere are more
to be expected than here.” 7
This was really true in the campaign of 1859. For instance the communica-
tion between the Commands of the various Austrian Army Corps during the
battle of Solferino was clearly insufficient and in consequence essential
reserves were often to far from the decisive area of battle and could not go
into action in time.
Regarding the experiences with the tactics of French infantry and artillery,
the newly created field manuals for the Austrian Army said that infantry units
charging the enemy had to speed up to avoid the deadly effect of enemy fire
and then to engage the enemy forces with bayonets.
This tactics would work acceptably some years later in the War against

Militärwesen
österreichische
im
1830-1866.
Umbruch
Joachim
7 Joachim Niemeyer, Das österreichische Militärwesen im Umbruch 1830-1866. Osna--
Osna
Das
Niemeyer,
brück 1979. S.143