From Fighting Nazis to
Teaching Napoleonic History

An Interview with
Dr. Gunther E. Rothenberg

by June K. Burton

Born in Berlin in 1923, Gunther Rothenberg grew up in an increasingly hostile environment as the Nazis came to power. After emigrating to Palestine he served in the British army during World War II, Rothenberg eventually became a leading professor and expert on Austria before and during the Napoleonic period. Here he candidly surveys his forty- year educational career and combats detractors of the teaching of military history.

Associate Editor June K. Burton conducted this seventh interview in a series highlighting outstanding international French Revolutionary/ Napoleonic era authors. Until his retirement on 30 June 1999, Gunther E. Rothenberg was Professor of History at Purdue University and a world-renowned expert on 18th and 19th Century Habsburg (Austrian) military affairs.

Dr. Rothenberg was born in Berlin in 1923. Prior to becoming a military historian he served in the armies of three countries: the British Army (1941-46); the Israel Defense Force (1947- 48); and the United States Air Force (1949-56). After his military experience, he earned graduate degrees from the University of Chicago (M.A., 1956) and Illinois (Ph.D., 1958). While his teaching career has taken him to Southern Illinois University and the University of New Mexico, he was a Professor of Military History at Purdue University from 1973-1999.

A dedicated scholar, Dr. Rothenberg has reviewed about ninety books and published some forty articles and book chapters. Besides his contributions to five multivolume studies, Dr. Rothenberg has published, edited or co-edited nine books: The Austrian Military Border in Croatia, 1522-1747 (1960); The Military Border in Croatia, 1740-1882 (1966); Die Austerreichische Milititargrenze in Kroatien (1970); The Army of Francis Joseph (1976); The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (1977, 1978, 1980, revised edition 1997; Anatomy of an Army: The Israeli Army, 1948-1978 (1980); as co-editor with B. K. Kiraly, War and Society in Eastern Europe. Special Topics (1979); also co-edited with B. K. Kiraly, East Central European Society and War in the Pre-Revolutionary Eighteenth Century (1982); and Napoleon's Great Adversaries: The Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792-1814 (1982; revised and expanded version in 1995 titled Napoleon's Great Adversary).

Dr. Rothenberg and his wife Ruth, who died unexpectedly in 1992, shared three children. He recently married Dr. Eleanor Hancock, a senior lecturer in German history at Monash University in Clayton, Victoria, Australia, and author of The National Socialist Leadership and Total War, 1941-5 (1991).

How would you compare the state of the historical profession in the U.S. today to when you began your career?

ROTHENBERG: I began my professional career in the United States in 1958 and will in all likelihood retire in June 1999. As I see it, during these forty years the discipline has changed, not necessarily for the better. When I began teaching many colleagues were, like me, World War II veterans. While not many were military historians, historians by and large had a clear conception of their professional identity and taught the subject according to Ranke's dictum "as it really happened." If there were, and still are today, few historians who teach military history exclusively, it was widely recognized that military history was a legitimate field of study.

Men like Theodore Ropp at Duke, Alfred Vagts, a private scholar, and Chester Starr at Illinois were models, who still in the shadow of the great and good war that had ended a decade ago, taught and researched military history as Hans Delbruck called it "within the framework of political history."

Over the years this has changed, a process accelerated by the Vietnam War. Gradually the field lost legitimacy. While it never was as popular a field as in the U.K. or France, it first was challenged by the "New History" and then swamped by "post-modernism," a concept I have not been able to figure out. But worse by far was the introduction of moral judgments into teaching -assertions by self-righteous children of the 60s that teaching military history amounted to advocating militarism. They have demonized colleagues who teach military history and asserted that unless one agreed with their socio-political views, one could not really be a good historian on equal terms with them.

Going further, historians began to doubt that facts mattered and that everything was relative and that new "cutting edge" research could only be done in highly esoteric fields.

Thus, the great change in the last forty years was that many historians no longer attempted to come to grips with the past, but used history as a means to impose their views within a politicized profession by trying to deny legitimacy to other views.

For many military historians in particular the outcome has been that they personally and their subject became marginalized in their profession, and, because they taught a subject perceived as "politically incorrect," even immoral, they have been alienated within their departments. I should perhaps add that this has not been the case every where (Yale, Ohio State, Kansas State, Illinois and a few other schools are among the exceptions).

At the same time, political and diplomatic history, though to a lesser degree, have also come under attack by the post-modernists. I fear that these trends have badly factionalized the historical profession already under constant siege by social scientists of many persuasions.

How do you account for your extraordinary interest in history?

ROTHENBERG: I was born and grew up in Berlin, the son a highly educated and well assimilated Jewish family which for well over a century had links with the civil and military service. (I have a catalog from the University of Jena which lists among its few Honorary Citizens and Doctors both Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, the President of the Republic and my father, Dr. H. C. Erich Rothenberg).

Military matters were often discussed at home and I remember my father, a World War I infantry officer, joking with my uncle, a heavy artillery veteran, arguing that heavy artillerymen were not really combat soldiers. In any case, playing with and collecting toy soldiers are among my earliest memories.

History also was emphasized at high school (German "Gymnasium") where the teachers, predominantly World War I veterans, often Nazi (this was 1933) talked about their experiences, stressed the role of war in history, but, I must admit, were scrupulously correct to the few Jewish students in their classes. Both my family and the school stressed languages - Latin, French, English as well as clear expository writing. My childhood came to an end when the family left Berlin to emigrate to Holland, and I, less optimistic about the transitory nature of the Nazi regime, went to Palestine where I was at once involved in the then clandestine defense activities of the Jewish community. I served in the British Army from early 1941 to 1946, then in Israel, and with my parents having made it out of Holland in 1941 to America, came to the United States in 1949.

Not having completed high school, I nevertheless was accepted by the University of Illinois, and, pressured by the realization that I needed to hurry, completed my Ph.D. in history in 1958.

History never was an abstract matter for me, I lived it and reading about it had already become my greatest avocation. As for my interest in Habsburg (a spelling I much prefer to the anglicized Hapsburg) history, this came about when during World War II, I served with a small raiding force along the Adriatic coast. Most special forces, and indeed most soldiers, do not spend that much time in combat, but rather train and wait almost enlessly (something that is also true for the Napoleonic period), and during one mission we had occupied a small German outpost and, with little to read, I was pleased to find a small library there containing a book on the Austrian Military Border which I read and would remember. War's end found me with the British occupation forces in Carinthia with occasional duties in Vienna, and this deepened my interest in Austrian and Habsburg history.

Nonetheless, when I went to school I wrote my 1956 M.A. thesis at Chicago on the Indian fighting army (influenced by a short tour in the American Southwest which I love), but was told by Professor Louis Gottschalk, a great historian but no friend of military history per se, that I was wasting my linguistic talents on "cowboys and Indians." While I was offered a continuing fellowship at Chicago, he suggested that if I wanted to do military history I ought to work with Chester Starr at Illinois. I took his advice.

I went through the Ph.D. program at Illinois in two years including my dissertation for which, research having established that there was nothing in English, I chose the topic of The Austrian Military Border in Croatia, 1522-1740 (published in 1960). By then I was hooked and with support from the Guggenheim Foundation researched and published my second book on the Military Border in 1966. By then I was thoroughly at home in the splendid Kriegsarchiv in Vienna where I had been given free run of the place including open access into the document stacks.

This was a great experience. There were old desks in the stacks which, when you pulled out a drawer might yield manuscript fragments, drafts, old seals and the like. It almost was as if the old army was still alive and called on me to continue my research into the history of the Habsburg army.

And so, how did you move into Napoleonica?

ROTHENBERG: The French Revolutionary-Napoleonic period was at that time not a major interest, though by then I had already been teaching courses on military history for a number of years and clearly Napoleon was one of the dominant figures. At this point, in 1975, my friend Peter Paret, then at Stanford, called me and asked if I would write a book on The Art of War in the Age of Napoleon for an old well-established English publisher. I was eager to branch out and agreed. The book was written within a little more than a year, and published in 1976 has remained in print, republished several times until today.

After that, my publishers asked me to do a book on the Israeli army, which I did in 1979-80, but then returned to the Napoleonic period. In particular I was astonished that the achievements of the Habsburg armies had been much underrated. There was little in English save for Petre, and yet, between 1792 and 1815 they always had the largest force in the field. As Albert Sorel, I think, wrote, and I paraphrase: frequently defeated, they always rose to fight again; always one idea and one army behind, they always had an idea and an army. The result was my book about the Archduke Charles, written in 1981 and published the following year, republished in 1995.

I never regarded myself as a specialist in the Revolutionary- Napoleonic period, but as a military historian (albeit European and American). I know almost nothing about Asia, though as you can see I wrote on a number of European topics from the early 16th into the current century. Among my essays, chapters, and articles I regard the two published in Makers of Modern Strategy as the most significant. Neither deals with the Napoleonic period and only marginally with Austria, but I liked doing them because they broadened my horizon.

Also, I normally have taught my military history courses along a broad spectrum and have not concentrated on the Napoleonic period. Thus doing research in several fields has helped. I believe that teaching a specialized field to large undergraduate classes is not helpful, though my seminars and colloquia have often dealt with topics from the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period. I should emphasize that I stress operations, army institutions, tactics, weapons, and what might be called the military ethos against a political background, but, perhaps unfortunately, lack interest and competence in cultural and economic matters.

What can you tell us about the new Napoleonic book you have been working on?

In early 1997 Weidenfeld & Nicolson of London (since joined with Hachette, Paris, to form the Orion Pubishing Group), undertook to publish a series of 24 volumes, entitled The History of Warfare. The overall editor of the series is John Keegan and the themes covered stretch from Antiquity to the Present including land, sea, and air operations, as well as military thought. Each 224-page volume is to be lavishly illustrated and liberally furnished with maps, some in 3-D format showing topographical features.

I have undertaken Volume 12, The Napoleonic Wars, which stresses throughout the main principles of Napoleonic Warfare, strategy and tactics, as seen in his major campaigns. It also covers the efforts of his adversaries to counter his new pattern, usually by modifying their forces. Both the background of his armies and the causes of his eventual defeat are explored.

The volume is restricted to war on land; another volume will cover warfare in the Age of Sail. The volume The Napoleonic Wars is now completed and is to appear later this year.

[Ed. note: This is a completely new book and not a revised edition of Rothenberg's Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon.]

Can you tell us more about your military experience and how it affected you as a historian?

ROTHENBERG: I enlisted in the British army in April 1941, was trained and served as a foot soldier, infantry and reconnaissance, and served in the Western Desert and Libya. Wounded before Tripoli I missed the Tunisian campaign and Sicily. Wounded again at Salerno, I was then transferred to special forces, did para[troop] school near Rome, participated in a number of small raids. At the close of the war I was transferred to the Intelligence Corps.

I served as a platoon commander before and during Israel's War of Independence [19481, and lacking civilian skills and education, served in the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, including some time in Korea. I was discharged in 1956, having by this time completed my B.A. Since then I have kept up some connection with the military and my youngest daughter is a major in the U.S. Army, a helicopter pilot and operations officer. I feel more comfortable among soldiers than among academics, especially those of the new breed.

I do not, however, care much for war stories, especially combat stories. Those who were in the line rarely talk about them and in any case a soldier's life in the lower ranks consists of 9/10ths boredom and at best 1/10th action where again moments of terror are mixed with moments of elation. But telling stories is not my metier.

However, I learned enough to know that the memoirs by senior officers, say Marbot, are largely inventions and that even archival accounts, such as after actions reports, do not give an accurate picture. Battles are not neat nor do they, with few exceptions, conform to plan (Austerlitz may be an exception here) and the sources often tend to show the victor in a better light, while the defeated stress their inferior numbers, defects in weaponry, etc.

As a non-commissioned officer, I certainly learned nothing about strategy and little about tactics. I already was proficient with small arms, and learned something about mechanized war; I saw the importance of logistics, and above all I realized the importance of morale, self- esteem, and small unit cohesion as it is now called. For a soldier in the ranks these are the important matters and that experience transcends time. I am sure that they were important factors in all wars, including the Napoleonic.

Finally, my experience of service and war did not influence my choice to become a military historian; that dated back to my childhood.

Who are some of your outstanding students?

ROTHENBERG: Perhaps the most outstanding were Paul Lockhart who wrote and published a book on Denmark in the Thirty Years War, Christopher Bassford who published Clausewitz in English (Oxford University Press), and Frederick Schneid, Soldiers of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy; Army, State and Society, 1800-1818 (Westview /Harper Collins). Moreover, many have published articles and essays.

Who do you think are today's leading Napoleonic scholars/writers in the US and abroad?

ROTHENBERG: Including the Revolutionary as well as the Napoleonic period, I would mention in the U.S., in no particular order and excluding the War of 1812, John Lynn, Harold Parker, Owen Connelly, Don Horward, Peter Paret, Frederick Schneid, Robert Epstein, Christopher Bassford, Col. John Elting, S. F. Scott, and Simon Schama. In the U.K. I would include T. W. C. Blanning, David Chandler, Christopher Duffy, Jeremy Black, M. Glover and C. Esdaile, and the work of the Australian Rory Muir. In France there are jean Tulard and J. P. Bertaud. In Austria there is M. Rauchensteiner and Kurt Peball, and in Germany Hans Schmidt.

These are, of course, personal choices of historians whose work has influenced me, I have left out many others. In general military history I have the greatest respect and admiration for Sir Michael Howard, scholar, teacher, and soldier.

Looking back over your education, preparation and career, would you change anything if you could relive it?

ROTHENBERG: While, of course, I grieve for the lives lost in the Holocaust and the wars that followed, in the words of Edith Piaf, Je ne regrette rien. I lived as I had to, I made use of what opportunities I had, and I am proud to have, in Churchill's words, "marched with the Eighth Army to Tripoli."

Do you have any advice for young scholars just entering the field?

ROTHENBERG: As for advice for young historians I would say: Be prepared to enter an overcrowded, factionalized, and not too well paid field. To succeed you will have to spend long hours preparing lectures, advising students, and doing research. For research you will need several languages, including German, French, and a Slavic language.

Latin helps, but with French alone you should be able to figure out Spanish and Italian. Above all, regard history as a vocation and not just as a job.

Despite the fact that so much has already been written on the subject, do opportunities for research and popularization exist today?

ROTHENBERG: Yes, the history of east-central and southeastern Europe in the Napoleonic period is still scanty and the archives in Vienna, Zagreb, and Warsaw are good. Another neglected field is the history of the various German states - say Bavaria or Baden. I have worked in the small but extremely user-friendly Bavarian Kriegsarchiv in Munich and there is an excellent military library in nearby Ingolstadt.

Finally, the last word has not been said about the Peninsular War and, for instance, I am not aware of anything in English on the Cadiz junta and, with British support, its successful defense of the port throughout the years of the French. Women who followed the drum have been neglected, not just the vivandieres [canteen-keepers] but all the many others who followed their men throughout the campaigns.

Do you think that military history ought to be included in history curricula today?

ROTHENBERG: Trotsky once observed that "you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." In a democracy, informed citizens should have a basic knowledge of what military power can do and what it cannot do. This is not old fashioned, but if by war we mean the Clausewitzian dictum that it is "the continuation of policy by other means" and that war runs the entire spectrum of violence, then it is as actual today as it ever was and remains a vital part of a university education.

Does Napoleonic military history provide us with any principles that remain relevant today - in this age of technological warfare?

ROTHENBERG: The answer here is yes. Certain principles of warfighting, mind you not hard and fast rules, can and are actually learned from military history They include simple, but also complex maneuvers for which I shall select examples from the Napoleonic period.

First off you need a strong manpower and industrial base (to provide for a critical mass), then you need means (roads, canals) to bring the troops to the battlefield in accordance with a general war plan (intent), which Napoleon conceived as leading to a decisive battle.

In battle there were a number of options (operational orders), to fix the enemy, damage his center by fire and push through (Borodino). Frontal attacks were costly and therefore Napoleon always would try to engage the attention of the enemy frontally while one or more corps would sweep around to the flank(s). If successful this would threaten the enemy's main line of communications and force him to retreat (second day of Wagram).

If there was no time or maneuver room, he often would try to fix the enemy, while concentrating his main thrust against one or the other flank (this maneuver was executed also by Frederick the Great at Leuthen and, of course, by Napoleon at Austerlitz). The best option, already embodied in the original intent was to get behind the enemy with a view of cutting him off and encircling him (the maneuver on Ulm).

These general principles are still valid today as are lesser points such as gaining intelligence of the enemy's strength and location, the temper of his generals, morale of his troops, nature of the terrain and the like.

These applicable lessons are taught at higher military schools and are but examples of what can be derived from history. Moltke the Elder, a great strategist, always held that history is one of the best teaching devices for staff officers.

The latest example of applying the lessons of history was the Gulf War when U.S. VII and XVIII Corps outflanked the Iraqi defenses and appeared from the west (behind their fixed defenses) badly damaging the Republican Guard divisions. That this did not lead to a total encirclement and destruction of the enemy forces was due to a political not a military decision.

Military history also sheds light on the relationships between the soldier, the state, and society. Finally, officership is a profession and professionals must be aware of their past. At a lower level, knowledge about a unit's past performance will raise morale and combat performance of the troops.

None of these matters are negated by modern technology; the means may well change, but the principles remain intact.

Do you ever play wargames or simulations?

ROTHENBERG: Table top games with miniature figures can be useful in envisaging tactics, column, line, skirmishers, massed batteries and the like. One must, however, realize that many rules are overly pedantic and written by buffs who seem to believe that particular regulations actually were followed in battle.

Who do you think were the greatest Habsburg commanders of all time?

ROTHENBERG: This is easy to answer. Prince Eugene, Archduke Charles, and Radetzky. Charles, alas, was fatally flawed and would not play in the big league. Radetzky won outstanding victories against the Piedmontese-Italians under trying circumstances. Perhaps one should include Wallenstein, a great general perhaps better than Gustavus, but of dubious lovalty to the Habsburgs.

Who do you feel were the worst?

ROTHENBERG: There is a plethora of incompetent Austrian generals. My particular scapegoats include the Archduke John who, admittedly only 18, in late November 1800 advanced against Moreau in Bavaria. Having neglected adequate reconnaissance, he fell into a trap crossing the Hohenlinden forest east of Munich and on 3 December was badly defeated.

Again, in command of the Army of Inner Austria in 1809, John moved into the Kingdom of Italy, and on 16 April was attacked by Viceroy Eugene [Napoleon's stepson] at Sacile, and threw him back. He then failed to conduct an energetic pursuit, allowing the French- Italians to rally. Recalled to support the defeated main army, John conducted a competent retreat into Hungary where on 14 June he was defeated at Raab.

Retreating north, John's army, perhaps better designated a corps, reached Pressburg. The night before the first day at Wagram, Archduke Charles sent him an urgent message to join his left wing on the Marchfeld. Charles expected John to arrive the next day.

The message was delayed, reached John next morning and then it took him 18 hours to get his troops moving. He finally made his appearance at 4:00 in the afternoon of the second day, when Charles was already withdrawing, and did not come into action. Perhaps even his appearance on the first day might not have gained Charles a victory, and after noon on the second day Napoleon was winning the battle. Intervention by the roughly 10,000 men under John would not have changed the outcome, but John's performance was poor indeed. He had been tardy executing the initial order to move, then moved slowly, and did not speed up when he heard the sound of the guns.

My second candidate is Feldmarschall-Leutnant Prince Auersperg, brought out of retirement during the war of 1805, to command a reserve corps assigned to defend the Tabor Bridge (a number of wooden structures, connecting causeways carrying the main road to Bohemia across some branches of the Danube) just north of Vienna. Count Wrbna, Imperial Commissioner for Vienna, was negotiating with the French and on 11-12 November had persuaded Auersperg not to demolish the "bridge". On 13 November the French under Lannes and Murat, declaring that an armistice had been signed, pushed troops across the well-guarded bridge which also had been prepared for demolition.

Arriving at the bridge Auersperg was met by Murat who assured him that because of the (alleged) armistice he would allow the Austrians to withdraw. Auersperg complied, though he sent messages to warn Kutuzov. The entire episode was a failure of intellect and will, and it also revealed a rather dark underside of the Austrian war effort.

And then, of course, there was Mack. The War of 1805, of course, brings into prominence Feldmarschall Leutnant Karl Leiberich Baron Mack, "the unlucky Mack" of Ulm. Grandiose in his plans, presumptuous, vain, incapable of decisions, romantic and pedantic at the same time, wavering between rashness and irresolution, and unlucky for good measure he had been elevated to a decision-making position over the opposition of Archduke Charles.

Appointed chief of the Quartermaster-General Staff (the General Staff) and actual commander of the Army in Germany, he invaded Bavaria on 5 September and rapidly pushed it west to Ulm where between 25 September and 20 October 1805 his army was surrounded by Napoleon's new Grande Armee, and, cut off from its supposed Russian support, surrendered on 20 October.

The list could easily go on, but I think is adequate to illustrate the shortcomings of Habsburg senior military appointments. Too young, too old, too political - credit for the undoubted fine performance of the army must go to the lower ranking officers and the men who kept fighting after being defeated time after time.

Archduke Charles never commanded troops again after the 1809 campaign. Why was arguably Austria's best general of the period held out of the war in 1813-1814?

ROTHENBERG: Charles had been defeated at Wagram, in part, it must be admitted because of shortcomings in his command and control system. The advance ordered for early the second day had to be coordinated, yet they had been issued too late to reach the most distant corps, III and VI, to participate in time. Even so, VI Corps (Klenau) might have reached the vital bridges, but having retaken Aspern-Essling it halted, Klenau had no further orders.

When this effort collapsed, Napoleon regained the initiative and shortly after noon Davout took the extreme left of the Austrian position while Macdonald was launched against the center and Massena had stabilized the left. John's intervention before noon might have changed the situation, but only perhaps. In any case, as always determined to save his army - the main pillar of the dynasty - Charles ordered an orderly withdrawal.

None of the Austrian commanders showed much distinction, Charles never took them into his confidence and he did not reveal his overall battle plan. Also, more concerned with preserving his army, he had left too large a reserve. Finally, given that the troops had fought well, Charles issued a most ungracious order, blaming his corps commanders and troops for the defeat. "With some exceptions" he wrote, "I am not satisfied with the conduct of infantry."

There had been too much shouting and individual actions. Officers had not been able to impose discipline. In the future, he threatened colonels commanding either would control their regiments or be cashiered, their officers dismissed, and the rank and file decimated. This outburst lost Charles the support of the army

It also should be noted that Charles was held in some suspicion by his imperial brother [Emperor Francis I] and civilian ministers. He was not culturally a francophile, but never was willing to risk the army to gain a decisive victory. He had advocated peace in 1797 and had repeatedly, in 1804 and 1808, opposed war with France, pointing out that Britain had not sent an army to the Danube since Marlborough and that the real danger to the dynasty came from Russia.

He was apparently willing to come to some arrangement with Napoleon. During the retreat from Bavaria in 1809 he apparently tried to negotiate an accommodation with Napoleon, sending him a most abject message suggesting that perhaps "Fortune has chosen me to assure a durable peace for my country" and closing by telling Napoleon that "My ambition has always led me towards you and I shall be equally honored, Sire, to meet you either with the sword or the olive branch."

Under suspicion at court, actively disliked by senior commanders, and being mistrusted by the troops, it was only reasonable that he should not be appointed to senior command in 1813 even though Tsar Alexander suggested it.

Charles was on bad terms with his older brother who, like all Habsburg rulers since Ferdinand II, feared the rise of another Wallenstein. Charles also always was on bad terms with the Austrian war council which, with considerable justice, he regarded as a bureaucratic and calcified body. But, as I pointed out previously, Charles was hardly free of major faults and his ego-centric behavior alienated his officers and men after Wagram.

For all that, he largely wasted his first four years as supreme commander (1800-1804) on bureaucratic reform and too little on combat effectiveness. He did better before 1809, though here, after backing war, he was shaken and later claimed that he had never favored it.

In any case, he first deployed his army in Bohemia to thrust into central Germany, then shifted the entire deployment to the Danube, losing three weeks in the process. This gave Napoleon time to issue orders for concentration, throw troops into Germany, and arrive on the Danube in time to defeat Charles who had been delayed for a crucial day by Lefebvre and his Bavarians forming the VII Corps.

Austrian Prince Schwarzenberg has been compared to American General Dwight Eisenhower in that he was primarily a "political" general who successfully led a multinational coalition to victory in 1813 and 1814. What is your assessment of his abilities? Do you feel that his sluggish performance in 1814 was politically motivated?

ROTHENBERG: As Clausewitz pointed out all wars are basically political acts and defined by their political objectives. Prince Schwarzenberg can indeed be compared to General Eisenhower, though he also was quite a competent field commander.

He clearly operated under political constraints and was aware that the Austrian field army of 1813-14 represented the last effort by a force that, with little pause, had been at war against the French Revolution and Napoleon since 1792. In fact, it was he who persuaded Vienna in the late winter of 1813 to authorize an advance into France and if (mainly Prussian) historians have called it old-fashioned and timid, Schwarzenberg served the objectives of Austrian policy that neither desired to rout Napoleon nor achieve needless and bloody victories. Moreover, Schwarzenberg was careful to repress looting and plunder to avoid the possible outbreak of popular resistance.

How would you assess Austria's foreign policy in 1813, when they abandoned neutrality and joined the war against Napoleon after the summer armistice? Did Austria's focus on Italy cause them the ultimate loss of influence in Germany?

ROTHENBERG: The French disaster in Russia changed the entire political-military situation. While some, mainly German-Austrian, patriots felt that Austria should at once join Prussia, Russia, and Britain to overthrow Napoleon (and to that end Archduke John tried to organize a popular uprising in the alpine areas), Chancellor Metternich did not share their feelings.

For one he was opposed to popular nationalist uprisings (he was chief minister of a multi-national monarchy) and he also felt that by acting too soon, her army depleted and her finances in ruins, premature action would lead to the replacement of French by Russian hegemony in Germany. He therefore authorized initially covert and later open mobilization.

Having assembled a substantial army in Bohemia, nearly 200,000 and another, about 37,000 ready for action in Italy, and with both the French and the opposing Allies exhausted, he formally renounced his French alliance and proposed an armistice, signed on 4 June and extended to 10 August.

Given French exhaustion, the Allies gained more from the armistice. At the same time Austrian mobilization went slowly; there was a major shortage of clothing, boots, equipment. On 26 June Metternich personally met with Napoleon to explore any chance of the Emperor accepting Austria's demand - namely to evacuate Germany.

When the Emperor refused, Austria joined the Allies and by contributing the largest single contingent, was able to name the supreme commander - Schwarzenberg. His chief of staff - Radetzky - came up with the so-called Trachenberg plan based on attrition. Aware that no allied army could defeat Napoleon by itself, the plan called for avoiding major battle until Napoleon was weakened and all the Allied armies could operate jointly By October 1813 this had made Austria, at least temporarily, the leading continental power east of the Rhine.

Some have argued that Austria was the big "loser" of the Napoleonic Wars and Treaty of Vienna in 1815. What is your opinion?

ROTHENBERG: No. I would not say that Austria was the "big loser" at Vienna. It prevented Prussia from absorbing Saxony and, at least temporarily, restricted Russian influence in Poland. France remained a major power, balancing the continent. Eventually, of course, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars advanced nationalism and it was this, together with delayed industrialization and poor finances, that reduced the posture of the Habsburg Monarchy. Even so, it maintained itself until 1918 and it fell apart only a few weeks before much more homogeneous Germany.

Given a victory by Napoleon at Waterloo, and the political conflict with Prussia and Russia over Poland, do you believe Austria would have prosecuted an invasion of France in 1815?

ROTHENBERG: Assuming a victory by Napoleon at Waterloo and political conflict with Prussia over Poland (and Saxony), I think Austrian operations would have been limited. Unless compelled to fight by Napoleonic actions, Austria would have favored a compromise peace. If war had continued the Austrians would have assumed a defensive posture in the Rhineland.

If Napoleon had been victorious at Waterloo I still think that Austria would have agreed to an acceptable peace, though for how long any such situation would have lasted is another question.

What is your assessment of Napoleon? Do you agree with the view that he was a "great, bad man"?

ROTHENBERG: Yes, I would agree with the widely held opinion that Napoleon was a "great, bad man" though hardly much worse than many of his contemporaries, just infinitely more able.

More Rothenberg

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