Duffy, Christopher By Force of Arms. The Austrian Army in the Seven Years War. Band 2

To avenge defeats in an earlier war, Austria built up a massive superior force thanks to powerful alliances and reformed its army to be far more effective than ever before. But Prussia held on to force a long war and a bloody draw. The brilliance of Frederick the Great and the Prussian army was credited for this outcome, but Austria had more than its fair share of good soldiers and able generals. Wars never go as expected when there are fearsome enemies, and this book tells what went wrong. It is more than just an account of battles and marches. The history of the Seven Years' War in Central Europe has long been neglected, and yet it was there that the Austrians (closely followed by the Prussians) broke with the previous rigidity of the armies of monarchical Europe, not only anticipating but actually implementing initiatives normally associated with the campaigns of the Revolution and Napoleon. The myth of a limited war leading to undecided battles is no longer tenable. Not that there is a shortage of good stories about outstanding soldiers, some of whom were pushed into the background when the legend of Frederick the Great emerged, and about battles that have long since been forgotten. A wealth of maps and as many eyewitness accounts as possible have been used to explain what actually happened. This is an excellent account of the war in Central Europe, focussing on the operations of the Austrian army, based firmly on primary sources, most of which have never been fully researched.