In Germany, when the war was only in its third week, the Prussian army had already defeated Austrian allies such as Saxony, Hesse, and Hanover, occupied these areas, and then advanced into Bavaria, and at the same time prepared to march to Baden and Württemberg, clear Austria's peripheral allies, and invade Austria for a decisive battle with the Austrian army.

But at this time, Moltke skillfully attracted the main Austrian army to Moravia. Moltke wanted to be supported by the Prussian army, because the Polish army alone could not completely eat the main Austrian army. Although Moltke could not directly command the Prussian army, according to Prussian tradition, Prince Wilhelm, who was indeed the crown prince, commanded the Prussian army this time, and he immediately accepted Moltke's suggestion.

Two legions, totaling 200,000 men, were sent into Bohemia. A regiment crossed the Sudetenland and returned to the division to advance southwest. An army marched along the pass of the Erzgebirge and marched south of the mountain, forming a pincer offensive to encircle Austria and the Saxon army that had retreated into Austria. After destroying the main force of the Austrian army, then take Vienna directly.

The Polish army was only 200,000 deployed here at this time, which could block the attack of more than 280,000 people from the six armies of Austria and Saxony, but it could not eat each other, so when it was found that the main force of the Prussian army appeared behind him, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian army, Benedek, decisively chose to break away from the Polish army and retreat.

But at this time, Moltke ordered an attack on all fronts, and he must hold back the main force of the Austrian army, create an opportunity to encircle and annihilate this army, and once successful, the war will be over.

The Polish army finally showed some weapon superiority in the assault, and the firepower advantage of the rear-loading rifle with a very high rate of fire in hand-to-hand combat often caught the opponent off guard, and in the frontal battle, it was often suppressed by the enemy's range advantage.

After a scuffle, the Austrian army and the Polish army were actually in a state of confusion, but Moltke dared to continue the pursuit, because he was flanked by the Prussian army, and the Prussian army, which had originally outflanked the Austrian army, became a supporting role at this time.

Although it was because of the appearance of the Prussian army that caused the Austrian army to retreat, the reputation of directly destroying the main Austrian force from the front still made Moltke and the Polish army a blockbuster, and now no one dares to underestimate the Poles and the Prussian Polish army.

The main forces were annihilated, and the potential of Austria, of course, was still there, but the problem was that it took time for the potential to be transformed into combat effectiveness.

The slow mobilization and assembly ability was far inferior to that of Poland and Prussia, especially the Poles, under the mobilization system of Moltke's General Staff, which was accurate to the minute, when the Prussian standing army had only marched into Austria's allies, he had already pressed the main force on the Bohemian border, and this rapid mobilization ability was inferior to even Prussia.

After the decisive battle of Bohemia, Vienna was in sight, and the Prussian-Polish coalition army numbered as high as 800,000 men, and this was still without mobilizing the reserve army, while the Austrian reserve army was by no means inferior to Prussia and Poland, but they did not have time to mobilize.

Once Vienna is occupied and the administrative system collapses, it can only be slaughtered.

It can be said that this was an unpleasant war in which Austria was pinched by the enemy's joints before it could exert its strength.

At this time, only five weeks had passed, and the battles had always been encounters, small-scale battles, and there were only two larger battles, one was the siege of Hanover by the Prussian army, which took a week, and the other was this decisive battle, which took three days. A lot of other time was wasted on detours and marches.

And the combined forces of Prussia and Poland were not without disadvantages, but they were full of loopholes, and they repeatedly attacked in combination and through a pass in the Austrian and Bohemian plateaus, and if they were stuck by the Austrian army, their troops would not be able to be assembled, and could be eaten one by one by the mobilized Austrian reserves.

But the Austrians missed time and time again, because their slowness prevented them from stopping the Prussians before they could finish their move.

The slow is not only Austria, all countries are slow, the military systems of all countries are still in the pre-industrial era, and some countries have not even completed the Napoleonic military reform, and have not established a reserve mobilization system, such as Russia, and the United Kingdom, which sneered at everything in France and began to compete with France culturally, Britain still maintains a conscription system, not a Napoleonic conscription system, but they have also formed a standing army, and no longer entrust the war to mercenaries.

Although the Prussian king wanted to reform and had an unpleasant quarrel with the parliament, in fact, even if he did not reform, Prussia's mobilization ability was still one of the best in Europe, but the Prussian monarch under the militaristic culture had too much sense of crisis, and the geographical situation between the great powers forced them to take military leadership as the foundation of the country.

It's fast militarily, it's fast politically.

Bismarck stood with Moltke on the battlefield of the decisive battle, and when he learned that Moltke had pinned down the main Austrian army in Moravia and planned to encircle the Austrian army, he understood that this was an opportunity to end the war.

But after the victory, Bismarck quickly had a conflict with the military, Prince Wilhelm, who commanded the Prussian army, and Moltke, who commanded the Polish army, both hoped to attack Viana, and in the serious military situation, the famous city of Vienna was at his fingertips, Bismarck's pursuit was not to defeat Austria and force Austria to withdraw from the war, and to occupy Vienna, the Austrians would agree to anything, just like the situation when Napoleon's troops came to Vienna many times, Napoleon asked Franz to give up the title of Holy Roman Emperor, and the Austrian emperor had to do the same, After that, he could only forcibly break the tradition and put the title of Austrian emperor on his head.

But Bismarck took out his pistol, handed it to Prince Wilhelm, told him that if he wanted to enter Viana, he would shoot him in the chest, and then the whole army would step on his corpse and enter the city.

Prince Wilhelm was stunned, he really couldn't understand Bismarck's way of thinking, didn't Bismarck want to attack Austria more than anyone else, the current situation, isn't it he single-handedly promoted, if it weren't for Bismarck, maybe the war between Austria and Austria would not have been fought, he risked revolution in order to start a war with Austria, dissolved the parliament, but asked the army to stop advancing in front of Vienna, and the European capital full of conquest was defenseless at this time.

Historically, after Prince Wilhelm was already the king of Prussia, he was still forced to make concessions to Bismarck, at this time he was only a crown prince, and it was impossible to compete with Bismarck, who was also the prime minister and foreign minister, but he, like his brother, began to have no good feelings for Bismarck.

Bismarck quickly reached an agreement with the Austrians in Vienna.

As it turned out, his actions were appropriate, because the Austrian diplomatic service had agreed with France that France would mediate the war, and when France intervened, it would become a great power ruling, or disobey France, and Prussia would immediately go to war with France.

The reason why French Prime Minister Napoleon intervened was because he saw that the alliance of Prussia and Poland was already too strong, and Moltke's performance impressed him and felt the crisis.

He had thought that it would be a long war, but who would have thought that they would be victorious in five weeks and march to Vienna.

France could not even accept the annexation of Prussia to Poland, let alone the occupation of Austria by Prussia, which must be intervened.

And why did Bismarck let Austria sign a treaty with him with the support of France, first, Austria, which gave Bismarck on favorable terms, could not believe it, and did not want any land cession from Austria, but only Austria recognized Krakow and Lublin as belonging to Poland, and compensated Prussia and Poland for their military expenses, as well as the name that Bismarck wanted most, the title of German leader.

At this time, Austria actually had no choice, even if France was willing to send troops to help, Austria would inevitably face a brutal tug-of-war in Austria after losing Viana, no matter what the final victory or defeat, Austria suffered greatly, and France did not send troops for free, I am afraid that the Rhineland region will have to be Napoleon's reward after the war. And Prussia didn't want Austrian lands, and those disputed areas were lost, and they didn't hurt. Poland did not even insist on Lviv and Volyn, and in this case Austria had no reason to refuse Prussia and risk ruining an empire, likewise exchanging the Rhineland, which was worth much more, for French aid.

Later generations commented that Bismarck's move preserved Austria's dignity and allowed Austria to maintain its neutrality in the Franco-Prussian War. In fact, the Franco-Prussian War was also a short-lived war that the great powers did not have time to dare to, and Moltke's mobilization system destroyed not only Austria but also France. In the Franco-Prussian War, France declared war on Prussia on July 19, 1870, and then the two sides mobilized and assembled, and went to war on September 2, Napoleon III surrendered in Sedan on September 2, and in just over 40 days, I am afraid that Austria would not have time to intervene.

Another reason is that after the Austro-Prussian War, Austria completely shifted from expansion to contraction, and after Metternich, the high-pressure centralized system rebuilt by Schwarzenberg collapsed, and the national separatist forces, mainly led by Hungary, rose, and Austria quickly divided the imperial power with Hungary and established the Austria-Hungarian Empire, that is, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

After the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria did not wage any major wars before World War I, because Austria had completely lost the ability to compete for hegemony among the great powers, and even if Bismarck entered Vienna that day, Austria was unable to resist the hatred of Prussia and later Germany.

Because he has completely become a weak country in the industrial age.