Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 46. (1998)
LUND, Erik: The generation of 1683: Habsburg General Officers and the military technical Corps, 1686–1723
Erik Lund elective affinity. Do we take affinity seriously at all? Some historians have put forward a “Protestant ethic“ interpretation of the role of religion in science, notwithstanding the success of French science, while others have found a relationship between science proper and military science. The question should therefore be put: was there a significant Huguenot presence in the Habsburg army’s technical corps14? The first thing to notice in comparing career tracks of technical and line, is the very different career track in the artillery branch compared to that in the infantry and cavalry. The artillery seems to have included no “privates,“ retaining a guild-like structure and associated rank titles. This comparison can be overstressed, however, for the artillery regulations stressed a military standard of discipline alien to any civilian guild, but on the face of it the distinction between officer and man is less clear in the artillery. Second, artillery officials were much better paid than equivalent infantry and cavalry officers. One’s first intuition might be that artillery service was better paid in order to attract persons of few means who by the same token would be less clearly socially distinct from the rank-and-file than were infantry and cavalry officers15. On the other hand, the best attested reason for paying technical specialists better than line counterparts was retention difficulties. Count Gallas’ 1633 plea that Colonel Alessandro Marquis Borres be awarded the next available regiment in order to retain the services of this “experimentierter Ingenieur“ is only the best known example of this. Typical salary figures for engineer officers assigned to the Rhine theater of operations in 1707, salaries ranging up to two-thirds that of the commanding Field Marshal indicate that the same realities applied in 1707. Because there were in fact numerous senior generals from artillery and engineer backgrounds, it seems more likely that the premiums paid to officers with these skills reflected the rarity and value of their skills. The authorities are all agreed that the Habsburg army was perpetually short of technical officers, but since this shortage is only meaningful relative to requirements, its existence tells us little about the actual supply of technicians. (That is, if the Habsburg army placed a high value on technicians and provided for more of them in its order of battle than did the French, the Habsburg army could show a shortfall in requirements and still possess more engineers than the French16.) At least sixteen officers listed in the sample served in technical capacities. These included the engineer Field-Marshals Wirich, Count von und zu Daun, Prince of Tiano (1668-1741), Heinrich von Bürkli, Cavaliere Francesco Marullo (1675-1751), Samuel, Baron von Schmettau (1684-1751), Ferdinand Amadeus, Count von Harsch (1661-1722), a director of engineers and author, and Reinhard, Count von Neip14 For some recent historiography on this subject see Cohen, H. Floris: The Scientific Revolution. A Historiographical Inquiry. Chicago 1994, p. 534f; the introduction and editorial comments in Cohen, Bernard I. (Ed.): Puritanism and the Rise of Modem Science. The Merton Thesis. New Brunswick 1990 and Fields, J. V. - James, Frank A. J. L. (Ed): Introduction in Renaissance and Revolution. Humanists, Scholars, Craftsmen, and Natural Philosophers in Early Modem Europe. Cambridge 1990, pp. 1-14. 15 Feldzüge, Vol. l,p. 270f. 16 AFA 1707-Roemisches Reich 13/3a; another and famous example of this logic can be found in KWM 28/1334, Kriegsbauwesen in 16 Jahrhundert, p. 4f. 198
