The Habsburgs: To Rule the World

"Martyn Rady is a specialist in Eastern Europe: he is at the School of Slavonic Studies at the University of London. He’s written principally on 20th-century history, particularly with an interest in dictatorship, fascism and totalitarianism. In this book, he tells us the story of the Spanish Habsburgs—Charles V and Phillip II in particular. What he does is restore the primacy of Central Europe to the Habsburg dynasty’s story. He takes us right back to the beginning, to a place called Habsburg and their very modest roots in Switzerland. The Habsburgs always refer to themselves as ‘the house of Austria’. Rady argues that this concept of Austria was as much an idea as a geographical location or base. They had this acrostic, A.E.I.O.U., in both Latin and German: ‘ Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan’ or ‘ Austriae est imperare orbi universo.’ It could be translated as ‘Austria is to rule the world’. It was an ambition that, for a while, the family pretty much fulfilled. Charles V became not only Holy Roman Emperor, but also King of Spain. His son, Philip II, has this great moment at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, where the Christian alliance he formed defeated the Ottomans near the Gulf of Corinth. That is the high point. After that, you have some very strange characters. Perhaps the strangest is Rudolph II, a fascinating character who moves the Habsburg capital from Vienna to Prague for a brief time. Prague during this period becomes the European centre of alchemy and other magical arts. Rudolph has this ‘wonder chamber,’ as he calls it, and is seen as a Prospero-like figure. But all around him Protestantism is flourishing. There’s a revolt in Bohemia that would spark the 30 Years War . That ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which is an important moment for the Habsburgs because that sees the emergence of, or the definition of, the nation-state, which by its very nature is a threat to Habsburg imperialism. In one sense, that is the beginning of the end, although there’s a long tail. With the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna in 1683, Emperor Leopold I manages to get forces to defend the city, and the Turks are repulsed. He’s acclaimed as the champion of Christendom, but in Spain it was all unravelling due to the succession crisis. Eventually, the Habsburgs lost Spain and all of its possessions in the New World and the Pacific following the War of the Spanish Succession. They then faced two new threats as they retreated into central Europe, their original home. The first of these was intermarriage, which led to infertility and terrible ill health. By the 18th century, they were an incredibly unhealthy family. Secondly, you have the emergence of Frederick the Great’s Prussia. Then you have the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 by Napoleon. And yet, even then, the Habsburgs still play a role in the defeat of Napoleon because it is their agent Metternich, a man described as an elegant dandy, who organises the Congress of Vienna to help repair Europe following the Napoleonic Wars. He’s quite a formidable character and one of the heroes of this book. The peace that he constructs in 1814 holds for the best part of a century. It’s not until 1914 that a major war happens again, and Rady gives a lot of credit to Metternich for that. By contrast, he sees Emperor Franz Joseph as inept. Franz Joseph’s last words on his deathbed were ‘why does it have to be now?’ The book’s full of these tremendous little things. He doesn’t just tell the main story. Rady is quite a mischievous writer. He’s full of little gems of knowledge and asides. For instance, that the Brazilian football team play to this day in Habsburg colours. And that Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, which he conducted at the Congress of Vienna, was his atonement for dedicating the Eroica to Napoleon. In less capable hands, this could be a mess, because there are all kinds of threads coming together, but he manages to put those strands together in a lucid and elegant way. Too many books these days are too big. He tells this story with a great deal of economy and concision. It’s really difficult to imagine anyone writing a better history of the Habsburgs. It’s great fun. It’s the way history should be done. Part of our best books of 2021 series."