1. The Definition of 'Security'

The most fundamentally important advice that can be tendered by an individual, or body, concerned with strategic affairs, must relate to 'security', which is the identification of a state's interests, of the possible threats to those interests, and the appropriate responses.

Although the word as such would probably not have been recognised by Kaunitz, he kept Austria's 'security' under constant review, and he summed up his assessments periodically for Maria Theresa. Among some particularly impressive surveys we may cite the celebrated memoranda which he presented in 1749 before he came to power, and the reviews of December 30, 1760; November 24, 1762 and March 3, 1763. Again and again he insisted on the multiple threats presented by Frederick of Prussia - as the conqueror of Silesia with its rich resources and strategic position, as a rival in the Empire, and as the representative of a despotic and militaristic state. He was not blind to the long-term dangers presented by the expansion of Russia, but while Prussian power remained intact he held to the belief that Austria's best security lay in a close understanding with the French.

2. Finance

When Austria's effort flagged towards the end of the Seven Years War, it was largely due to the exhaustion of funds. Although he was not immediately responsible for directing financial affairs, Kaunitz exercised a usually decisive influence on fiscal policy in the Seven Years War, and, at least on a superficial view, we encounter a mismatch between the ends he set for Austria's military effort, and the resources he was able to mobilise for those purposes.

There was no salvation in the 'Haugwitz' financial system, which had been intended for peacetime conditions, any more than in the extra wartime taxes which, as introduced, were complicated and unproductive. It is possible, however, that Kaunitz drove consistency too far when he subordinated everything to the raising of funds through ' public credit ' i.e. through borrowing.

When the public loans in their turn failed to supply the deficiencies, Kaunitz turned to the drastic expedient of reducing the army by two companies from every regiment of infantry, and the equivalent from the cavalry and hussars. He reckoned that the saving would amount to some eight million gulden. Maria Theresa communicated the decision to Daun on October 17, 1763, and the outrage expressed by the field marshal] was shared by the other senior officers of his army. Daun could not understand why funds could not be raised by tapping the wealth of monateries and private individuals (who seemed to be left in the intact possessions of vast incomes), or by resorting to further financial devices. [6] Kaunitz had already met the objections, at least to his own satisfaction, by pointing out that a drastic measure like seizing and melting down ecclesiastical plate would produce a mere two or three million gulden, and create an air of desperation that would undermine public credit. [7]

The logic was impregnable, for a government that was committed to the principle of credit would lose credibility if it were deemed that it had not fully thought through the implications in military terms.

The proposal had been approved at a time when the Austrians still seemed assured of the help of an auxiliary corps of about 20,0(X) high-grade Russian troops in Silesia. In the next year, however, the Prussomaniac Peter III came to the throne of Russia, and the auxiliaries were first withdrawn from Austrian command, and then placed at the service of Frederick of Prussia, which left the Austrians relatively 40,000 men worse off compared with October 1761, or 60,000 if we take into account the reductions in the Austrian forces.

If the reductions were indeed inevitable, they would have inflicted less damage than they actually did if they had been carried out predominantly at the expense of the infantry. As it was, the reductions in the cavalry put the Austrians at a decided disadvantage in the campaign of 1762, and in particular restricted their ability to raise fodder and provisions from large tracts of Saxony and Silesia. The only alternatives were to place further contracts with private entrepreneurs, and bring up contributions of fodder at great expense and difficulty from the interior of the monarchy. Since the procurement of fodder and provisions was the greatest single item of wartime expenditure at this period, we must question how far the reduction of the military establishment amounted to a genuine saving overall.

3. The Internal Management of the Military Machine

Armies are the only means of ensuring peace, stability and good order in a state, while at the same time giving stability against external enemies. People who allow themselves to think otherwise are very close to their total destruction. [8]

Kaunitz wrote to Maria Theresa on June 22, 1757, pointing out that some kind of order needed to be introduced into the administration of recruiting - a number of regiments were short of men, while others had so many recruits that they had to be entered as supernumaries; again, there was no proper liason between the Stande (local assemblies of landowners) who raised a high proportion of the recruits, and the regiments who were supposed to send parties at the proper time to pick them up. [9] This item, although of no great importance in itself, is one of hundreds which could be adduced to illustrate the expert technical knowledge of Kaunitz on military administration, and his willingness to attend to detail.

Still more impressive is the Chancellor's grasp of the potentialities and ethos of the Habsburg service. He was the consistent champion of the "Croats", and he was regarded by them in turn as their protector.

Kaunitz maintained that the Croatian light infantrymen were over-exploited, in that they were in constant contact with the enemy in the field, and yet were denied adequate material and tactical support, or any recognition of their courage and endurance. They were simultaneously under-exploited, in the sense that the Croatian military borders offered a reserve of hardy and loyal manpower which, as he argued after the war, could furnish the best base for the expansion of the army. Meanwhile their most immediate need was for good officers.

It was due to Kaunitz that the Austrian army and state were spared the extremes of Prussomania which were to be encountered in other monarchies in the second half of the eighteenth century. Kaunitz was consistant in his views as to what should, and should not be taken over from the military practice of Frederick II of Prussia. He admired and commended the facility with which Frederick moved his armies on the theatre of war and on the battlefield (after all, he and Old Fritz had probably read the same books). At the same time he recognised that Austria could only harm herself by adopting Prussian institutions without any discrimination.

Thus the Prussian cantonal system of recruiting wasobjectionable in its own right, as amounting to 'slavery', and the Prussian ways as a whole were the product of alien conditions. Austria should instead build on her own potential strengths, and on her peculiar military traditions, and which were founded on movement and variety. The Austrian regiments did not dig themselves into a permanent garrison location as in Prussia, but were in periodic movement through the vast monarchy. Kaunitz also identified a strength in the diversity that was to be found in the personnel - the Austrians and Silesians, for example, making good NCOs, while the Bohemians provided the solid stock of the private soldiers. [10]

Something that was present in the Prussian order of things, but totally absent in the Austrian, was the existence of a socio-political class like the Junkers, dedicated to the service of the state. There is evidence to suggest that the shortcoming was recognised by Kaunitz, and that he had a substantial part in creating an ethos of service that was to be a prop of the Habsburg monarchy until its final days.

On January 12, 1757 Maria Theresa, almost certainly on the advice of Kaunitz, announced that nobility would be extended to all officers who had give thirty years of loyal unblemished service. The Military Order of Maria Theresa was instituted just over six months later, which was a further measure calculated to link honour with dedication to the state. The desirability of some kind of order of distinguished military service had been under debate since 1749, but the character of the Military Order of Maria Theresa was almost entirely the creation of Kaunitz. While Emperor Francis Stephen inevitably took the positoin of Grand Master, Kaunitz was appointed "Chancellor", or administrator, which was a notable place of influence for a civilian.

Some of the peculiarities of the Order need to be emphasised. It was in the first place a secular and non-denominational institution, whose heraldry and statutes focused attention on the sovereign, and which was open to Protestants who formed a small, but significant element in the officer corps. Long service and high rank gave no claim to admission, and the criteria were stipulated to be brave deeds or (interestingly enough) bold personal initiatives. Quite astonishing to modern eyes is the provision that candidates could not be recommended by a superior, but must present themselves for admission, and furnish signed attestaions by eyewitnesses. Here was another means by which Kaunitz strove to circumvent the workings of favoritism. These elaborate arrangements maintained the credibility of the award among the officer corps, even if Habsburg-Lorraine family politics dictated that Charles of Lorraine must head the first promotion in 1758.

4. Kaunitz and the Direction of Strategy and Operations

Kaunitz, and indeed no other individual in the monarchy, would have been capable of representing the extreme concentration of military and politicy authority we encounter in the person of Frederick of Prussia. The influence of Kaunitz in the matter of military appointments had to yield before that of Francis Stephen, and Kaunitz never attempted to force a plan of campaign on FieldMarshall Daun against that man's will. [11]

Within these limitations Kaunitz was able to exercise a perceptible influence on the active war effort. He travelled to the headquarters of the main army only once, which was in May 1757 in the crisis immediately after the battle of Prague, but he manoeuvered himself into a position at the heart of Maria Theresa's military counsels. He read most of the important incoming correspondence from the commanders in the field; he prepared and managed the vital debates on military affairs; he concerted with Maria Theresa the instructions and memoranda which were sent to the generals at the end of the process.

Kaunitz was uniquely placed to speak with authority on matters of strategy, the level at which war interacts most immediately with politics. He kept all the relevant developments under constant scrutiny, and they were as diverse as the sea and colonial war between Britain and France, the doings of the Crimean Tartars, and the all-important court politics at Versailles and St. Petersburg.

The Operational Level of War

The Conduct of Individual Campaigns was also of close concern to Kaunitz, who was by no means ignorant of such affairs, as we have seen. He was too much of a pragmatist to bind himself to any one 'system' of war, but he had a sure grasp of military geography and the other fundamentals of campaigning, and he was able to draw attention to the advantages which Frederick derived from the facility of switching his effort between his two axes of operations, along the Elbe and along the Oder.

Kaunitz believed that the Austrian army needed bold and charismatic commanders in order to put forth its full potential. He was confident that he had found one such man in Field-Marshal Maximilian Ulysses Browne, who commanded the main army at the outset of the Seven Years War. Browne in his turn warmed to Kaunitz, in whom he found somebody ' who has great insight, and who has been on campaign himself.' [12]. Another fellow spirit was one of Browne's friends, the cavalry general Joseph Lucchese d'Averna.

Neither Browne nor Lucchese survived the bloody year of 1757, and it was 1760 before Kaunitz was able to cement a new personal alliance, this time with Gideon Ernst Loudon, who had been promoted with unprecedented speed to the rank of full general, and entirely on the strength of his enterprise and 'luck' . Kaunitz had made the first demarche by inviting Loudon to comment on the plans for the forthcoming campaign. Loudon duly sent his observations, and on May 15 he wrote again to Kaunitz, asking permission to correspond with him direct. Thereafter the two remained in constant contact, and Kaunitz gave Loudon every conceivable support in his work of commanding an independent army in Silesia.

Less happy were the relations between Kaunitz and Field-Marshal Daun, who commanded Austria's mainfield army from the spring of 1758 until the end of the war.

Here we come to the heart of a debate which opened when the Seven Years War was still in progress, and which deepened thereafter when the government had to resolve the size and shape of its forces. To a number of military men the shortcomings in Austria's performance were explicable by structural causes, while another body of opinion, led by Kaunitz, preferred to fasten the blame on the inadequacy of military leadership [13], and by implication that of Field-Marshal Daun. Put in such terms, however, the contrast is too stark to serve as an analysis of Austria's performance in the war, where failures in both structure and command were evident, and were indeed inter-related.

The charge against Field-Marshal Daun is that of excessive caution, of failing to make the best use of the considerable resources available to him. He was undeniably lacking in self-confidence. He was aware himself that his best work was done by the end of 1758, and by repeatedly submitting requests to resign he probably wished to absolve Maria Theresa of any feelings of ingratitude she might have felt at relieving him of command. The temptation for us is to identify ourselves with Kaunitz and his assorted proteges, who indeed represented a more 'modern' style of war. The attractions of offensive operations have a way of growing in proportion to thedistance and time which separate one from a theatre of war: to Kaunitz in Vienna they had a strong appeal, and to historians writing two and a half centuries after the event they might well appear irresistible.

The work of a commander must be assessed in relation both to the calibre of his enemy, and the capability of his own forces, and it is not elevating Daun to the status of counter-hero to Loudon and the others to indicate the considerations which weighed the most heavily with him. On the one hand, Daun confronted Frederick, the finest commander of the century, who was at the peak of his powers, and had at his disposal an army which had undergone continuous development since it had been founded by the Great Elector in 1644.

As for his own forces, Daun was better placed than anyone to understand how recent and incomplete was the work of military reform, and how imperfect an instrument he had in the Austrian army, which though much improved in some respects, was divided by class and nationality, and plagued by corruption, insubordination, unprofessionalism and the spirit of faction. The memory of Leuthen throbbed like an open wound, and as a responsible public servant Daun could not expose the monarchy to another savage blow of that kind.

Frederick would have liked nothing better than to take on Daun in the open field, and while he derided the field-marshal in public, he conceded that Daun's fabian strategy was correct. In the event Austria was served well in the later campaigns by the interplay between the cautious proceedings of Daun with the main army, and the bold enterprises of Loudon with his detached forces in Silesia.

Kaunitz's judgment of military capacity was not infallible, as was shown by the record of his proteges. Browne was in a very bad mental and physical state by the spring of 1757, and his failure to read the signs of an imminent Prussian attack precipitated the monarchy into the near-terminal crisis of April-June of that year. Lucchese, the ardent commander of cavalry, led the right wing of the Austrian horse in an ardent enough way at Leuthen, and only converted an Austrian defeat into a catastrophic rout. Loudon himself was still growing in stature and experience as a senior commander.

His extraordinary qualities are more evident to us than they were to some of his contemporaries, who were aware of his prolonged bouts of immobility and near-comic vacillation, and the disorder which reigned in his corps on the retreat through Poland after the campaign of Kunersdorf. It is possible to place too much emphasis on the celebrated report compiled in 1761 by Kaunitz's confidant, Johann Georg Grechtler, who pointed out that Loudon's lack of social weight put him at a severe disadvantage. Loudon could in fact be a difficult roster, and among the men listed by Grechtler as being unwilling to take his orders was Philipp Levin Beck, who was as much a parvenu as Loudon himself.

Count Kaunitz Rietberg, Military Strategist: 1756-1763

Introduction
The Spheres of the Military Activity of Kaunitz
Some Final Assessments