Prince Eugene of Savoy - Assessment

Assessment

Napoleon I considered Eugene one of the seven greatest commanders of history. Although later military critics have disagreed with that assessment, Eugene was undoubtedly the greatest Austrian general. He was no military innovator, but he had the ability to make an inadequate system work. He was equally adept as organizer, strategist and tactician, believing in the primacy of battle and his ability to seize the opportune moment to launch a successful attack. "The important thing," wrote Maurice de Saxe in his Reveries, is to see the opportunity and to know how to use it. Prince Eugene possessed this quality which is the greatest in the art of war and which is the test of the most elevated genius." This fluidity was key to his battlefield successes in Italy and in his wars against the Turks. Nevertheless, in the Low Countries, particularly after the battle of Oudenarde in 1708, Eugene, like his cousin Louis of Baden, tended to play safe and become bogged down in a conservative strategy of sieges and defending supply lines. After the attempt on Toulon in 1707, he also became very wary of combined land/sea operations. To historian Derek McKay, however, the main criticism of him as a general is his legacy – he left no school of officers nor an army able to function without him.

Eugene was a disciplinarian – when ordinary soldiers disobeyed orders he was prepared to shoot them himself – but he rejected blind brutality, writing, "you should only be harsh when, as often happens, kindness proves useless." On the battlefield Eugene demanded courage in his subordinates, and expected his men to fight where and when he wanted; his criteria for promotion were based primarily on obedience to orders and courage on the battlefield rather than social position. On the whole his men responded because he was willing to push himself as hard as them. However, his position as President of the Imperial War Council proved less successful. Following the long period of peace after the Austro-Turkish War, the idea of creating a separate field army or providing garrison troops with effective training for them to be turned into such an army quickly was never considered by Eugene. By the time of the War of the Polish Succession, therefore, the Austrians were outclassed by a better prepared French force. For this Eugene was largely to blame – in his view (unlike the drilling and manoeuvres carried out by the Prussians which to Eugene seemed irrelevant to real warfare) the time to create actual fighting men was when war came. But although Frederick the Great had been struck by the muddle of the Austrian army and its poor organisation during the Polish Succession war, he later amended his initial harsh judgements. "If I understand anything of my trade," commented Frederick in 1758, "especially in the more difficult aspects, I owe that advantage to Prince Eugene. From him I learnt to hold grand objectives constantly in view, and direct all my resources to those ends." To historian Christopher Duffy it was this awareness of the 'grand strategy' that was Eugene's legacy to Frederick.

To his responsibilities Eugene attached his own personal values – physical courage, loyalty to his sovereign, honesty, self-control in all things – and he expected these qualities from his commanders. Eugene's approach was dictatorial, but he was willing to co-operate with someone he regarded as his equal, such as Baden or Marlborough. Yet the contrast to his co-commander of the Spanish Succession war were stark. 'Marlborough,' writes Churchill was 'the model husband and father, concerned with building up a home, founding a family, and gathering a fortune to sustain it'; whereas Eugene, the bachelor, was 'disdainful of money, content with his bright sword and his lifelong animosities against Louis XIV.' The result was an austere figure, inspiring respect and admiration rather than affection. The huge equestrian statue in the centre of Vienna commemorates Eugene's achievements. Inscribed on one side, 'To the wise counsellor of three Emperors', and on the other, 'To the glorious conqueror of Austria's enemies'.