Le Prince Eugène de Savoie et le Sud-Est Européen (1683–1736), by Jean Nouzille (text prepared by S. Herry and D. Tollet)

Abstract

Jean Nouzille’s sudden death in 2007 left the text of this substantial project incomplete. His research provides the base for a detailed overview both of the military campaigns waged by Prince Eugène against the Ottomans in South-East Europe, and subsequently the policies and initiatives of the Habsburg monarchy in the conquered territories. A former serving officer with a strong interest in the military history of Central Europe, Nouzille draws substantially on the holdings of the Kriegsarchiv in Vienna and the Foreign and War archives in Paris, but also makes use of material from Zagreb which broadens the perspective from centre to localities. The present volume has made this research available to a scholarly audience, and is focused upon the territories brought under Habsburg control by their military victories, examining the organisation of populations and defence-works to create a bastion—or, as Nouzille terms it, an ‘iron curtain’—against future Ottoman incursions. The Austro-Ottoman treaty of Passarowitz in 1718 extended the frontiers of Habsburg territory into northern Serbia and Slovenia, and confirmed their control of the Banat of Temesvár and of Lesser Wallachia. These huge additional conquests, attributed by Nouzille to the military and organisational skills of Prince Eugène and convincingly presented as the high point of his military career, enhanced Habsburg prestige but also raised problems of overstretched resources and of the establishment of cost-efficient defence in depth.