Army of Francis Joseph

1: The Evolution of the Army: Origins to Archduke Charles

1 The Evolution of the Army: Origins to Archduke Charles Although the birthdate of the Habsburg army usually is regarded as 1649, when the regiments which Albrecht von Wallenstein raised for the emperor in 1627 were retained in permanent service, this is not strictly accurate. 1 The origins of the military establishment of what became the" Austrian Monarchy" reach back a century before Wallenstein when the Turkish danger as well as dynastic ambitions led to the development of military institutions separate both from the indigenous hosts and from the Spanish imperial establishment. Overall, the evolution of the army to 1815 can be divided into three major stages. In the seminal stage, from 1522 to about 1625, the crown managed to establish certain basic institutions; during the second stage, to 1743, it raised a standing army which placed the Danubian monarchy into the ranks of the great powers; after an interval of abrupt decline, the third stage, from 1744 to 1815, brought a series of reforms which fashioned a military instrument that withstood the impact of the Prussian and French wars. Throughout this long process, the evolution of a strong Habsburg military establishment was hampered by opposition from the party of the estates in each of the various lands, while in Hungary resistance to military policies of the dynasty, as well as to administrative and fiscal ones, persisted to the very end of the monarchy. Ferdinand I, younger brother of Emperor Charles V, came to to rule Austria in 1522. When soon thereafter he added to his dominions Bohemia and Hungary, where his claim to rule was disputed and the Turks were in occupation of most of the country, he possessed no troops of his own. There existed in these lands, as in most of Europe, considerable relics of two obsolescent medieval military institutions-the old militia or Landesaufgebot, and the feudal levy or Lehensaufgebot -while in Hungary, as far as it was under Habsburg control, there remained the mounted noble insurrectio, a feudal host, augmented by armed peasants , the banderial or portal militia.2 While useful auxiliaries, these bodies had political and tactical limitations. Mobilization depended on the Austrian and Bohemian estates and the Hungarian diet, and not on the ruler. From the purely military point of view, these levies were too cumbersome to cope with swift Turkish raids, and against major bodies their lack of professional expertise could lead to disaster. 2 Chapter 1 Of course, Ferdinand's imperial brother commanded professional troops superior to the Turks, but neither the Habsburgs nor the Ottomans were able to employ their first-line troops against each other for protracted periods. Charles needed his veteran regiments to fight France and the rising tide of Lutheranism in the Holy Roman Empire; the Ottomans faced trouble in the East. On occasion, to be sure, the main Ottoman host appeared in Hungary and threatened the empire. Both times, in 1529 and in 1532, the advance of the Turks brought a temporary suspension of the political and religious divisions in the empire and produced forces strong enough to deflect the immediate threat. But even after the sultan and his army had retired, the Ottomans continued hostilities along the extensive frontier in an unbroken series of raids, incursions, and ambuscades. Ferdinand's immediate strategic problem then was to provide for the defense of his southeastern frontiers. 3 He solved the problem through fortifications and military colonies. In Hungary a crude but effective chain of forts, little more than earthworks surmounted by palisades, was built and garrisoned by small groups of mercenaries. To the south, covering the Croatian uplands, Ferdinand established a network of fortified villages, watchtowers, and blockhouses, and settled Christian Balkan refugees in this region. In return for military service, he granted these colonists substantial privileges: land, freedom of worship, and above all, immunity from the usual manorial obligations. In time, the Habsburgs appointed officers to fill the major command positions and fashioned the colonies into a substantial military institution , the Militiirgrenze. Eventually this was to become an permanent component of the Habsburg military system, furnishing cheap and reliable manpower for the dynasty; immediately, these defenses contained minor incursions and, as the fruitless Turkish campaign of 1566 demonstrated, they could compel the Ottomans to expend their brief campaigning season in sieges. Hungary-Croatia became a less promising target, and the main Ottoman expansionist drive was channelled in other directions for nearly a century.4 But neither Ferdinand nor his successors ever became quite reconciled to an...