International analysis of battlefield performance in the Austro-Prussian War, 1866–1870

Abstract

Following the startling Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, European observers sought to understand the war’s lessons and to apply them to future conflict. This article traces the way in which commentators in Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, and the various secondary states of Germany evaluated tactical developments resulting from the war. It highlights the transnational community of interest in military affairs, and how some imperfections in military learning from the war were nationally specific while others transcended borders. Understandings of the war’s battlefield implications were often slow to develop, and imperfectly anticipated conditions in the subsequent Franco-Prussian War.