Beyond Nationalism A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848-1918

by Deak, Istvan

• ISBN13: 9780195045055
• ISBN10: 019504505X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1990-05-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In the last seventy years of its long and distinguished existence, the Habsburg monarchy was plagued by the forces of rising nationalism. Still, it preserved domestic peace and provided the conditions for social, economic, and cultural progress in a vast area inhabited by eleven major nationalities and almost as many confessional groups. This study investigates the social origin, education, training, code of honor, lifestyle, and political role of the Habsburg officers. Simultaneously conservative and liberal, the officer corps, originally composed mainly of noblemen, willingly coopted thousands of commoners--among them an extraordinary number of Jews. Even during World War I, the army and its officers endured, surviving the dissolution of the state in October 1918, if only by a few days. The end of the multinational Habsburg army also marked the end of confessional and ethnic tolerance in Central and East Central Europe.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 3
From the Turkish Wars to the Revolutions of 1848: An Early History	p. 25
Absolutism, Liberal Reform, and the Ideology of Preventive War: The Army Between 1850 and 1914	p. 43
The Making of Future Officers	p. 78
Life in the Regiment	p. 95
From Payday to Payday	p. 114
Latter-Day Knights	p. 126
Marriage, Family, Sexual Ethics, and Crime	p. 139
Pensioners, Widows, and Orphans	p. 149
Nobles and Near-Nobles in the Officer Corps	p. 156
Religion, Nationality, Advanced Training, and Career	p. 165
The Officers in the Great War	p. 190
Epilogue Habsburg Officers in the Successor States and in the Second World War	p. 205
On Belles-Lettres, Memoirs, and Histories	p. 213
Place Names	p. 225
Notes	p. 227
Index	p. 261
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