Editing Austro-Prussian War (section)

=== Military factors ===
[[File:Chlum, Všestary 2022-04 14.jpg|thumb|The memorial to the ''Battery of the dead'' in Chlum (modern [[Czech Republic]]) commemorates some of the heaviest fighting during the Battle of Königgrätz.]]
Bismarck may well have been encouraged to go to war by the advantages of the Prussian army against the Austrian Empire. Taylor wrote that Bismarck was reluctant to pursue war as it "deprived him of control and left the decisions to the generals whose ability he distrusted". (The two most important personalities within the Prussian army were the War Minister [[Albrecht von Roon|Albrecht Graf von Roon]] and Chief of the General Staff [[Helmuth von Moltke the Elder|Helmuth Graf von Moltke]].) Taylor suggested that Bismarck was hoping to force Austrian leaders into concessions in Germany, rather than provoke war. The truth may be more complicated than simply that Bismarck, who famously said that "politics is the art of the possible", initially sought war with Austria or was initially against the idea of going to war with Austria.

==== Rival military systems ====
In 1862, von Roon had implemented several army reforms that ensured that all Prussian citizens were liable to conscription. Before this date, the size of the army had been fixed by earlier laws that had not taken population growth into account, making conscription inequitable and unpopular for this reason. While some Prussian men remained in the army or the reserves until they were forty years old, about one man in three (or even more in some regions where the population had expanded greatly as a result of industrialisation) was assigned minimal service in the {{lang|de|[[Landwehr]]}}, the home guard.{{Sfn|McElwee|1974|page=60}}

Introducing universal conscription for three years increased the size of the active duty army and provided Prussia with a reserve army equal in size to that which Moltke deployed against Austria. Had France under Napoleon III attempted to intervene against the Prussians, they could have faced him with equal or superior numbers of troops.{{Sfn|McElwee|1974|pages=63–64}}

Prussian conscript service was one of continuous training and drill, in contrast to the Austrian army where some commanders routinely dismissed infantry conscripts to their homes on permanent leave soon after their induction into the army, retaining only a cadre of long-term soldiers for formal parades and routine duties.{{Sfn|McElwee|1974|page=52}} Austrian conscripts had to be trained almost from scratch when they were recalled to their units on the outbreak of war. The Prussian army was thus better trained and disciplined than their enemy's one, particularly in the infantry. While the Habsburg Empire's cavalry and artillery were as well trained as their Prussian counterparts, with Austria possessing two elite divisions of heavy cavalry, weapons and tactics had advanced since the [[Napoleonic Wars]] and cavalry charges had been rendered obsolete.{{Citation needed|date=August 2018}}

==== Speed of mobilization ====
[[File:1866 prinz-friedrich-karl-bei-koeniggraetz 1b-640x428.jpg|thumb|250px|Prussian [[Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia (1828–1885)|Prince Friedrich Karl]] is cheered on by his troops.]]
The Prussian army was locally based, organized in {{lang|de|Kreise}} (military districts, lit.: circles), each containing a Korps headquarters and its component units. Most reservists lived close to their regimental depots and could be swiftly mobilized. Austrian policy was to ensure that units were stationed far from home to prevent them from taking part in separatist revolts. Conscripts on leave or reservists recalled to their units during mobilization faced a journey that might take weeks before they could report to their units, making the Austrian mobilization much slower than that of the Prussian Army.

==== Speed of concentration ====
The railway system of Prussia was more extensively developed than that within Austria. Railways made it possible to supply larger numbers of troops than hitherto and allowed the rapid movement of troops within friendly territory. The more efficient Prussian rail network allowed the Prussian army to concentrate more rapidly than their enemy. Moltke, reviewing his plans to Roon stated, "We have the inestimable advantage of being able to carry our Field Army of 285,000 men over five railway lines and of virtually concentrating them in twenty-five days. ... Austria has only one railway line and it will take her forty-five days to assemble 200,000 men."<ref name="Wolmar">{{Cite book |last=Wolmar |first=Christian |title=Blood, Iron and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World |date=2010 |page=96}}</ref> Moltke had also said earlier, "Nothing could be more welcome to us than to have now the war that we must have."

The Austrian army under [[Ludwig von Benedek]] in [[Bohemia]] (the present-day [[Czech Republic]]) might previously have been expected to enjoy the advantage of the "central position", by being able to concentrate on successive attacking armies strung out along the frontier, but the quicker Prussian concentration nullified this advantage. By the time the Austrians were fully assembled, they would be unable to concentrate against one Prussian army without having the other two instantly attack their flank and rear, threatening their lines of communication.

==== Armaments and tactics ====
[[File:Zündnadelgewehr m-1841 - Preussen - Armémuseum.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The Prussian [[Dreyse needle gun]]]]
Prussian infantry were equipped with the [[Dreyse needle gun]], a bolt-action rifle which could be fired faster than the [[muzzleloader|muzzle-loading]] [[Lorenz rifle]]s of the Austrian army. In the [[Second Italian War of Independence|Franco-Austrian War]] of 1859, French troops took advantage of poorly trained enemies who did not readjust their gunsights as they got closer{{snd}}thus firing too high at close range. By rapidly closing the range, French troops came to close quarters with an advantage over the enemy's infantry. After the war, the Austrians adopted the same methods, which they termed the {{lang|de|Stoßtaktik}} ("shock tactics"). Although they had some warnings of the Prussian weapon, they ignored these and retained {{lang|de|Stoßtaktik}}.

The Austrians were equipped with breech-loading rifled cannon, which was superior to the Prussian muzzle loading smooth bore cannon. Their artillery used a unique rifling system invented by [[Wilhelm Lenk von Wolfsberg]] called the Lenk system. The Prussians, however, by this point had replaced up to 60% of their smooth bore artillery with the technologically superior [[C64 (field gun)]], which had been in production since 1859. However, due to tactical reluctance on the part of Prussian high command to utilise relatively unfamiliar technology, and doctrinal stagnation in the Artillery Corps, the modern [[Krupp]] guns were either sent to reserve units or used in tandem and to the same effect as their smooth bore counterparts, something that massively throttled their effectiveness in the war, and many of the guns that saw combat were the old smooth bore muzzle loaders. The Austrians too, while having standardised the Lenk system of rifling in their cannon, did not use their artillery to full effect. They specifically targeted the Prussian artillery with their own batteries, limiting their impact on the battlefield in regards to Prussian infantry. One notable exception is the use of Austrian artillery to good effect against infantry at [[Battle of Königgrätz]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Loch |first=Thorsten |last2=Kesselring |first2=Agilolf |date=31 August 2023 |title=Through Artillery from Thrust to Fire: How Prussian Military Thinking Anticipated Emergent Warfare in 1870 |journal=[[War in History]] |language=en |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=128–147 |doi=10.1177/09683445231193878 |issn=0968-3445 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

The Generals of the Prussian army realized that, in order to stay ahead of their Austrian enemies, they needed to explore new military tactics. They sent officers to travel across the Atlantic Ocean to go and observe the American Civil War. These officers met with high ranking commanders and recorded both Union and Confederate tactics. They wrote about troop movements, artillery positioning, and new methods of attack that worked well for the Americans. These officers then travelled back to Prussia and briefed their generals about these observations. Some officers, such as [[Justus Scheibert]], published their adventures in America for the public to enjoy.