Austria
Habsburgs: Losing Place and Forging a Past
The fourteenth century should have belonged to the Habsburgs. Across Central Europe, the lines of kings and princes faltered. In 1301, the Hungarian Árpád line came to an end; five years later, the Bohemian Přemyslids expired, to whose house Ottokar II had belonged. Then, in 1320, the last of the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg died. But the Habsburgs did not…
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Disaster at Hohenlinden
Moreau at Hohenlinden (Galerie des Batailles, Palace of Versailles) The weather had turned to snow and sleet, making it increasingly difficult for the Austrian scouts to judge either the strength of their opponents or their precise dispositions. This contributed significantly to the slow speed at which Lauer advanced, and it…
Ulm and the unfortunate Mack
Thus was the scene set for depriving the Austrians of the one general who might have averted the multiple disasters that would fall upon their armies in the months of 1805. Because Charles argued so forcefully that ‘the Adige must therefore be considered the first and most preferable theatre of…
The Pratzen heights: Austerlitz
Napoléon at the Battle of Austerlitz, by François Gérard Between Brünn and Olmütz, where the allies were concentrating, Napoleon carefully reconnoitred the landscape and found, a few miles outside Brünn, the Pratzen plateau. He felt sure this would be where his troops would fight a great battle. At Olmütz meanwhile,…
Metternich and the Map of Europe
Clemens von Metternich came to office as Austrian foreign minister in 1809. A Rhinelander who had lost all to revolutionary France and Napoleon, his debts were at the time of his appointment reckoned at 1.25 million gulden. His master, Emperor Francis II (1792–1835), was bankrupt too. Unable to redeem the…
Italian First Offensives 1915 Part I
Yellowed prints of the 1866 border show simple guardhouses beside stone bridges. Farmers pose, squinting, by the barrier poles alongside their carts and livestock, while children play at the roadside under listless flags. Few traces of that frontier can be seen today. On the outskirts of Cormons, a guardhouse has…
Italian First Offensives 1915 Part II
Looking from the western rim of the Isonzo valley, across to Mount Mrzli. The Italians clawed their way up this 1,200-metre face, but could not take the summit. Colonel De Rossi’s view in May 1915 was from a lower elevation. The fight for the Rocca on 9 June was fierce…