Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 46. (1998)
LUND, Erik: The generation of 1683: Habsburg General Officers and the military technical Corps, 1686–1723
Erik Lund However, Corvisier’s study did not provide even indirect assistance to scholars interested in the technical officer corps, for he did not disaggregate the latter from ordinary generals of the infantry and cavalry. Given the general vigor with which research into the French engineer corps has been pressed, this is a very small complaint, but Austrian Habsburg artillery and engineer generals are even less well known than regular generals. Christopher Duffy, the only modern scholar who has made an effort to investigate the question has concluded that Austrian military technicians tended to be French mercenaries of Protestant faith, but he adduced no direct evidence of this claim. In fact, the few brief sections of Alphons von Wrede’s institutional history of the regiments and corps of the Imperial and Royal army give no intimation of this, while Gatti’s history of the Dynasty’s military technical schools gives only the most indirect support. This article shows that Duffy’s claims are not correct. Even more interesting, it shows that an even more strongly held assumption, that technical officers were promoted more slowly than their line colleagues to lower terminal ranks, is also incorrect. Other evidence (which can unfortunately only be touched on here) demonstrates the strength and scope of military scholarship in the old regime Habsburg army, and the extent of its application. The recent work of Andrew Wheatcroff, R. J. W. Evans, Mario Biagioli, and Pamela Smith has alerted historians to the intricate relationship between patronage and historical, genealogical, linguistic, astronomical, and alchemical scholarship in the Habsburg court. In a milieu which greatly valued “military science“ it would not be surprising to find it filling much the same role. However, an inquiry into that role can hardly proceed without an anatomy of the court’s military technicians, which follows below* 2. As already noted, this sample consists of officers promoted or appointed between 1686 to 1723, although as we shall see the actual closing date is 1725. Why this interval? In the first instance, the endeavor was to find a sample which bracketed the War of the Spanish Succession. Since three members of the “August House“of Habsburg, Leopold I (r. 1658-1704), Joseph I (r. 1704-1711), and Karl VI (r. 1712- 1740) reigned during the war, with an aggregate reign of over eighty years, any sample selected on dynastic lines, such as Corvisier’s would either miss some portion of the war or be awkwardly large. Fortunately, preliminary research pointed to the importance of a five-year birth cohort (1660-1665), a group which appeared to include general officers promoted in 1686, and 1723, as good a pair of dates as any. In the interests of strict accuracy it has to be added that the 1723 case, the Swiss LieuStaatsarchiv 33 (1980), pp. 127-141; Stoy e, John H.: Soldiers and Civilians. In: The Cambridge New Modem History. Vol. 6: The Rise of Great Britain and Russia 1688-1725. Cambridge 1979. 2 Historiography see Duffy, Christopher: Fortress Warfare in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great. London 1979; Gatti, Friedrich: Geschichte der k. und k. technischen Militär-Akademie. Vol. 1. 2. Vienna 1901-1905; Wrede, Alphons Freiherr von: Geschichte der k. und k. Wehrmacht. Vol. 1-5. Vienna 1898-1905, reprinted Starnberg 1985; Evans, R. J. W.: The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy. 1500- 1700. Oxford 1979; Wheatcroft, Andrew: The Habsburgs. Embodying Empire. London 1995; Biagioli, Mario - Courtier, Galileo: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Chicago 1993; Smith, Pamela H.: The Business of Alchemy. Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire. Princeton 1994. 190
