Habsburg field marshal. An Italian, he entered Austrian and
Imperial service in 1625. He saw extensive action during the Thirty Years' War
(1618-1648), including at the Battles of Lutzen (1634), First Nördlingen
(1634), and Wittstock (1636). He was captured by the Swedes at Wittstock and
held for 30 months before being ransomed back to the emperor. He used the time
to study all available literature on the "art of war," ancient and
contemporary. After his release he fought in Silesia and Lombardy. He fought
against the Swedes in the last several years of the German war, notably at
Zusmarshausen (1648). He fought Sweden again during the Second Northern War (1655-1660),
alongside the "Great Elector" of Brandenburg, Friedrich-Wilhelm.
Montecuccoli led Austrian armies against the Ottomans in the 1660s. He won at
St. Gotthard (August 1, 1664), though more by Ottoman misfortune than any
special skill on his part. Regardless, the victory brought him appointment as
head of the Hofkriegsrat. He fought well against the French during the Dutch
War (1672-1678). Feeling his age, he retired to write extensively on the
subject of war and gained much influence thereby, deserved or not.
Like many minds of the age, Montecuccoli sought perfect
order even in the sheer chaos of combat, believing that there were immutable
"laws of war" that might be discovered and codified. This approach to
war was much approved by the salon set and in studies of the good professors of
the Sorbonne and The Hague, but it bore no relation to actual warfare then or
since. For instance, Montecuccoli proposed a law of war that established a
perfectly-sized Imperial army of 28,000 foot and 22,000 horse to face any
opposing Ottoman force, of whatever size or makeup. He was more right in
famously declaring that the precondition of successful war making was having
enough money. As for the problem of finding soldiers to feed into the Imperial
war machine he was busy crafting in theory, Montecuccoli wrote that all
"orphans, bastards, beggars, and paupers" cared for by charitable
orders or in hospices should be swept into the Army. This was far from the
later concept of the "nation in arms" or the ancient one of a natural
nobility of warriors.
Montecuccoli came out of retirement to fence with Turenne in
a prolonged war of maneuver in Germany during the campaign of 1673. He joined
the future William III to besiege Bonn that November. Montecuccoli lost a
campaign of maneuver to Turenne during the summer of 1675. By July he was short
on food and fodder, and in full retreat. Turenne tried to force battle at
Sasbach on July 27, but before the fight got underway, he was killed by an
Imperial cannonball. Montecuccoli retired for the final time a few months
later, the same year as the Great Condé. Widely regarded and hailed by earlier
historians as a brilliantly skillful practitioner of the art of 17th-century
positional warfare, his reputation may exceed what is deserved. It has been
downgraded in more recent studies of his campaigns and especially of his
writings on war.
Hofkriegsrat
Imperial or "Court War Council" of the Holy Roman
Empire. It was established in 1556, but its role evolved over the next two
centuries. At the maximum, it controlled 25,000 Imperial troops by the end of
the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). These were mostly called up from the
"armed provinces" of the Empire, and thus were actually controlled by
the major electoral princes of Bavaria, Brandenburg, and Saxony. After the war,
the Hofkriegsrat in Vienna evolved as the central administrative body for
military affairs in all Habsburg lands, however physically or culturally
disconnected they might be. This made it a central institution of a very much
decentralized Austrian Empire, overseeing war finance, officer appointments,
and so forth. As with some other armies of this era, the practice of
proprietary recruitment of regiments by their colonel limited Hofkriegsrat
control over the quality of troops and training.
Montecuccoli was appointed president in 1664. Ernst
Starhemberg was named president in 1691, partly as a reward for successful
defense of the capital during the siege of Vienna (1683). Prince Eugene of
Savoy was the most important president of the Hofkriegsrat, introducing several
major reforms of the Imperial Army early in the new century. These included an
end to the purchase of officer commissions, establishment of a modest magazine
system, and improvements in living conditions and pay for ordinary soldiers.
There was a separate Austrian Hofkriegsrat at Graz, which oversaw Grenzer and
other border troops along the Windische border and the Karlstadt border.
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