The decisive battle of Sadova ended with a resounding victory for the Prussian army.

The Austrians suffered heavy losses of more than 50,000 casualties and prisoners, and could have suffered even more serious losses had it not been for the death of two of Benedek's close generals, who had stopped the exhausted Prussian army, which had been marching rapidly for several days.

Field Marshal Benedek led the main Austrian army of about 125,000 men to retreat safely, while the tens of thousands of Saxon troops were almost completely annihilated except for nearly 10,000 soldiers who fled with the Austrian flank.

This battle is by far the largest in Europe. The casualty rate and absolute casualty of those involved in the war were also extremely high.

According to statistics, the Prussian army lost 360 officers and 12,000 soldiers were killed or wounded or missing (the disappearance was not mainly an escape, but was blown apart and it was difficult to gather the corpses); On the Austrian and Saxon sides, 1,400 officers and 82,000 soldiers were killed or wounded, or missing, of whom 43,000 were captured.

After this battle, the outcome of the entire Austro-Prussian war was basically decided, the Austrian Imperial Army had no will to fight, the strength was insufficient, and many allies and states had also turned to Austria, and Austria was no longer able to fight.

As early as two days before the decisive battle of Sadova, on the Italian battlefield in southern Austria, there was also a general battle between the Austrian Imperial Army and the Imperial Italian Army.

Like the Austro-Prussian war on the northern front, there was little difference in the number of troops on both sides of the Austro-Italian war, with about 100,000 troops on both sides participating in the war. However, unlike the Austro-Prussian War, although the Italian army was well-equipped and slightly more numerous than the Austrian Imperial Army, and was personally led by the Italian King Victor Emanuel II, he took the initiative to attack the Austrian Southern Army led by the Archduke Albrecht, but as soon as the two sides fought, the Austrian army showed a ferocious momentum and made the Italian army suffer.

The two sides had a main army encounter at Custocha, the Italian army was defeated by the fierce Austrian army despite the king's repeated encouragement, and finally together with Emmanuel II, he also led the guards to flee in disarray, and the Italian army of nearly 100,000 killed and wounded nearly 20,000 people, unable to fight again, Emmanuel II had to organize the remnants of the army and return to the Kingdom of Italy in ashes, not to mention the recovery of Venice.

After the Battle of Sadova, the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, at the repeated request of many generals and ministers, removed Marshal Benedek from his post for questioning, just at this moment the news of the victory on the Italian battlefield came, the Italian army fled The war ended, so the emperor transferred the commander of the Italian Southern Army, Archduke Albrecht, to the north to replace the dismissed Marshal Benedek. At the same time, the emperor personally ordered Archduke Albrecht to collect and reorganize the defeated and fleeing Northern Army on the one hand, and on the other hand, to form a new Danube Army in the central part of the Austrian Empire, and to integrate the two corps withdrawn from the Italian battlefield into the Danube Army and put them under the command of Archduke Albrecht.

Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria was stupefied by the outcome of this war. He never imagined that the Austrian Empire, which was dominant everywhere, would be defeated by the Prussian army. The most hateful thing is that the damned confederacy states, except for Saxony and Hanover, the rest of the states that had promised to swear were just sitting on the sidelines, and did not send troops to help attack Prussia, especially the big states like Bavaria, which failed to support the Austrian Empire at all, and although Saxony and Hanover supported themselves, their armies were extremely weak, and they were defeated by a blow, and they were like pig teammates.

The most hateful thing is Benedek, the culprit, if he hadn't been slow to send troops to take the initiative to attack, he would not have suffered such a fiasco. I didn't expect my own fame to be buried in the hands of this person who was hand-picked by himself, thinking of this, Franz Joseph was trembling and in pain!

And now, after the defeat of the Battle of Sadova, the main army of Austria has been defeated, although he has appointed Archduke Albrecht to clean up the mess, but even Benedek, whom he favors, cannot resist the Prussians, let alone the Archduke Albrecht, whom he is not optimistic about? Franz Joseph had no confidence at all, and he was frightened in the face of the aggressive and heroic Prussian army.

He immediately sent two urgent telegrams to Louis, Emperor of the French Empire, and Queen Victoria, asking Louis to mediate the war between Austria and Prussia. He knew that it was difficult for Britain to say about these two countries, at least Louis, the emperor of the French Empire, would definitely come forward to mediate.

Louis is a showy person, and he is bent on making the French Empire speak in Europe, and he will definitely come forward with such a good opportunity. What's more, for the French Empire, which was bent on dominating Europe, if the defeat of the Austrian Empire made Prussia strong quickly, it would be very unfavorable to his French strategy.

Queen Victoria issued a statement recommending that Prussia and Austria renounce the war and enter into peace talks. This is already the limit of what the Queen of England can do, after all, Britain has been weak recently, and the Queen's health is rumored to have not been very good, and the dispute between Prussia and Austria is not so obvious to Britain, she is just consciously implementing a policy of equilibrium on the European continent.

The French Emperor Louis was very enthusiastic, and immediately issued a public statement, urging Prussia to stop the offensive, asking the two countries to sit down for peace talks, and declaring that the French Empire was willing to send a mediator to mediate the dispute for the two fraternal countries and return to peace. At the same time, Louis also faintly threatened to send a regiment of nearly 100,000 men to the Lorraine region, close to Prussia and the border between Bavaria and France, if Prussia did not accept mediation, the French Empire could send troops into the Prussian Rhine region and Bavaria at the request of the Austrian emperor in the name of mediation.

Faced with this situation, the two Prussian giants, who were still in the town of Sadowa, began to discuss.

King Wilhelm Frederick Ludwig was very satisfied with the outcome of the war, and praised the commanders of the five major armies who participated in the war, especially the commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Ron, who called it the backbone of the Prussian kingdom and the glory of Germany.

"Ladies and gentlemen, now that we have won a great victory in Prussia, and the soldiers of the legions have rested for two days, they have become vigorous. How about the offensive, to divide the troops to occupy the whole of Bohemia and Moldavia, or to directly concentrate the whole army on Vienna and defeat Austria in one fell swoop? "King Pu's proposal, directly ignoring the withdrawal of troops, is an order to attack, just to discuss the goal of the attack with everyone.

"Capture Vienna directly and completely defeat Austria!" Prince Frederick Charles, Marshal Carl Seaff von Bidfeldfe, and General August Karl von Goeben all shouted loudly and with great emotion.

Ron thought for a moment and said with a little hesitation: "Since everyone is in favor of a direct capture of Vienna, I also agree with this opinion!" However, can a 50,000-strong army be divided into a corps to capture Prague and Moldavia in Bohemia, which are actually richer than Austria? ”

Only Prince William did not say anything, and King Pu and all the generals looked at the young crown prince.

"Father, uncles, and nephews think that we should take it when we see it, instead of really capturing Vienna and pushing Austria to a desperate point where it is impossible to reconcile and open diplomatic relations!" Prince William hesitated for a moment, and then said: "The capture of Vienna will cause huge losses to our Prussian army, and second, it may not be possible to occupy it, and even if it is occupied, what can we do?" Vienna was the heart of the whole of Austria, and all the Austrian people and army would fight to protect it. They will make desperate bets, even to fight us desperately, regardless of life and death, in this case, even if we win, we will not lose more than we lose! ”