Despite the mental weakness of Franz’s son Ferdinand, Metternich supported his accession, perhaps also convinced that this young man, perceived by the Archduke John as ‘wholly incapable of decisive action’, would allow Metternich to run the affairs of state with the minimum of interference. Indeed, Metternich proceeded to personify the system that now governed most of Central and Eastern Europe far more than the Emperor.

Ferdinand’s reign witnessed huge encroachments by the ‘apparatus of the state’, with police informers and surveillance reaching levels that would be achieved in Central Europe only in totalitarian states a century later. It was a tribute to the popularity of the half-wit Emperor’s predecessor that this unhappy state of affairs lasted thirteen years before there was an explosion. As the Archduke Albert wrote of Ferdinand’s reign, ‘It could not have lasted a year had not his predecessor enjoyed an unimpeachable position.’

The ‘tyranny’ that was reported to have descended on the Empire was much exaggerated by liberal opinion, especially in England. The remarkable memoirs of The Times correspondent of the day, Charles Pridham, describe vividly how the machinery of a police state was mobilised to watch and monitor his every move as he attempted to get to Hungary to cover events there. From Vienna to Trieste he was treated to every conceivable measure of surveillance and official delay, worthy indeed of the wiles of the Eastern European communists in their dealings with correspondents a hundred and forty years later. But for the help of the British Consul in Trieste, who certainly defied the instructions of his Ambassador in Vienna, the supine and ‘pragmatic’ Ponsonby, he would almost certainly never have made it into Hungary at all.

But though a price was eventually placed on his head by the infamously severe General Haynau, Pridham suffered no physical violence and it was somehow typical of the Metternich era that, despite the furious cries of journalists and writers against the reign of censorship and confiscation, none was ever imprisoned or physically attacked for attempting to subvert the rules. There were no ‘show trials’. No records of torture during the Metternich period, of individuals disappearing or of incarceration without due process of law, exist.

Because the revolutionary events of 1848 affected the structure of the army directly, they also threatened the existence of the dynasty. Conditions in Vienna and Budapest suggested strongly that the fiction of the Emperor Ferdinand’s reign be abandoned. The generals who were loyal to the dynasty awaited orders from Vienna but from the Emperor there came nothing. When Ferdinand went for a carriage ride, against the advice of his courtiers, and saw the angry Viennese crowd jeering, he mistook it for innocent emotional excess. ‘Ma Liebe Wärner! Schauens die oan! So a Stuam!’ (‘My darling Viennese! Just look at them. How excited they get’), he observed in broad Viennese dialect, utterly unperturbed. On another occasion when following a riot a stray cow found its way into the Hofburg courtyards, he looked down from a window languidly commenting to his horrified aides: ‘That must be the first stupid cow to get into this palace without the help of any nepotism’ (‘ohne Protection’).

Fortunately for the dynasty, the moment brought forth the men. Three distinguished soldiers emerged who, keeping their nerve, would ensure the survival of the House of Austria. When the Emperor said Wir (We), cynics joked that each letter stood for one of his generals. Chief among these was a man in his 83rd year whom we have already encountered on the battlefields of Europe a generation earlier: Field Marshal Johann Josef Wenzel, Count Radetzky von Radec. As we have observed, there was nothing in Radetzky’s career to suggest that he would for a moment either surrender or give up the struggle for the Habsburgs. His greatest support was his popularity among his soldiers but also – and this is rarely referred to – among the Italian peasantry. These saw him as a guardian against the pretensions of their Italian aristocratic landlords and the intellectual musings of the Milanese middle classes whose ambitions carried no weight among the simple ‘contadini’; a class division repeated throughout the monarchy.

Documents found recently in the USA indicate that Radetzky was not the simple reactionary that he is sometimes painted. As a young man he had embraced the Enlightenment ideals of the Josephinian era and had been one of the first young officers of the Imperial army to join a Masonic lodge.

A strong conviction that progress was to be welcomed never left Radetzky. His support for those less fortunate than himself assisted many military careers, notably Benedek’s. At the same time his human frailties endeared him to his Italian soldiers who knew the rumours (perfectly true) of his many illegitimate children and of his long, passionate and affectionate affair with his Italian housekeeper, Giudita Meregalli, who was equally devoted to him. Such a lifestyle was expensive and it was Radetzky’s tragedy to be married to a wife who sought refuge from her husband’s many infidelities in the relentless pursuit of material and costly luxuries. In 1798, he had married the rather stiff Friulan Countess Strassoldo. In eighteen years she had dutifully borne him eight children and, from 1805, two-thirds of every florin Radetzky earned were sent straight to Gorizia for his wife and family’s needs, 4,000 out of 6,000 florins, according to one letter from Radetzky to his favourite daughter, Friederike Wenckheim. In 1816, the General only staved off bankruptcy by pledging his debtors half of his future income. Even when he was made a Field Marshal in 1836, the financial worries did not cease.

In addition to his eight children with Countess Strassoldo, only two of whom would outlive him, the general had commitments with his Italian Signora Meregalli. She was a voluptuous, capable woman whose simplicity, warmth and charm were all any soldier could wish for. Milanese history has embroidered her character with many details but all the contemporary sources are agreed that she was a formidable cook. She had ‘conquered’ the old general with, among other gifts, her ravishing culinary skills, not least her gnocchi di zucca and cotoletta alla Milanese, a dish later exported to Vienna where it became the ubiquitous Wiener Schnitzel.

She too bore him eight children, five sons and three daughters, all of whom Radetzky recognised as his own and whom he supported financially. Nor was the soldier’s relationship with Signora Meregalli limited to domestic issues. When he was away from Lombardy he wrote regularly about the political situation in Europe generally. These letters show that he did not for a moment underestimate his Italian cook’s intelligence. In one, he noted that it would be just his luck to be posted to Bohemia when it was his real wish ‘with all his heart’ to return to Italy. He deplored London’s continual support for Italian revolution, writing to his daughter Friederike: ‘As long as England does not stop to lead the campaign to destroy Europe, there will not be any peace.’

For Radetzky, Signora Meregalli was also a vital source of information on what the Italians were thinking. Her connections with the leaders of the Lombard rebels have never been proven, though they are alluded to in Italian texts. In any event, as Radetzky’s letters of March 1848 show, he knew the explosion was coming; that Piedmont was rearming and that all the warning signs were there. These warnings he conscientiously passed on to Vienna but his superiors filed them unread, being distracted by events nearer to home.

The Italians needed little encouragement to rise up. The Milanese intellectuals, excited by Piedmontese and British propaganda, seized weapons and began to menace the garrison. Confronted by an armed uprising, Radetzky knew he had to move swiftly. After five days of attacks he brought his forces out of Milan. The Imperial troops marched out of the city on a wet and windy night. The cannons roared and the clatter of rifle fire filled the night, illuminated as it was by the flames of the burning buildings. As Radetzky’s advance guard punched a hole through the thin revolutionary forces holding the Porta Romana, the troops marched along the Lodi road past the motionless figure of their commander, who was watching with his small staff on horseback in the torrential rain of a thunderstorm. The rain poured off his hat and coat and, though drenched to the skin, the Field Marshal, motionless and calm, watched his men. Finally when almost the last soldiers had passed, Radetzky was heard to say ‘Wir kehren wieder’ (‘We’ll be back’) before riding off into the rainy night.

As Radetzky retired into the formidable ‘Quadrilateral’ of fortresses: Verona, Mantua, Legnano and Peschiera, the only good news seemed to come from Tyrol, where the aged priest and veteran of 1809 Haspinger and the grandsons of Andreas Hofer had marched towards Mantua to avenge their grandfather’s death. Haspinger’s beard was now no longer red but silver white.

The fortifications Radetzky found on regaining the Quadrilateral were in a parlous state. In Verona some outworks were held only by three or four men. In Peschiera there was a garrison of fewer than 41 men, of whom 17 were officially classed as invalids. But the old Marshal was undeterred. From here he tore up the Italian peace overtures and made preparations to destroy his opponents. He had trained his troops over the previous years and he knew their quality. As early as 1833, he had written a paper for the Archduke John on the possibilities of defensive campaigning with Verona rather than the Mincio river as the key to his strategy. The experienced soldier knew every inch of the territory and he had fought many campaigns against far more deadly foes.

Windischgrätz and Jellačić

  

Prince Windischgrätz

 Josef Jellačić von Buzim

While Radetzky prepared his counter-offensive, two other Habsburg generals moved to support the throne. The first of these was Prince Windischgrätz, a general very much of the reactionary school with a heavy, brutal face while the second was, perhaps, the most romantic of all Austrian generals of the mid-nineteenth century, the Croat, Josef Jellačić von Buzim. Together with Radetzky, the three made up with the initials of their surnames the Imperial and Royal WIR (the I and J were interchangeable). If the Kaiser used the royal We (Wir), he meant Windischgrätz, Jellačić, Radetzky – his three generals.

It was Windischgrätz who subdued Prague and then came back to deal with Vienna. The experience in Prague had hardened him even more. A few yards from the famous ‘Powder Tower’, he had seen his wife shot by the mob before his eyes. This tragedy persuaded him to suggest yet more radical steps. It was clear to Windischgrätz that the existing Kaiser was simply not up to the challenges of the moment. Metternich had fled Vienna. But Vienna was not Berlin; Austria was no Prussia where the army could take over. It existed to serve the dynasty, not to replace it.

‘We need a Kaiser we can show the soldiers,’ Windischgrätz told his brother-in-law Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, nephew of the victor of Leipzig in 1813. The obvious candidate was the young Archduke Franz-Josef, barely turned 18 and known as the ‘Flower of the Habsburgs’. The boy was manly, a keen equestrian and a splendid-looking officer. But before the abdication of Ferdinand could even be thought of in practical terms, a number of Habsburg family members would need to be persuaded, and this would take time.

The situation in Vienna certainly called for desperate measures. In October, the Imperial family had to move to Olmütz for the second time. The mob had stormed the Arsenal and, in an act worthy of the worst excesses of the French Revolution, had hacked the hapless Latour to death, stringing up his body from a nearby lamp-post, still alive. In March, Metternich, the erstwhile ‘Coachman of Europe’ had already made his discreet exit from Vienna and politics hidden in a laundry basket.

Meanwhile the Hungarian rebellion was in full cry. The Hungarians wanted a constitution and demanded that all Habsburg troops stationed on Hungarian territory should swear allegiance to the Constitution rather than the Habsburg monarch. To make matters even more complex, the Hungarian troops were scattered throughout the realm. Of the twelve Hussar regiments only six were on Hungarian soil. Many were with Radetzky, and the last thing he needed was their marching off to defend their constitution. While he permitted some Hussar officers to return, the majority of the troops opted to remain. His troops, including several regiments made up of Italians, were loyal.

Determined to seize the opportunity presented by the rather indifferent quality of the Piedmontese troops ranged against him, Radetzky was thunderstruck by a request from Ferdinand, now in Innsbruck, to make peace with the Italians. Radetzky urged the young Prince Schwarzenberg to travel to the Imperial court immediately to have the decision rescinded.

Radetzky had often contemplated the action he now faced and had made the following manoeuvre the basis of many earlier exercises. As he recalled: ‘An enemy army from the west pursues a much weaker Austrian Army across the Mincio and occupies the heights of Sommacampagna but the Austrian army retires on Verona and there reinforced resumes the offensive.’ This plan became reality for Radetzky.

On 28 April, 30,000 Piedmontese troops attacked 6,000 Austrians at Pastrengo and were swiftly beaten back in a short, sharp and defensive action, which would set the trend for the following weeks.

On 6 May the Piedmontese attacked again with a numerical superiority of 3:1 at Santa Lucia where the 10th Jaeger battalion under Colonel Karl von Kopal, together with a battalion of the Erzherzog Sigismund infantry regiment, mostly made up of Italians, took up a strong defensive position. Two companies of the Jaeger defended the cemetery, where the fighting raged for hours. The two battalions held off and defeated three Piedmontese brigades in an action which showed that, in the hands of the right officers, Italian troops loyal to the Habsburgs were a formidable instrument against their confrères. However, it did not all go Radetzky’s way. Three weeks later the Austrian Tuscan division was defeated at Curtatone, and Peschiera, still weakly held, fell to the Piedmontese.

Suvarov’s disciples, notably Pyotr Bagration and Mikhail Kutuzov, strove to maintain the reforms he had brought, but the short, reactionary reign of Paul I (1796- 1801) undermined the foundations of the army. The son of Catherine II, Paul was raised largely by his grandmother, Elizabeth I, and her trusted minister, Nikolai Panin. Upon his ascent, Paul set about reversing many of Catherine’s policies. He replaced the army’s cheap and comfortable uniforms, which were distinctly Russian and eminently practical, with Prussian- style parade uniforms. Paul was also fond of parade and drill, and in 1796 he introduced The Infantry Codes, a set of instructions that focused on discipline, formation, and the outward appearance of both soldier and unit. Suvarov had largely ignored them, but common soldiers did so at their peril, for Paul was also an advocate of corporal punishment. His choice for quarter-master general, Alexis Arakcheev, so shared this temperament that during 1798 several units mutinied and an officer committed suicide rather than follow his orders.

Deprived of his offices upon the murder of Paul I, Arakcheev was soon reinstated and provided useful services to the new emperor, Alexander I. The damage had largely been done though; during Paul’s reign, the upper echelons had become corrupt, and officers, largely drawn from the upper nobility, cared little for the soldiers and knew less of military strategies and tactics. The Russian armies that fought Napoleon at Austerlitz, Eylau, and Friedland performed admirably in the face of such difficulties, but were defeated in the end. Alexander signed the Treaty of Tilsit in July 1807, which pledged Russia to support the Continental System against Great Britain. Russia also lost the Ionian Islands, and had to evacuate the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia.

During Russia’s brief interval of peace, Alexander and Arakcheev worked to reform the army. Taking the lessons of Austerlitz, Arakcheev had already introduced reforms to the artillery known as the “System of 1805”; this reorganization deployed 6- and 12- pound guns throughout the army, and created light and heavy foot artillery battalions that operated independently. He further improved officer training, and issued a new series of regulations that incorporated many of Suvarov’s ideas. Promoted to minister of defense in 1808, Arakcheev improved the army’s supply operations, and the grading of the general staff. During the Patriotic War of 1812, he supervised army recruiting and managed supply.

Alexander I’s turn back to the enlightened military ideals of Suvarov appeared of little worth in the early stages of the Patriotic War. Under the command of Field Marshal Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly the Russian armies fell steadily back before the onslaught of Napoleon’s 500,000- man Grande Armée . Tolly made a brief stand at Smolensk in August 1812, but left the city smoldering and resumed the retreat, scorching the earth to deny the French ready supply. After three months of avoiding battle, Tolly was replaced with Kutuzov, who practiced similar tactics. Kutuzov had the good fortune- or cleverness- to engage Napoleon outside of Moscow at Borodino, however, just before winter was to arrive. The Russians arguably lost the battle, with Kutuzov leaving the field that evening having suffered some 40,000 casualties from a force of about 150,000, but it was there that Napoleon lost the war. When he departed Moscow at the end of October, the French emperor found Kutuzov waiting for him; the Russians successfully blocked an attempt to retreat via Kaluga and then harassed the emperor’s forces all the way back to East Prussia.

Contrary to popular belief, the Russian armies of Tolly and Kutuzov were not large forces; they retreated because they could not match the strength of the French. Even as the Grande Armée returned west, it remained equal to or larger than Kutuzov’s force for most of the way. Not until the spring and summer of 1813 did the Russians’ mass reserves sufficient not only to pursue the French but to engage them. The immediate results again were not good; Kutuzov had passed away in April 1813 and his successor, Peter Wittgenstein, was defeated at both Lützen and Bautzen. Russian armies did take part in the allied victory at Leipzig though, and in January 1814 they invaded France under the direct command of Alexander I.

While the Russian armies thus were ultimately successful in returning to the ways of Suvarov, the Patriotic War changed something in Alexander. Scholars have debated whether it was the malevolent influence of Baroness de Kruedener, a revolutionary conspiracy among his imperial guardsmen, or a putative kidnap plot- or all of these- that turned the former supporter of liberalism (at least in a limited sense), but something did. Upon his return from Paris, where he had constructed the conservative Holy Alliance, Alexander set about restoring the discipline and methods of Arakcheev and Paul I in the army. In the Semeonovsky Regiment, which he personally commanded, Alexander introduced such strict discipline, enforced by endless drill, personal abuse, and floggings that a mutiny ensued. There were at least 14 other such incidents between 1816 and 1825.

An additional feature of Alexander’s attempt to restore discipline and morality to the army was the creation of military colonies in Novgorod and southern Ukraine. Benignly interpreted, these establishments were designed to reduce the costs of maintaining an army, foster camaraderie among units, and instill discipline. Essentially, they consisted of large estates populated by government serfs organized into battalions of “farmer- colonists.” Each farmer- colonist had an obligation to support not only his family but also two “soldier- lodgers” from his allotment of land. The soldier- lodgers provided labor for the many projects Alexander and Arakcheev lavished upon the colonies, including roads, sidewalks, and well- designed houses. The farmer- colonists also received decent farming equipment and livestock from the government. They hated the colonies nonetheless. Both farmer- colonists and soldier- lodgers were required to wear uniforms at all times.

They spend mornings at drill, and lived on military time, their activity governed by the call of bugle and drum. Male children began drill at age 6, and were sent to special military schools at age 12; they began regular military service at 17. In some colonies, and notably on Arakcheev’s personal estate, women were expected to bear children annually to supplement the levy. These strictures and others led to a number of rebellions; in 1819, two cavalry regiments revolted in Ukraine and over 2,000 men were arrested.

Others, notably those who had served as junior officers with Alexander in France, revolted in other ways. Many of the Guards and army officers joined secret, liberal societies dedicated to the reform of Russian institutions, including the army. When Alexander banished the rebels from his Semeonovsky Regiment to Ukraine, he merely dispersed the movement without destroying it in the capital. By 1825, there were two groups involved in a widespread conspiracy: the Northern Society of St. Petersburg, and the Southern Society housed in Second Army in Ukraine. Both groups hoped to abolish serfdom; disband the military colonies; institute responsible, representative government; and reform the military system. Alexander I died before they could enact the plot to assassinate him; however, the Northern Society seized the opportunity to attempt a coup- the Decembrist Revolt- and force the successor to bow to their demands.

If Nicholas I had ever had any grand intentions of reform, the Decembrist Revolt likely stifled them, for among the plotters were 16 major generals, 115 colonels, and 315 company officers representing 40 of the army’s 256 battalions. The failed coup thus not only stripped the army of many of its best officers, it instilled a distrust between officers and between units.

Nicholas did work to alleviate the harsh conditions Alexander had imposed upon the army, however; he dismissed Arakcheev and eased restrictions on farmer- colonists. The general term of service was reduced to 15 years, and Nicholas sponsored military legislation that eliminated some of the harsher punishments and generally encouraged more humane treatment of the enlisted. Provisioning was improved notably, and a system of dedicated military hospitals was created. Military education also improved, as Nicholas established 18 additional cadet corps and, in 1832, a military academy to train general staff officers. Training remained largely for show, however, and military equipment was little improved. While the Russian Imperial Army thus appeared magnificent and overwhelming, and produced a string of triumphs when pitted against the Persian and Ottoman armies, or against Polish or Hungarian rebels, by 1853 it could no longer stand against the modern armies of Europe as it had half a century before.

Horace Vernet: Portrait of Charles X 1757-1836 King of France and Navarre

The July Revolution of 1830 was stunningly swift, a matter of days instead of years. On Monday, 26 July, King Charles X issued the four ordonnances, a bold attempt to subvert the constitution and increase royal power. By late Thursday morning, he had lost control of Paris; by Saturday, the duc d'Orléans had accepted an invitation from the Chamber of Deputies to become Lieutenant General of the kingdom. On Monday, 2 August-just a week after the ordonnances had appeared-Charles X abdicated on behalf of his grandson. On 7 August, the Chamber approved a hasty revision of the constitution. And on Monday, 9 August, a mere two weeks after it all began, the duc d'Orléans was installed as Louis-Philippe I, King of the French.

Republicans were not happy, but there were too few of them to affect the outcome. "We ceded only because we were not in force," said republican journalist Godefroy Cavaignac.  Nevertheless, the leading moderate republicans, all of them members of the educated middle classes-physicians, lawyers, hommes de lettres-were willing to tolerate a throne genuinely "surrounded by republican institutions," according to the popular formula. The July Monarchy soon disappointed expectations, first with a contrived political trial, the Proces des Dix-Neuf, and then with a series of judicial attacks against the free press, the right of association, and the Société des Amis du Peuple. By 5-6 June 1832, violent montagnardism had emerged, and active Parisian republicanism had become a largely working-class movement.

There were significant economic problems in the background of the 1830 revolution, acute in the period from 1827 to 1832; the years were marked by harvest failures, food shortages, and increases in the cost of living. These agricultural difficulties made worse the recession in the industrial economy, leading to an upsurge in the number of bankruptcies, a sharp rise in unemployment, and the lowering of wages in several important industries. During the unusually cold winter of 1828-1829, up to a quarter of Paris residents had depended on bread cards, which entitled them to cheap loaves. Yet the revolution was a political adjustment rather than an economic upheaval; the economic forces that drove it were not in the streets but in a struggle of the elites, and the regime that emerged-despite the continuing strength of the nobility-was called, with reason, the bourgeois monarchy.

The revolution began within the government itself. On 16 March 1830, by a vote of 221 to 181, the members of the liberal opposition in the Chamber of Deputies deliberately challenged the king by requesting that he change his council, which was headed by the reactionary Prince Jules de Polignac. Rather than concede, the king dissolved the chamber. New elections in June led to results even more lopsided; the opposition was now at least 270 votes strong, with only about 145 firmly for the Polignac ministry. In early July, after a very brief campaign, French forces seized Algiers. The initial conquest was easy; pacification would become the chief foreign military burden of the Orléans regime. But for the moment, it seemed that colonial success might embolden Charles X to use article 14 of the Charter, which allowed the monarch to issue ordonnances for "the security of the state," and thus effectively to assume dictatorial powers.

These premonitions were fulfilled on Monday, 26 July 1830, with the publication of the four ordonnances. The new regulation on the press prohibited newspapers from publishing without government authorization, renewable every three months and revocable at will. The already narrow voting rights (based on the payment of taxes) were further restricted to landowners, by a disqualification of the sorts of taxes paid by wealthy businessmen. Of the remaining voters, only the top one-quarter would elect deputies directly. The other two decrees dissolved the new Chamber and called for elections in September. If the ordonnances had stood, the monarchy would have been able effectively to muzzle a critical press and manipulate elections. To the liberal opposition, such a regime would have meant dominance by the old nobility and clergy.

July was the first of what would become an astonishing series of revolutions and unsuccessful rebellions. The National Guard of Paris, dissolved by Charles X after many of them had shouted against his ministry during an 1827 review, spontaneously began to appear on the streets to mediate between combatants and troops. Among the insurgents, ordinary working people predominated, with little to guide them except the energetic journalists' protest, drafted by Adolphe Thiers of Le National and read out on the streets by angry printshop workers (their livelihoods threatened) on Tuesday, 27 July. Those who fought, according to David Pinkney, were mostly respectable artisans and skilled workers. The construction and wood-working trades, including masons, carpenters, joiners, cabinetmakers, and locksmiths, were overrepresented, according to their total numbers in Paris. There were relatively few students. Pinkney suggested that the principle leadership was provided by veterans of the empire, an impression shared by physician F. Poumies de la Siboutie, who set out with his medical kit on the second day of the fighting and noted "uniforms of all branches [of the service], of all epochs, of the Republic, the Empire, worn by old soldiers or retired officers." The dead numbered 496 civilians and 150 soldiers.

But the insurgents were not republicans. Edgar Leon Newman has shown that the working classes of 1830 spurned the republican students and journalists who tried so desperately to enlist them. Instead, they had learned to trust the liberal opposition leaders of the Restoration, bound to them by a shared anticlericalism that was nourished with cheap reissues of Enlightenment classics. They followed these same leaders in 1830, to the amazement even of liberals; Le National editor Armand Carrel was frankly surprised that working people concerned themselves with the constitutional questions that agitated the political classes: "Everywhere in the streets men without coats, shirtsleeves rolled up, armed with muskets, and running to the defense of the barricades, said: `We want our Deputies; our Deputies know what we need, and the king doesn't.” The duc d'Orléans' oldest son later remembered the appeal of a wounded combatant: "`Prince,' he said to me, his eyes haggard and his hair bristling, `time presses. It is necessary to save the fatherland! Your father at our head, your father king, and we will finish with the emigrés and the Jesuits!'"