The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire

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The Habsburg Empire's grand strategy for outmaneuvering and outlasting stronger rivals in a complicated geopolitical world The Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European great power. Flanked on four sides by rivals, it possessed few of the advantages that explain successful empires. Its army was not renowned for offens

Reviews

"At the hands of A. Wess Mitchell, the Habsburg Empire, so long misunderstood as an empire without qualities, receives a compelling and long-overdue analysis of its strategic imperatives and the vital role it played in a Europe that was constantly challenging its very raison dtre."---Richard Bassett, author of, For God and Kaiser: The Imperial Austrian Army, 1619-1918
"In 1914, the Habsburg empires fatal combination of belligerence and weakness triggered World War I and, four years later, the empires own dissolution. This graceful account of Habsburg diplomacy from 1700 to that fateful moment explains how the empire survived so long: its diplomats dampened threats through minor acts of appeasement, always playing for time."---Andrew Moravcsik, Foreign Affairs
"A very serious work, The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire will prove rewarding reading for those interested in eighteenth and nineteenth Europe or the concept of grand strategy."---A. A. Nofi, Strategy Page
"Mitchells work is a triumphant assessment of how the monarchys leaders squared ends with means and approached their particularly threatening environment. His work provides excellent analysis of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and leaves open interesting lines of questions for the adjoining time periods."---Caleb Karges, War in History
"[A] comprehensive and informative work, which provides a comprehensive analysis of an armed conflict which still suffers from a distorted received narrative within Spanish military historiography."---Beatriz Alonso Acero, International Journal of Military History and Historiography

Author Bio

A. Wess Mitchell is a leading foreign policy expert who formerly served as US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. His books include The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power (Princeton).