A Czech group for maintaining monuments remembering the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 unveiled two repaired monuments commemorating soldiers killed in the war near Hradec Kralove, the group's head Miroslav Suchy has told CTK.
The two monuments are in villages that are now part of the small town of Vsestary: a memorial to two Prussian officers in Lipa and a cast-iron cross from 1902 in Rosnice.
Suchy said both monuments are in the area in which the centre of Austria's Northern army operated during the Battle of Koniggratz (Hradec Kralove). He said the two monuments have been included in a new catalogue that the group will present by the end of the year.
The group has registered more than 1400 historic sights commemorating the Austro-Prussian War, including nearly 500 on the battlefield near Hradec Kralove.
The Austro-Prussian War was part of a broader rivalry between the two countries and it resulted in the Prussian dominance over the German states. A number of battles were fought with the war, mostly in the territory of the present Hradec Kralove Region. The war culminated in the Battle of Koniggratz on July 3, 1866, which turned in one of the most bloody conflicts of the 19th century. Nearly 440,000 soldiers fought in it and the Prussians won. Over 50,000 soldiers died, suffered injuries or were captured in the battle that lasted several hours.
The group for maintaining the war monuments was founded by Jan Nepomuk Steinsky in 1888 under the name Komitet pro udrzovani pamatek z valky roku 1866 in order to take care of the war graves. Steinsky fought in the Battle of Koniggratz as a 19-year-old and was heavily injured in it. In its present form, the Komitet has been working since 1990. It has some 120 members and cooperates with local authorities and other organisations and institutions on the restoration of the memorials and maintaining the legacy of the events. It is seated in the building od the Museum of East Bohemia in Hradec Kralove.
