Il Principe Eugenio di Savoia (review)

Ciro Paoletti knows the eighteenth century and is as comfortable discussing politics, diplomacy, and finance, as he is describing maneuvers and orders of battle. He acknowledges his debt to Natale Pentimalli, who spent twenty years studying Prince Eugene and whose notes Paoletti has used as the basis for this work. But this is very much Paoletti's book. He has searched Italian and Vatican archives, added notes and a bibliography, polished Pentimalli's prose, and written forty-two of the book's sixty chapters. He has placed notes at the end of each of the book's five major sections; included two indexes, one for places, another for names; and arranged the bibliography by subject. While long, the book is usable. Its only weakness is its small maps.

But that is a quibble. Paoletti offers his reader a thorough study of tactics and strategy as practiced by one of the military masters of the Baroque era. He corrects previous scholars, and his chapter on Baroque warfare should be required reading. Even Paoletti's asides fascinate, from his account of how the Count of Margherita concentrated the fire of his artillery to conserve powder to his speculation that Eugene learned to employ light units for scouting by fighting the Turks.

Paoletti writes in the tradition of Piero Pieri, embedding his descriptions of military actions in detailed historical contexts which enable the reader to appreciate why, for example, Vienna's financial administration was Eugene's worst enemy and how diplomacy can undermine success in the field. Paoletti's focus is on Eugene's military career, but he also discusses the prince's personal life, from the influence of Vauban, who piqued the young nobleman's interest in fortifications, to Eugene's nonchalant attitude toward doctors.

This is an important book because Eugene's career paralleled the creation of the modern Austrian state. He left France to serve the Hapsburgs in 1683, as the Turk was besieging Vienna. Leopold gave him a regiment after the siege was lifted, and by the time he was thirty, Eugene had suffered wounds, chased the Turks into Bosnia, and embarrassed the French in Italy. In 1693, the Emperor promoted him Field Marshal, and for the next six years Eugene campaigned in Italy and Bosnia, checking the French and forcing the Turks to recognize Austria's expanding borders. Chronically short of men and equipment, Eugene learned to win against superior forces by feinting and maneuvering.

Although Eugene learned his trade in the Balkans, Paoletti devotes more than half of his study to the War of the Spanish Succession, in particular to Eugene's relief of Turin in 1706. Outnumbered and outgunned, Eugene achieved tactical surprise and local superiority, enabling his forces to inflict 4,000 casualties on the French; take 5,000 prisoners; seize 4,000 quadrupeds, and capture 164 guns, 56 mortars, and 60,000 lire. In the process, he lifted the siege of Turin and cleared the way for the conquest of Lombardy.

Turin was Eugene's greatest victory, but not his only one. His campaigns created modern Austria, and after his death, he became a legend—an imperial and Christian hero who had savaged the French and terrorized the Turks. Paoletti suggests that Eugene succeeded in Europe because he had fought a superior and resourceful Turkish foe in the Balkans and had to learn to use all of his arms and maximize whatever advantage he could obtain. Frederick the Great, whose father sent him to learn the art of war from Eugene, believed that the prince's ability to grasp the whole enabled him to influence the course of events and to correct his errors, because, as Frederick noted, "even great men make mistakes." Indeed. But it is hard to find mistakes in this superb study of a great condottiere...