3-011-420 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The War in Schleswig: wounded Austrians on the road to Rendsburg, after the battle of Over-Selk, 1864. 'Since Monday 15,000 Austrians and as many more Prussians have had to bivouac in the open air. The country between Breckendorf and Over-Selk was of the bleakest and most inhospitable description. For miles not a tree was to be seen. Hedges there were none, as the Danes had cut down what few there existed previously to their retreat. The villages and farmhouses are few in number and at wide distances from each other. The inhabitants of the farmhouses had all fled since the end of last week, and they, or the Danes, had carried away every article of furniture and every bit of provender and provisions the houses had contained. The snow lay an inch and a half deep on the ground when we arrived, and the temperature was not a degree above zero. As we afterwards learnt from the officers and men themselves, the privations they had undergone from Tuesday to Thursday were fearful in the extreme...The army had brought not a single tent with it, and in this wintry weather the men had had to pass three nights in the open air while it was constantly snowing, raining, or freezing, and without the small comfort of even a camp fire in many instances'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.