Austria's Wars of Emergence, 1683-1797

`Austrias Wars of Emergence, 1683-1797 spans the period from the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 to the Franco-Austrian peace settlement of 1797. It is the first comprehensive work ever to put Viennas far-reaching military commitments and the enormous pressure these necessarily brought to bear on the Monarchys political, administrative and social structure at the centre stage of early modern Austrian history.

Michael Hochedlinger makes it abundantly clear that the Habsburg Monarchy, contrary to the conventional clich, was neither created nor held together by the dynastys famed marriage policy alone but rather by force of arms and the instruments of the early modern power-state.

The struggle for survival within the ever more competitive European states-system forced the Austrian Habsburgs to transform, slowly but steadily, their central and eastern European territories from a bewilderingly complex and backward conglomeration into a centralized state. After decades of truly revolutionary reforms from above in the Age of Enlightened Absolutism (1740-1790) the Habsburg Monarchy certainly ranked with the most advanced polities of Europe. It was also one of the most highly militarized states, second only to Austrias arch-enemy Prussia.

Michael Hochedlinger is Senior Archivist at the Austrian State Archives. He is an expert on the history of the early modern Habsburg army.