`Austriäs Wars of Emergence, 1683-1797 spans the period from the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 to the Franco-Austrian peace settlement of 1797. It is the first comprehensive work ever to put Viennäs far-reaching military commitments and the enormous pressure these necessarily brought to bear on the Monarchy s political, administrative and social structure at the centre stage of early modern Austrian history.
Michael Hochedlinger makes it abundantly clear that the Habsburg Monarchy, contrary to the conventional cliché, was neither created nor held together by the dynasty s famed marriage policy alone but rather by force of arms and the instruments of the early modern power-state.
The struggle for survival within the ever more competitive European states-system forced the Austrian Habsburgs to transform, slowly but steadily, their central and eastern European territories from a bewilderingly complex and backward conglomeration into a centralized state. After decades of truly revolutionary reforms from above in the Age of Enlightened Absolutism (1740-1790) the Habsburg Monarchy certainly ranked with the most advanced polities of Europe. It was also one of the most highly militarized states, second only to Austriäs arch-enemy Prussia.
Michael Hochedlinger is Senior Archivist at the Austrian State Archives. He is an expert on the history of the early modern Habsburg army.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Introduction: The belated great power; Part 1 Modest Origins - the Habsburg Monarchy During the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century; Chapter 1 The domestic foundations; Chapter 2 The primacy of power politics; Chapter 3 Home defence; Chapter 4 The standing army; Part 2 Austria's 'age of heroes' 1683-1733; Chapter 5 The Turkish War 1683-1699; Chapter 6 The Nine Years War 1689-1697; Chapter 7 The War of the Spanish Succession 1701-1714; Chapter 8 Renewed expansion; Part 3 The crisis of a great power 1733-1748; Chapter 9 Diplomatic reverses and military defeats; Chapter 10 Squaring the circle or how to administer and defend a territorial giant; Chapter 11 The War of the Austrian Succession 1740-1748; Part 4 Reform - revenge - aggression; Chapter 12 The modernization of the Habsburg Monarchy in the age of Enlightened Absolutism 1740-1790; Chapter 13 Army and society; Chapter 14 The Seven Years War 1756-1763; Chapter 15 Peacetime expansion in the East 1764-1775; Chapter 16 Streamlining the Habsburg Monarchy; Chapter 17 The Russian maelstrom; Chapter 18 State crisis and recovery; Part 5 The revolutionary challenge 1789-1797; Chapter 19 From 'military promenade' to life-and-death struggle 1789-1794; Chapter 20 In search of compensations 1792-1795; Chapter 21 False Hopes 1796-1797 |Prospect;
