Vol. XXXII · 2001 · pp. 215-224 (10)

Paul W. Schroeder

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Abstract

I have neither the desire nor the authority to criticize Professor Rothenberg's masterly survey of Habsburg military history over three centuries. His argument that the Habsburg army's overall performance in its many wars was better than many critics claim seems entirely reasonable to me. Yet precisely because his argument on this point is convincing, it leaves us with a problem or puzzle closely related to the one with which this debate began, and germane for it: why, if the Habsburg army often fought reasonably loyally and well, did the monarchy end up losing so many of its wars? This question takes us outside the purely military dimension into the broader political arena, especially that of international politics, and points to another related one: why was the political outcome of the Habsburg monarchy's wars so often more favorable or less harmful than the military outcome would have seemed to predict? Put more baldly, how could the monarchy lose so many wars and yet survive until the end as a great power? This question obviously stretches the debate beyond its original bounds and focus, raising more additional questions than can possibly be answered or seriously discussed in a short commentary. (It also provides a reason or excuse for foregoing footnotes, since the range of issues and chronology and the amount of controversy involved is too vast.) However, those who solicited these comments did so expecting this to happen, and I hope to show their ultimate relevance to the main theme.