Austria
Königgrätz: Battle of Eagles
The Prussian military system had been thoroughly reformed after Napoleon had crushed it at Jena in 1806. The crucial development was the growth of a Great General Staff, embodied in law in 1814. Bright officers were selected to what was effectively a military brotherhood, charged with continuous study of the art of war and the drawing up and review of…
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AUSTRIA 1848
Of the year 1848 the British historian Trevelyan remarked that it was the great turning point at which history failed to turn. Given the accumulation of tensions and conflicts since the Congress of Vienna, nationalistic passions, the miserable condition of the peasantry, entrepreneurs chafing under restrictions placed on them, intellectuals…
TOWARDS NATIONAL REVOLT INÂ AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
The Habsburg regime, in fact, was not especially oppressive – at least not by the standards of modern dictatorships. Its bureaucracy was generally honest and efficient. Moreover, Metternich used his considerable diplomatic influence to press mild reforms on the more benighted absolute rulers whose intransigence threatened to provoke violent opposition:…
METTERNICH’S SYSTEM
The same scale, from purely cultural to distinctly political nationalism, can be found among the nationalities of the Austrian Empire. Metternich, more than the emperors themselves, Francis I and after his death in 1835, Ferdinand I, who were rather weak and insignificant rulers, represented the idea of absolute government. He…
HABSBURG MILITARY MEDIOCRITY – H-WAR
 Why was the Habsburg army slower and less brilliant than its European rivals between 1649 and 1918? I am certainly no expert on this topic, having read only very generally on Austrian history, but in the interest of providing a basis of discussion, I’ll posit the following general ideas:…