The monuments - Chlum, Czech Republic
Posted by: 
ToRo61
N 50° 16.526 E 015° 44.381
33U E 552707 N 5569517
A lions, a big cross and Ossuary - the photos shows several monuments of the Battle of Königgrätz.
Waymark Code: WMKN88
Location: Královéhradecký kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 05/05/2014
Views: 35
The Battle of Königgrätz, also known as the Battle of Sadowa, Sadová, or Hradec Králové, was the decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War, in which the Kingdom of Prussia defeated the Austrian Empire - see also (
visit link) .
On a place not far from the Austrian North Army's headquarters there is an ossuary (charnel house) in a maintained park. Soldiers' bones found on different parts of the battlefield were deposited under a granite sarcophagus laying on a stepped basis and covered with a roof raised by six columns.
The pseudo Gothic charnel house (No 346) was gained as a gift by Viennese Oberbaurat (head architectural counselor) Paul Noble Wasserburger, who entrusted Viennese Oberbaurat (head architectural counselor) Friedrich Freiherr Schmidt, master builder of the St Stephan Cathedral in Vienna, with elaboration of the design. The charnel house was established by the Central Association for Maintenance of Monuments in Bohemia and built by Frantisek Vondracek, a professor at Technical College for Sculptors and Masons at Horice, from Leithakalk limestone in the summer of 1889. In 1935 it was taken down and repaired by the school at Horice at the cost of 40,800 - Czechoslovak crowns.
Two lions from shell limestone stand on both sides of the southern entrance to the charnel house. The statues No 381A and 38IB originated from Italy were donated by the Austrian War Department to the Central Association in 1900. They were reconstructed under financial support of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic in 2006.
The oldest part of the park arrangement under the ossuary building is a monumental pseudo-Gothic cast-iron cross No 22, donated by Prince Max Egon zu Furstenberg I with his spouse Leontina in memory of slain soldiers of the Austrian Army. The cross was casted in Furstenbergs' iron-foundry at Joachimstahl (Novy Jachymov), erected on December 17,1866, and consecrated on May 12, 1867.