Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736) holds an indisputable place among the outstanding soldier-statesmen of the Old Regime. Once described as "a personality who splendidly fitted the colorful frame of the Baroque era,"1 his career symbolized "the aristocracy's almost universal domination of politics, society and culture in the late seventeenth century." 2 Taking advantage of army service to reach a position of immense political power at the Vienna court, 3 he epitomized the class of court nobles that coalesced in the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War.4 His military genius, sagacious statesmanship, and discerning patronage of the arts made him "the soul of the new Austria,"5 one of the numerous foreign-born servants of the dynasty which he believed had a mission to provide leadership for the whole of Christian Europe 6 Prince Eugene's foremost achievement was to bring the Habsburg military establishment to the heights of its glory. In the War of the Spanish Succession and again in the first Turkish war of Charles VI's reign, he and other distinguished imperial commanders won spectacular battlefield triumphs that remained unsurpassed in the annals of Austrian history. 7

In all likelihood, Austria's greatest victories would not have been achieved without a series of reforms implemented by Prince Eugene during the fifteen years immediately following his elevation to the presidency of the Imperial war council (Hofkriegsrath) in 1703. Had he been inclined to make radical changes in inherited practices and institutions, he would have been prevented from doing so by the pressures of continuous campaigning against the French and the Turks, limitations imposed by chronic administrative disorders and financial shortages, and the debilitating legacy of Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583-1634), which complicated civil-military relations by making the Vienna court suspicious of assertive field commanders. Fortunately, Eugene's goal was more modest: to create a firm basis for the conduct of Austrian military affairs by eliminating obvious inadequacies that had crept into the army in the final decades of the seventeenth century. To reach this objective, he worked tirelessly for a regularized recruitment, training and supply of regiments, improvements in weapons and regimental organization, the maintenance of strict discipline and high morale, and the introduction of systematic promotion and regular pay. All of his measures followed the standard French pattern that he had learned as a youth, and were designed to displace a lingering mercenary spirit with a heightened sense of professionalism. While unable -- and perhaps disinclined -- to attempt a thoroughgoing transformation of the prevailing military system, Eugene did enhance the capacity of the Vienna court to conduct sustained offensive operations, imparting to imperial forces the form that they retained throughout the remainder of the eighteenth century.

The cumulative impact of Prince Eugene's reform efforts have left him with a reputation as the man more responsible than any other for organizing a standing professional army in Austria.8 Yet Eugene was scarcely a true innovator despite that persistent reputation. 9 He owed much to Wallenstein, whose accomplishments marked the genesis of the k.k. Austrian army, 10 and more directly to Count Raimondo Montecuccoli (1609-1680), whose seminal influence has long been recognized but never investigated in any depth. 11 So fundamental and deep-seated were their contributions that Eugene had only to build on the foundations already established by his predecessors rather than to set out in a wholly new direction. 12 During the Thirty Years' War, Wallenstein gave unintended assistance to the Austrian Habsburgs in their struggle to overcome opposition from the provincial diets (Landtage) and the independence of mercenary colonels. He raised an entire army with his own resources, and by subordinating its regimental officers to his will, enabled the Vienna court to turn the remnants of his immense mercenary force into the nucleus of a permanent fighting machine under the authority of the emperor. 13 Then, in the decades between 1650 and 1680, Montecuccoli guided the Austrian army through its initial stages of growth. An early beneficiary of "the unplanned, unguided apparatus of ascent" through the system of regimental proprietors (Inhaber) that had developed after the death of Wallenstein, 14 Montecuccoli employed his combined positions as Generalleutnant, the highest rank in the imperial service, and president of the Imperial war council to build larger, better organized, and more efficient armed forces for his Habsburg masters. 15 What Prince Eugene did at the beginning of the eighteenth century was to make relatively modest alterations in the military establishment forged by Montecuccoli, enabling the Austrian army to function smoothly on a permanent war footing. 16

Even limited reforms proved difficult to implement, however, for the post-Westphalin stabilization of power within the lands of the Austrian Habsburgs had not been a complete triumph for the Vienna court. On the contrary, concessions to a partially reconstituted nobility and compromises with local governing bodies stood at the heart of a political and social equilibrium that slowly took shape during the reign of Leopold I. 17 Enjoying ample career opportunities in the administrative bureaucracy, the army and the church, a comparatively loyal court nobility (Hofadel) was folded into a dualistic power structure that strengthened monarchical absolutism while preserving the autonomy of each historic territory and the administrative functions of the individual estates (Stande). In the military sphere, aristocratic dominance of the provincial diets prevented Leopold from mobilizing adequate financial support for his recently established standing army, since the estates retained a role in recruitment and quartering of troops together with the right to assess, collect and administer all direct taxes, which were included under the name contribution and intended primarily for the maintenance of the army. 18 Faced with a steadily declining importance in the second half of the seventeenth century, the estates understandably attempted to interfere in the conduct of those military operations for which they provided financial support; and while they often yielded to the defense needs of the monarchy in emergency situations, local diets occasionally refused to pay taxes even in moments of obvious danger, as the terrifying Ottoman assault on Vienna in 1683 so dramatically demonstrated. 19

Within the military establishment itself, compromise between the ruling dynasty and the governing classes had left intact much of the authority of the colonels, who continued to function as regimental proprietors after the Thirty Years' War. As the owners of their units, they could buy or sell commissions virtually at will, as long as they possessed no more than one at any given time. 20 Individual companies as well as entire regiments were purchased by ambitious entrepreneurs, who further enriched themselves by supplying weapons, uniforms and other equipment to their soldiers. Although Leopold managed to loosen the relationship between colonel and regiment, 21 embezzlement remained rifle, and the Vienna court, lacking both the requisite funds to breach the proprietary procedures in its central administration, failed to breach the proprietary rights of its army officers. 22

The precarious financial condition of the Habsburg monarchy hampered Prince Eugene from the very outset. With justice he observed that he "could not make something out of nothing." 23 When, in 1704, after the battle of Hochstadt-Blenheim, Eugene tried to induce Bavarian troops to enter the imperial service, a lack of ready cash prevented him from doing so. 24 He had already discovered that the number of soldiers actually in the ranks of regiments stationed in Italy and Germany constituted no more than half the official tally of 54,000 infantry and 24,500 cavalry.25 With pay being doled out far behind schedule, desertion rates were extremely high. 26 Yet to Eugene it seemed that every attempt to increase the strength and effectiveness of the Habsburg military establishment met with indifference on the part of Leopold I and open opposition at the court. 27 He found that government administrative bodies were filled with supporters of his incompetent predecessor, Count Henry Mansfeld, or with imperial favorites who proved incapable of handling the responsibilities of their offices. 28 When charged by Prince Eugene with showing greater interest in their own enrichment than in the fulfillment of their duties, they responded by scheming behind his back during his frequent absences from Vienna. And like Montecuccoli before him, Eugene felt constant frustration with the bureaucratic inertia which prevented rapid responses to emergency situations. In a letter of October 3, 1703 to Guido Starhemberg, he complained bitterly about the functioning of the military administration:

"I can assure you that if I had not been present and seen everything with my own eyes, no man could make me believe it. Even if the whole monarchy stood in the most dire straits and should really be ruined, and one could help in a hurry with only 50,000 gulden or even less, one would have to let it just happen and would be unable to put a stop to the evil." 29

Despite the precarious financial condition of the Vienna court, Eugene confronted the problem of reorganizing the officer corps almost immediately upon assuming the presidency of the Imperial war council. Arguing that honor and promotion should be awarded for merit alone, he moved energetically to close off other avenues to high positions and comfortable careers. Advancement through the mere accumulation of seniority, the payment of money or the currying of favor at court became his primary target. To destroy the long-standing custom of selling military offices, Eugene pitted himself against those who sought to purchase the dignities as well as those who sold them. The latter, mostly regimental proprietors, saw in this practice a substantial and legitimate source of income. In the face of opposition from some of his highest ranking officers, Eugene procured from Leopold a strict decree, issued on September 5, 1703, prohibiting the sale of military places and threatening offenders with dismissal from the imperial service. 30 Tenaciously pressing for its immediate enforcement, he did not hesitate to make an example of the General of Cavalry, Count Sigmund Joachim Trauttmansdorf, by stripping him of his dragoon regiment and removing him from active duty even though he came from one of the most prominent of court families, and ranked among the emperor's oldest and most prestigious commanders. 31

More difficult still was Eugene's campaign to have military positions bestowed on men of ability rather than those with influential connections. Here he found himself hamstrung in two ways: he could do nothing to change the customary arrangement whereby appointments from the rank of colonel downward remained in the hands of regimental proprietors, nor could he induce any of the three emperors under whom he served to lend him consistent support. Leopold, Joseph and Charles all seemed incapable of denying anything to individuals who cultivated their favor. 32 The demands of court sycophants coupled with the fiscal troubles of the monarchy soon short-circuited Eugene's efforts to suppress the open sale of offices. Regimental proprietors were frequently the creditors of the court treasury (Hofkammer), and the sale of positions remained until the time of Maria Theresa's state reforms one means by which they sought to compensate themselves for their financial losses. As a consequence, this practice was not completely eliminated until the middle of the nineteenth century. 33 On the other hand, Eugene was successful in maintaining firmer discipline among his troops through annually issued edicts and instilling in them a consciousness of station within a clearly defined hierarchy of ranks. Insubordination was no longer tolerated in the Habsburg army, regardless of whether the refusal to carry out an order came from a common soldier or a high-ranking officer. 34

In the evolution of its organization and armament, the Austrian army followed a course under the guidance of Prince Eugene that was typical of its competitors. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the old plug bayonet had been replaced with the ring or socket model, permitting the development of line tactics. 35 The gradual substitution of the bayonet for the pike had reduced infantry from two types to one. Habsburg foot soldiers, like their counterparts throughout the continent, now enjoyed the advantage of firepower and simultaneously in the bayonet a ready defense against the cavalry charge. The momentum of cavalry charges had meanwhile been increasing through the elimination of armor along with the use of a faster breed of horse and a heavier saber. Nevertheless, the flintlock musket had made firepower more important than shock, while the standardization of infantry units resulted in the emergence of the line formation to take advantage of this change. 36 Another visible step in the direction of standardization was taken in 1707 when an imperial order stipulated that all infantry regiments should wear pearl grey uniforms differentiated from one another only in the color of the lapels and cuffs. 37

Up to the time that Prince Eugene had become president of the war council, Austrian cavalry consisted only of cuirassiers and dragoons. The lancers, from which Wallenstein had assembled his bodyguards, had vanished by the end of the great war. The cuirassiers, the elite branch of the cavalry, gradually discarded most of their iron armor as well as that of their horses. Retaining only the iron helmet and cuirass, which was often made of leather, these horsemen armed themselves with the long rapier, a pair of pistols with wheel locks and a carbine with first a wheel lock and later a flintlock. The dragoons carried an iron helmet, breast armor, shoulder cords to bind forage, a sword and a flintlock musket with bayonet. The first permanent regiment of hussars, originally an irregular Hungarian mounted militia, was created alongside the German cavalry in 1688. 38 Eugene further strengthened the cavalry by adding one company of carbineers to each cuirassier regiment and a company of mounted grenadiers to every regiment of dragoons. 39

Eugene similarly worked to improve the quality of the Austrian artillery and engineering corps. The artillery had made little progress since the beginning of the seventeenth century. Some improvements had been introduced during the Thirty Years' War as a result of the example set by Gustavus Adolphus' light and mobile field guns. At that time the army organized its siege artillery and in theory assigned several cannons to each regiment. 40 The artillery still lacked a set tactical formation, however, and retained the character of a civilian auxiliary of the infantry. An artillery arsenal resembled a large junk room due to a general lack of maintenance and the vast assortment of guns stored in it. 41 Montecuccoli bestowed upon the artillery its first fixed organization, detaching it from the old guild association and making it an organic part of the army. He also endeavored to reduce the many forms and calibers of cannon to a few standard pieces. Finally, he increased the number of batteries, but made each of them smaller in size, a move that Prince Eugene reversed by returning to the use of larger batteries. 42

The engineering corps had received even less attention than the artillery. Not a single military college had been established during Leopold's reign, although one Viennese school -- the ephemeral Chaos'sche Stiftung -- had been erected in 1658 by an obscure private individual named Baron de Chaos, who devoted a sizeable fortune to the education of officers in the art of engineering and warfare. 43 The conduct of sieges in the Low Countries during the War of the Spanish Succession laid bare the lack of scientific training among Austrian officers, particularly when compared to the capable French engineers trained in the tradition of Vauban. 44 In order to make good this deficiency, Prince Eugene proposed to Charles VI that he establish a school of military architecture. The emperor responded by founding in 1717 two engineering academies, one at Vienna and the other at Brussels. The origins of the Austrian corps of engineers essentially dates from this time. 45

As late as the Peace of Utrecht, the kernel of the standing army remained the "German" regiments (which included those raised in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia), but under Charles VI the first permanent military forces controlled by the crown were set up in Hungary. 46 There, since 1528, every nobleman had been obliged under the insurrectio to move into the field with their personal contingents at the outbreak of war. Additionally, for every twenty peasant hearths, the king's subjects were required to maintain in continual readiness a fully equipped cavalryman (Hussar) for the defense of Hungarian lands. 47 In 1688 Leopold I had made a beginning in the establishment of a standing army in Hungary by organizing regular Hussar regiments. During subsequent Turkish campaigns, he also set up three regiments of Hungarian infantry (Hayducken regiments), but they were dissolved in the months before and after the Peace of Carlowitz. Three new infantry regiments were established in 1702 and then in 1708 fused into one, which formed the oldest of the enduring Hungarian units.

The build-up of large Hungarian forces did not start, however, until after 1715. In that year, the Magyar diet recognized the inadequacy of the old noble levy by declaring itself ready to support an increased number of regular troops through the taxation of non-nobles. Such troops, conceived at least in principle as a standing army, 48 were to be recruited by the crown either at home or abroad. They were to be maintained in peace as well as in war, and could be used if necessary in foreign territories. The money grants required to pay for these soldiers were to be negotiated between the king and subsequent diets. As might have been expected, this burden fell largely on the peasantry. 49 Although the number of troops maintained in response to the diet's resolution was limited initially to the single existing infantry regiment and five Hussar regiments, the Magyar nobility had agreed in a fundamental way to subordinate itself to the Imperial war council, a concession that signified the creation of a common army for all of the Habsburg lands. 50 As much as any other single individual at the Vienna court, Prince Eugene had facilitated the agreement between crown and diet by interceding on behalf of those Hungarians who had participated in the Rakoczi rebellion that had broken out in 1703 and ended with the Treaty of Szatmar in 1711. It was he who had led the opposition to the idea of confiscating the landed estates of former rebels, thereby hastening the return of Hungary to Habsburg rule. 51

Following the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718), which terminated his final campaign against the Turks, Prince Eugene had to argue vigorously with the emperor to prevent a drastic reduction in the strength of the peacetime army as a means of easing the pressure on state finances. By 1721 Charles VI had accepted the idea of maintaining the still existing 46 regiments of infantry, 21 cuirassier, 11 dragoon, 3 Hussar and I Hayducken at a total level estimated at 146,000 men. The Vienna court arranged an agreement between the diets of its German and Bohemian lands as well as of Hungary and Transylvania whereby collectively they were to pay into a treasury administered by the war council an annual sum of 8 million gulden in support of a projected 90,000 men to be stationed on their territories. 52 Since the war council was to distribute the money through the war commissariat department (Generalkriegskommissariat), neither the court treasury nor the local estates could interfere directly with the military administration as had previously been the case. Added to the 8 million gulden was the substantial tax revenue that the Habsburg government could draw from its recently acquired possessions in Italy and the Low Countries. To all appearances, the Vienna court now had adequate monetary resources to maintain substantial armed forces on a permanent basis. 53 Yet the monarchy's financial system remained so corrupt and its administrative structure so inefficient that the emperor was finally compelled in 1732 to make extensive military cutbacks that resulted in the dismissal of proven officers and veteran soldiers from the imperial service. 54

For all of his loud protests, Eugene actually bore some responsibility for these reductions. His influence over the military affairs of the monarchy had never been greater, for he retained the emperor's confidence, and was virtually unchallenged in the war council, now filled with obedient subordinates. Having established an unassailable position, he nonetheless grew increasingly reluctant to attack administrative problems that lay outside his immediate jurisdiction, and made no attempt to destroy the vestiges of authority remaining with the local estates. As he had advanced in years, Eugene had lost much of the vigorous initiative so characteristic of his younger days. He exhibited a heightened mistrust of innovation, and was less willing to seek the advice of potential competitors, stubbornly refusing to organize a battle-ready field army separate from garrison troops in time of peace. Those generals whom he chose as his successors turned out to be incompetent as independent commanders. 55 Prince Eugene's own diminishing effectiveness, coupled with the emperor's continuing financial troubles and an overall lack of experienced officers, led to a gradual deterioration in the quality of imperial troops in the 1730s. The Austrian army failed to introduce up-to-date Prussian methods for the training and drilling of recruits. More damaging still, proprietors regained much of their control over the composition of regiments.56 While the standing army ostensibly numbered over 141,000 men at the death of Charles VI, 57 it made a poor showing in the War of the Polish Succession (1733-35) and the Austro-Turkish War of 1737-1739. Nor did it function nearly as proficiently during the three Silesian Wars as the 83,000 soldiers that Frederick the Great had inherited from his father. 58

At a deeper level, however, the causes of the unanticipated defeats suffered by the Habsburg monarchy in 1741 can be traced to the very system of political and military arrangements that catapulted Prince Eugene to power four decades earlier. Talented leaders like Montecuccoli and Eugene had emerged out of the Habsburg military establishment when the Vienna court found itself confronted simultaneously with the aggressive policies of Louis XIV and a resurgence of the Turkish menace. But once those outside pressures had subsided, intrinsic weaknesses quickly surfaced. Prince Eugene, himself a product of the system, had seldom moved beyond its confines or tried to alter it in any fundamental fashion. Unable to perceive the need for radical reform, and invariably meeting stubborn resistance at the slightest hint of change, he had accepted customary methods quite readily, despite his on-going frustrations over bureaucratic inertia, court intrigue and chronic fiscal difficulties. 59 By the time of his death, the system which he had worked so hard to improve had become obsolete, and lacked the means to regenerate itself. 60 This failure of post-Westphalian military arrangements involved problems in some respects unique to the Habsburg monarchy, but in other ways typical of the painful process of state-building during the early modern period. Leadership patterns associated with the career of Prince Eugene of Savoy thus provided telling indications of the obstacles to be faced by other soldier-statesmen who subsequently succeeded to responsibility in the Age of Enlightenment.

1 Robert A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire 1526-1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p. 6.
2 Theodore K. Rabb, The Struggle for Stability in Early Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 11.
3 This point is discussed in Thomas M. Barker, "Vaclav Eusebius z Lobkovic (1609-1677): Military Entrepreneurship, Patronage, and Grace," Austrian History Yearbook, XIV (1978), 45-48.
4 See M. D. Feld's reflections in "Review Essay: The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century," Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Summer 1980), pp. 666-69.
5 Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany (3 vols.; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959-1969), II, 106.
6 Derek McKay, Prince Eugene of Savoy (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1977), pp. 246-47.
7 Kann, p. 85. Besides the conquests of capable generals like Margrave Louis of Baden and Count Guido Starhemberg, these included Eugene's own successes at Luzzara (1702) and Turin (1706) as well as his joint victories with Marlborough at Hochstadt-Blenheim (1704), Oudenarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709).
8 For expressions of this judgment from a variety of perspectives, see William H. McNeill, Europe's Steppe Frontier 1500-1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 160; Dr. Walter Hummelberger, "Die Turkenkriege and Prinz Eugen," in Unser Heer: 300 Jahre osterreichisches Soldatentum in Krieg und Frieden (Wien: Furlinger, 1963), p. 68; Jurg Zimmermann, Militarverwaltung und Heeresaufbringung Oesterreich bis 1806. Vol. III of Handbuch zur Deutschen Militargeschichte, 1648-1939 (Frankfurt A.M.: Bernard und Graefe Verlag, 1965), p. 65; and Oskar Jaszi, The Dissolution of the Hapsburg Monarchy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 141.
9 This is the judgment of Eugene's latest Biographer. See McKay p. 246.
10 Wallenstein's impact on the origins and subsequent development of the Austrian army is frequently mentioned, as in Hummelberger, "Der Dreissigjahrige Krieg und die Entstehung des Kaiserlichen Heeres," in Unser Heer, p. 15; and Thomas Fellner and Heinrich Kretschmayr, Die Oesterreichische Zentralverwaltung (2 Parts; Wien: Adolf Holzhausen, 1907), Part II, Vol. I, p. 25. Peter Broucek nonetheless questions whether Wallenstein, who brought the old fashioned private contract system to a point of ultimate refinement, should be given extensive credit for those beginnings despite his prominent role in the changes that overtook the Austrian military establishment during the Thirty Years' War. See Peter Broucek, "Feldmarschall Bucquoy als Armeekommandant 1618-1620." in Der Dreissigjahrige Krieg. Beitrage zu seiner Geschichte. In Schriften des Heeresgeschichtlichen Museums in Wien, Militarwissenschaftliches Institut, No. 7 (Vienna: Bundesverlag, 1976), p. 25.
11 See, for example, George V. Alten, Handbuch fur Heer und Floote (10 vols.; Berlin: Deutsches Verlagshaus Bonn, 1914), VI, 922; Major Alphons Freiherrn von Wrede, Geschichte der K. und K. Wehrmacht (5 vols.; Wien: Verlag von L. W. Seidel und Sohn, 1898-1905), I, 13; and Zimmermann, pp. 61-62.
12 Alfred Arneth, Prinz Eugen von Savoyen (3 vols.; Wien: Druck und Verlag der typogr.-literar.-artist. Anstalt, 1858), III, 81.
13 Fritz Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force. Beiheft Nr. 47 and Nr. 48 of Vierteljahrschrift fur Social- und Wirtschafts-geschichte (Wiesbaden: F. Steinger, 1964-65), XLVII, 226-27; Hermann Meynert, Geschichte der K. K. osterreichisclien Armee (4 vols.; Wien: C. Gerold und Sohn, 1854), Ill, 76-77; Eugen Heischmann, Die Anfange des stehenden Heeres in Oesterreich (Wien: Oesterreichischer Bundesverlag, 1925), p. 222; and Wrede, I, 30, 107.
14 In the view of Professor Thomas M. Barker, Montecuccoli provides a "slightly variant" example of "the peculating, foreign-born professional soldier (who) was an indispensable person in the early Absolutist state, which could scarcely have developed without the help of the standing army." Consult Thomas Barker, "Military Entrepreneurship and Absolutism: Habsburg Models," Journal of European Studies, IV (1974), 41.
15 Convenient assessments of Montecuccoli's career, less familiar than those of Wallenstein and Prince Eugene, can be found in Thomas M. Barker, The Military Intellectual and Battle: Raimondo Montecuccoli and the Thirty Years' War (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), Parts One and Two; and John A. Mears, "Count Raimondo Montecuccoli: Servant of a Dynasty," The Historian, Vol. 32, No. 3 (May, 1970), 392-409.
16 A. L. von Ebengreuth, Grundriss der Oesten Reichsgeschichte (Bamberg: C. C. Buchners Verlag, 1918), p. 296. The impact of Wallenstein, Montecuccoli and Eugene was heightened by the fact that many of the Habsburg emperors lacked interest and ability in military matters. In contrast to the Hohenzollerns, they accorded to some of their favorite field commanders considerable personal initiative in military planning and decision making. Zimmermann, p. 61.
17 Good descriptions of the equipoise that emerged within the Habsburg power cluster following the Thirty Years' War can be found in McNeill, pp. 72-75, 126-27, 159-61; and Barker, "Military Entrepreneurship and Absolutism," pp. 29-34.
18 E. C. Hellbling, Oesterreichische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte (Wien: Springer-Verlag, 1956), p. 244; and Otto Hintze, "Der osterreichisclie und der preussische Beamtenstaat in 17. and 18. Jahrhundert," Historische Zeitschrift, LXXXVI (1901), 406-7.
19 Thomas M. Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna's Second Turkish Siege in Its Historical Setting (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967), pp. 207-8.
2O The riches to be derived from the traffic in military positions is illustrated by Franz Josef Sereni, who paid 50,000 Rhinish gulden to Philipp Jacob de la Porte for his dragoon regiment in 1693. One Venetian diplomat suggested that a generalship in the Austrian army had the equivalent value of an Italian duchy. Joseph Fielder, "Die Relationen der Botschafter Venedigs uber Deutschland and Oesterreich im siebzehnten Jahrhundert," Frontes rerum austriacarum (Zweite Abtheilung), XXVII (1867), 188.
21 Zimmermann, pp. 50-51, 131-32.
22 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, p. 175; and Zimmermann, pp. 50-51. Given the opportunities for promotion offered by the Inhaber system, Leopold's army facilitated economic and social advancement, but military service did not invariably bring with it political influence at the Vienna court. See Barker, "Vaclav z Lobkovic (1609-1677), pp. 45-52.
23 Quoted in Johann Heinrich Blumenthal, "Prinz Eugen als Prasident des Hofkriegsrates (1703-1713)," Der Donauraum (9. Jahrgang, 1. Heft, 1964), p. 35.
24 E. von Frauenholz, "Prinz Eugen von Savoyen und die Kaiserliche Armee," Munchener Historische Abhandlungen (Zweite Reihe, 1. Heft, 1923), p. 10.
25 Max Braubach, Prinz Eugen von Savoyen (5 vols.; Munchen; R. Oldenbourg, 1963-1966), II, 28-29.
26 Frauenholz, pp. 9-10.
27 Braubach, II, 30.
28 Ibid. p. 24.
29 Quoted in Arneth, I, 212.
30 McKay, p. 71; and Frauenholz, p.4.
31 Braubach, II, 27.
32 Arneth, III, 82-84. Occasional signs of progress did appear. In 1705 Pritice Eugene persuaded Joseph I to detach from their previous connection with the Austrian Hofkanzlei both the Inner Austrian war council in Graz and the military authorities located in Innsbruck, and to subordinate them directly to the Vienna Hofkriegsrath. This move smoothed out operations in the military administration somewhat, although the Vienna Hofkriegsrath still had to function through the Bohemian Hofkanzlei when dealing with royal officials in Prague. See Fellner and Kretschmayr, Part I, Vol. I, pp. 257-59.
33 Zimmermann, p. 136.
34 Arneth, III, 88-90. Eugene thereby rectified a major defect in the Habsburg command system.
35 Blumenthal, p. 32.
36 For a general description of these tactical developments in the late seventeenth century, see O. L. Spaulding, H. Nickerson and J. W. Wright, Warfare: A Study of Military Methods from Earliest Times (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1925), pp. 529-530.
37 Braubach, V. 219. This order, together with other documents related to armament, have been reprinted in Prinz Eugen von Savoyen (Wien: Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, 1963), pp. 222-26, 231-32.
38 A. Wolf, Geschichte Bilder aus Oesterreich (2 vols.; Wien: Wilhelm Braumuller, 1879), I, 93.
39 Blumenthal, p. 32.
4O Hans, Pirchegger, Geschichte und Kulturleben Deutschoesterreichs (3 vols.; Wien: Universitats-Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1931), p. 142.
41 Wolf, I, 93-94.
42 Wrede, IV, 7, 43-45.
43 Hummelberger, "Die Turkenkriege und Prinz Eugen," p. 67.
44 Max Jahns, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften vornemlich in Deutschland (3 vols.; Munchen: Druck und Verlag von R. Oldenbourg, 1890), II, 1700-01.
45 Blumenthal, p. 41.
46 Wrede, I, 14.
47 Hellbling, p. 245; Ebengreuth, p. 298.
48 Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Army of Francis Joseph (Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1976), p. 5.
49 Wrede, V. 183; Ebengreuth, pp. 298-99; Zimmermann, p. 99.
50 Hellbling, p. 245. By the start of Maria Theresa's reign, the crown had at its disposal regular Hungarian troops equivalent to three infantry and eight Hussar regiments.
51 Ludwig Jedlicka, "Prinz Eugen von Savoyen (1663-1736)," Gestalter der Geschicke Oesterreichs, ed. Hugo Hantsch (Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag, 1962), p. 227. In 1722 the Hungarian diet recognized the king's right to military command, but refused to surrender its authority over recruitment and supply, and carefully protected the tax exemption of the nobility. While ratifying the Pragmatic Sanction (1723), the diet did not specifically adopt the principle of a unitary armed force, despite its tacit acceptance of a joint defense of the Habsburg domains. Rothenberg, p. 5.
52 Braubach, III, 87-88; V. 223-24.
53 McNeill, p. 160.
54 Braubach, V, 225; McKay, p. 213.
55 McKay, pp. 229-34.
56 Arneth, Ill, 493; Braubach, V, 230-32.
57 Ebengreuth, p. 383.
58 Sidney B. Fay and Klaus Epstein, The Rise of Brandenburg-Prussia to 1786 (rev. ed.; New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), p. 101. The Prussian army experienced a similar decline in proficiency after the Seven Years' War. See Cordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army 1640-1945 (Oxford: At tHe Clarendon Press, 1955), pp. 22-36.
59 See the comments in Braubach, V, 211.
60 Professor Barker points especially to a malfunctioning of the apparatus of ascent for the system's elite that undermined the performance of the officer corps. See "Military Entrepreneurship and Absolutism," pp. 33, 39-40.