Abstract
Reviewed by: Bodie A. Ashton, University of Passau, Germany
‘Strategy’ is a notoriously slippery concept. If ‘tactics’ are the specific methods by which conflicts (broadly defined) are fought, then the strategy is the overall objective to which those tactics seek to contribute. Thus, we could say that Churchill’s strategy in 1940 was simply not to lose the Second World War, while his strategy after that was to win it. (Theresa May’s Brexit strategy in 2019 is rather more opaque, and will no doubt be the subject of innumerable studies in the future.)
Applying the idea of strategy – or, in this case, grand strategy – to the Habsburg Empire in its various iterations might seem to offer us a very simple question and an equally simple answer. Goethe might have wondered in Faust just how the Holy Roman Empire managed to hold together; that it would hold together and endure would, on the other hand, seem to be its key objective. But, as A. Wess Mitchell explains in this insightful new book, beyond these calculations nothing about the Habsburg situation was simple. The Habsburgs lacked many of the advantages that their contemporaries had: theirs was a famously polyglot empire whose agrarian, industrial, financial and military development generally lagged behind its neighbours. Nevertheless, the Habsburg Empire survived – albeit with setbacks, defeats and truncations – for centuries, until its final, fatal collapse in 1918. Much as we may dismissively characterize the Habsburgs’ objective as ‘survival’, then, this begs the question how even such a limited goal was possible.
Mitchell’s approach to the question of Habsburg survival is innovative. As befitting his background as a policy analyst, Mitchell conceives of Habsburg strategy as a problem of ‘adaptive statecraft’. Certainly, as he points out, there was nothing immanent to the Austrian hereditary territories (Erblände) that gave the Habsburgs any degree of natural advantage. The vast number of wars in which the Austrians took part, for example, meant that the imperial treasury was constantly left bare by military spending. Austria possessed neither the efficient banking systems of Britain, nor the prodigious resources of Russia; where London could fall back on debt-servicing and bonds to salve its economic woes, and St Petersburg could (in spite of its own inefficiencies) rely on its raw materials, Vienna could do neither. Surrounded by potential foes, this should have proved fatal. But at the heart of Habsburg success, Mitchell argues, was Austria’s byzantine but clever network of diplomacy. Its ties by dynastic marriage (which does not get much play here) and other diplomatic agreements (which do) built a system of alliances, understandings and ententes that spanned the Continent. In constructing this argument, Mitchell creates a paradigm that he explores in greater depth in his epilogue (appositely titled ‘Habsburg Lessons’), hoping (presumably) to offer a template for the stated aim that begins the book, in which the author offers the work ‘in hopes of managing … these challenges in order to preserve America’s global leadership’ (x–xi).
This is a lofty goal. However, if Mitchell sees an analogue in the United States of today and the Habsburg Empire of yesteryear, there are some flaws in his reasoning. His grasp of pre-nineteenth-century Austria appears quite solid. Post-Napoleonic Austria, less so. The sections on Metternich and his system are full of admiration for the minister-president, but deserve a more critical eye. Austria’s relations with the smaller German powers during this period are characterized as largely friendly and supportive. Yet the collective security measures undertaken by Austria in the Vormärz period were precisely the bone of contention that caused animosity, rather than bonhomie, between these powers; certainly amongst the southern states of Germany, Austrian forward defences looked suspiciously like elements of a plan to sacrifice Germany, if Vienna considered it necessary. This mistrust, among other factors, led inexorably to the rise of nationalist pan-German movements, some with varying degrees of state support, within these southern states. Viewed in this light, Metternich’s anti-nationalist initiatives did not solidify relations, as Mitchell argues, but undermined them. Moreover, Mitchell claims that the outcome of the 1848 revolutions vindicates the Metternich system, in so far as Austria survived and the monarchy ultimately reasserted itself. The same, however, can be said for all of the German states that looked set to succumb to liberal-nationalist revolutionaries in 1848; by 1849, reactionary forces had regained the upper hand. This, arguably, says more about the failures of the revolutionary movement than the success of any extant political system, Metternichian or otherwise. Certainly, it seems unlikely that we can claim success for Metternich in the same events that led to his own deposal and exile, as well as the flight of the Emperor from Vienna (twice, in fact: once to Innsbruck, then again to Olmütz, before abdicating in July 1848).
Finally, Mitchell quite rightly characterizes the Battle of Königgrätz in 1866 as ‘the end of the Habsburg Monarchy as a Great Power in any meaningful sense of the term’ (297). It did not, however, mark the end of the Habsburg Empire itself. That would endure (limping, perhaps) until 1918, and, in the process, made strategic decisions that would seem to suggest that the state had jettisoned the very grand strategy that, according to the present work, it had applied with profound success since the War of the Spanish Succession. Why it did so is a tantalizing question. Unfortunately, it is left unaddressed here, as the author chooses to end his work with Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866.
In short, A. Wess Mitchell offers a unique insight into the survival (and, perhaps, success) of the Habsburg leadership in Austria from the beginning of the eighteenth century until deep into the nineteenth. In doing so, he constructs a modern analytical framework, through which we may be able to reappraise the Habsburgs as rulers. At times requiring a more critical reading of its subject matter, the book nevertheless is a work of serious and thoughtful scholarship that will prove useful for students of this fascinating but all-too-often misunderstood Great Power.