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Hello everyone, and welcome back to

0:31

New Books and History, a podcast channel

0:33

on the New Books Network. I'm your host,

0:36

Douglas Bell. Today I'll be speaking

0:38

with Suzanne Sutherland, Associate Professor

0:40

of History at Middle Tennessee State University.

0:44

We will be discussing her new book, The

0:46

Rise of the Military Entrepreneur, War,

0:49

Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg

0:51

Europe, published by Cornell University

0:54

Press. Suzanne, welcome to the show. Thank

0:57

you. Suzanne, could you start

1:00

the interview by telling us a little bit about your background

1:02

and how you came to write this book? Sure.

1:05

So I got my PhD

1:08

in history from Stanford. I worked

1:10

with Dr. Paula Finlan. Before

1:14

I started the PhD, though, in between

1:17

my bachelor's and my PhD,

1:19

I lived in Europe for a few years, and

1:22

the inspiration for this topic really came

1:25

out of that experience, and

1:27

then what I learned working with Paula at

1:29

Stanford.

1:30

I lived in Prague about

1:33

three years, and what I found I was

1:36

really interested in when I lived there

1:38

was all of this Italian influence in

1:41

Central Europe, architecture, art.

1:43

I noticed it all over the place, Italian

1:46

Renaissance and Baroque styles, and I developed

1:48

this fascination with it. How did

1:50

it get there? Who

1:51

were the people who brought it there? I realized

1:55

pretty quickly that this took me to the 17th century

1:58

and this period of warfare. fair.

2:02

I just became really interested in trying to understand

2:04

that cultural exchange and

2:07

foreigners at

2:09

another time,

2:10

kind of like me, who had come to Central Europe

2:12

and then they had had this

2:15

big impact on the culture. So

2:19

that's really the background. All

2:21

right. Can you describe or explain

2:24

who or what a military entrepreneur

2:26

was in the early modern era?

2:28

So a military entrepreneur was

2:31

a kind of military contractor. And

2:34

you could say that this is one of the

2:36

oldest professions in the world.

2:38

It's really always been with us.

2:41

But

2:42

as the conditions of the surrounding

2:44

societies change, this

2:46

job changes as well. So for the

2:49

late 16th century and the 17th

2:51

century, historians tend to use the term

2:53

military entrepreneur to

2:55

explain

2:57

what this kind of contractor figure was doing

2:59

in the environment of the late 16th and

3:01

the 17th centuries. And what was going

3:03

on was just

3:05

a new age of war, a new

3:07

economic age with new

3:10

kinds of credit networks and

3:12

credit possibilities. So

3:14

we had multiple armies operating on

3:17

multiple fronts, rulers who did

3:19

not have really

3:21

effective

3:22

or consistent standing forces. So

3:24

they relied on these noblemen

3:27

who served as military entrepreneurs to

3:29

basically bring

3:31

the forces to them and help serve them in

3:33

these wars. And these

3:35

individuals were just responsible for a huge

3:37

range of activities from

3:39

the initial recruitment, the finance,

3:42

logistics, training, command.

3:45

So when you think of military contractors today,

3:47

you often think of somebody

3:49

contracted for a specific service.

3:51

But at this time, they were really multi-dimensional.

3:54

They were doing whatever it took

3:57

to get these troops in the field and to

3:59

try to be successful.

3:59

successful. So the

4:03

other thing was that rulers

4:05

couldn't repay them in cash

4:07

usually, so they ended up

4:10

repaying them with political power,

4:13

positions at court,

4:15

territory, new titles.

4:17

And so they became very politically

4:20

powerful. Again, a big difference

4:22

to other eras.

4:24

This was the great age of military

4:26

contracting where you could even

4:28

aspire to becoming a prince.

4:31

And finally, it's really

4:33

distinguished by their access to credit. That

4:35

changed the job a lot. Because

4:40

you could, basically,

4:43

they were all noblemen of various sorts,

4:45

but they were often the poorer sort

4:47

of noblemen because

4:50

with access to credit networks, it

4:52

really took a relatively small

4:55

amount of startup cherish to

4:57

get loans and then to be able to

4:59

raise troops and go out into the

5:01

field. So it provided opportunities

5:04

for a lot more noblemen

5:06

to enter the fray

5:08

and try to make something of themselves.

5:10

So you specifically

5:12

look at Italian men

5:15

of service to the Habsburg Empire.

5:17

What drew you specifically to these

5:20

individuals? So again,

5:22

this goes back to my experience living

5:25

in Prague, which of course

5:27

was the capital of the historic

5:29

kingdom of Bohemia.

5:31

And Bohemia was the area where

5:34

probably, at the start of the 30 years war,

5:37

so much land changed hands

5:39

and offices changed hands because the 30

5:42

years war broke out there.

5:43

When Protestant

5:46

rebels deposed Ferdinand

5:49

II, Emperor Ferdinand II, but

5:51

he was deposed as king of Bohemia and

5:55

elected

5:56

Frederick V in his place, this

5:58

is what triggered the war. And after 1620,

6:01

the Battle of White Mountain,

6:03

those rebels were punished,

6:06

property was confiscated, their

6:08

titles and offices were confiscated, and then they

6:11

were redistributed to the people who had

6:13

supported the Habsburgs, and many of those

6:15

were military entrepreneurs.

6:17

And so the main figure

6:20

I studied, Montecucoli, was not part of that

6:22

group, but he came a little

6:24

bit later. But his patrons,

6:28

the men who were about 10 years

6:30

older than him, or 10 years ahead of him, had

6:34

really benefited from that.

6:40

And so I really see the

6:42

Italian influx

6:44

into Bohemia really inspiring the

6:49

beginning of the story for me.

6:51

All right, great. So

6:53

you also talk about how the

6:56

military entrepreneurs of the 17th

6:58

century can be traced back

7:01

to Renaissance Italy, and

7:03

some men who contracted their services to other

7:05

rulers and princes. Can you

7:08

explain the connection or

7:10

evolution from Renaissance contractors

7:13

to the

7:14

entrepreneurs of the 17th century? Yeah,

7:18

so I think it's a really fascinating story.

7:21

And the Renaissance condottieri,

7:23

of course, is a great figure of the

7:25

Renaissance.

7:26

This was the central figure

7:29

that Burckhardt used to describe the

7:31

Renaissance as this modern

7:33

phenomenon. And

7:36

then in traditional historiography,

7:38

this figure kind of disappears,

7:40

or they become integrated into local

7:43

states, they serve local princes, and

7:46

become quote unquote domesticated.

7:49

What I found really interesting is

7:52

realizing

7:54

that those careers actually didn't end,

7:57

that after in the late

7:59

16th century, the Spanish Habsburgs

8:01

achieved political domination in the

8:04

Italian peninsula. And this really opened up

8:06

a new imperial field

8:08

for Italian condottieri or

8:11

contractors to continue these careers, but

8:13

in service to

8:15

different Habsburg rulers, the

8:18

Spanish. But then with

8:20

especially the era of the Thirty Years' War, the

8:22

Austrian Habsburg branch became a focus

8:25

because there were just so many opportunities in Central

8:27

Europe.

8:28

And they were ideologically aligned as

8:30

Catholics.

8:32

So the tradition

8:34

continues, certainly. Some

8:37

of them become loyal servants of

8:39

different states. But

8:41

what I find so fascinating is that the

8:44

families kind of operate in a collective sense. And

8:46

so one might stay home in

8:50

the Duchy of Modena, for example, and continue

8:52

to serve the local Este family.

8:55

And another member of the family will go off and

8:57

serve in a Habsburg army abroad

9:00

and attempt to advance another court hierarchy.

9:03

So

9:03

it's a fascinating world of opportunity

9:07

across Europe for these figures. Yeah,

9:10

it sounds like. So you

9:13

already kind of mentioned the importance of Prague

9:16

and your time there and how

9:18

this inspired you. And this is also

9:21

where, as you mentioned, the Thirty

9:23

Years' War begins. And

9:26

you talk about the White Mountain generation.

9:29

So who were the White

9:31

Mountain generation? And how did these

9:34

entrepreneurs and

9:36

of this generation

9:38

finance their regiments to fight in the

9:40

Thirty Years' War? Sure. The

9:43

White Mountain generation, I think

9:47

about individuals who

9:49

actually served at the Battle of White

9:51

Mountain in the Catholic armies. This

9:55

would include a figure like Ottavio Piccolomini,

9:58

who becomes a patron. a patron

10:00

of Monte Cucoli, who's the main figure

10:03

of my book. The

10:06

battle had drawn a

10:09

lot of different military entrepreneurs

10:11

and mercenaries who were the kind

10:13

of common soldier under

10:15

their command from across Europe.

10:19

And Italians represented a pretty

10:22

good size contingent, and especially

10:25

in the officer class. So partly they

10:27

were men who were actually on the battlefield that

10:29

day.

10:30

But I extend it to include basically

10:33

everyone in this

10:34

larger cultural environment

10:37

who was inspired by word

10:40

or news of the battle. It was broadcast

10:42

across Italy. Everybody was talking about

10:44

it. This was seen as divine intervention.

10:47

It was in

10:50

the Avisi, the newspaper, local pamphlet

10:53

news.

10:54

And it really, in the years that

10:56

followed, inspired a lot more Italian

10:59

noblemen and other foreign Catholic noblemen

11:01

to rush off to Central Europe

11:03

and join

11:04

these victorious Catholic forces because this

11:06

was clearly the place where you were

11:08

going to make a name for yourself and for your family.

11:11

This was clearly where the glory was going

11:13

to happen. And so

11:16

they financed their activities through

11:19

the use of family wealth,

11:22

loans from merchants and

11:24

from other nobles. The aristocratic

11:26

credit system was probably the most

11:28

important

11:29

place for them to get loans.

11:34

And then of course contributions, which were war

11:36

taxes exacted on the populace.

11:39

So they absolutely depended

11:41

on

11:42

coercion,

11:44

forcing local people to pay.

11:47

And

11:47

in this way, it was really unsustainable because

11:50

they had to pay back their loans

11:52

to their creditors.

11:54

And the way they did that

11:56

was by extracting resources.

12:00

from local peoples, but these peoples

12:02

were

12:04

increasingly impoverished

12:06

and starving.

12:07

It was not a sustainable

12:10

practice. They couldn't continue to do

12:12

this. So it was going ... As

12:14

the 30 Years War went on, these practices

12:17

did have to be reformed and

12:19

changed to some degree. Right.

12:24

So is the White Mountain generation

12:26

that you describe in your book only ...

12:29

Do you use that just to describe Italian entrepreneurs,

12:31

or is this for all those

12:34

of Central Europe? I would describe Catholics

12:37

who were called to war and inspired.

12:41

I

12:44

focus on Italians because they were

12:46

a disproportionately large

12:48

group of officers.

12:51

So it's surprising

12:53

how many officers in the Imperial Army

12:55

were of Italian origin, and they were all

12:57

interconnected to one another. So

12:59

they did think of themselves as Italian. They

13:02

used Italian language,

13:04

and they had all these Italian court connections

13:06

to one another. So it was instrumental

13:09

to their success

13:10

and is an important way for me to think about them as

13:12

a group.

13:13

But I generally think of Catholic

13:16

noblemen across Europe because it wasn't only

13:18

Italians. But it's the earliest

13:20

generation of the war, and then the book,

13:22

well, as we can maybe talk about later,

13:24

wraps up with the generation of 1683. One

13:28

of the things that

13:30

I try to do throughout the book is think about

13:32

these groups in terms of generations

13:35

because they're members of families.

13:37

In a way,

13:39

it helps me to repuriedize,

13:42

to think

13:44

about time in terms of actual

13:47

people operating as members

13:49

of families and

13:51

different generations of experience. Yeah,

13:54

I found it a really useful way to think

13:57

about the military entrepreneurs.

14:00

And one of your, or the

14:02

main entrepreneur that you discussed, as you've

14:05

mentioned, is Montekapcole. Could

14:08

you tell us a little bit about his background

14:11

and his family and how he became a military

14:14

entrepreneur?

14:15

Sure. Yeah, he's such

14:17

a fascinating individual. And I think it

14:20

really helped me get into this research

14:23

because he was so multidimensional. There

14:25

was so much to learn

14:27

from him. He

14:31

was a middling nobleman. He wasn't

14:33

particularly rich or powerful. His

14:36

family came from the mountains outside of Modena.

14:40

His father died in a feud when he

14:42

was young, around 10 years old. And

14:46

so his mother ended up moving to

14:48

the Este court to Modena and

14:52

basically

14:54

offering her sons to

14:56

the Este and trying to get in

14:58

good with the Este as patrons

15:02

for protection. So

15:04

he ends up growing up at court. He,

15:07

I think, grew up alongside Francesco,

15:09

the first who then became the Duke of Modena.

15:12

When he was getting started in the army, Francesco

15:14

then became Duke of Modena

15:17

at about that time. So he was

15:19

close, you know, from probably

15:21

boyhood to the Duke of Modena.

15:24

He eventually

15:27

became commander in chief of the Austrian

15:30

army. And he was one

15:32

of the most powerful men in Vienna. So

15:34

he made this extraordinary leap from,

15:36

you

15:37

know, the mountains being a feuding

15:39

Italian family and the mountains in the

15:41

Apennine Mountains to

15:43

court at Modena. And from

15:46

there, he got to central Europe

15:48

and eventually made his way to the top, the

15:50

very, very top of this

15:52

imperial hierarchy. So

15:55

it's a truly astounding

15:57

story. It's surprising.

15:59

rising in many ways, and of course

16:02

part of the benefit of living a long

16:04

life and not dying on the battlefield, a

16:07

lot of men actually died or suffered

16:10

debilitating injury, but he managed to survive

16:12

and he managed to make the right decisions and

16:15

position himself so that he achieved

16:17

this spectacular position of power. And

16:19

that's what the story I'm trying to explain

16:22

and understand.

16:23

Yeah. He's a very fascinating figure,

16:25

as we'll hear more about. So

16:29

what were his experiences like

16:31

at the beginning of the 30 Years War until

16:36

he gets captured at

16:38

some point? But what was it like before then? And

16:42

what does his experience kind of demonstrate to us

16:44

about the military entrepreneurs

16:47

in

16:47

the 30 Years War? So

16:49

he comes in and really starts

16:52

in the 1630s. He

16:55

misses the first

16:57

decade. He starts in the late 1620s,

16:59

but he doesn't really achieve command

17:02

until the 1630s.

17:03

So he misses the initial windfalls

17:06

that happened after White

17:08

Mountain and the Habsburgs are pretty

17:10

victorious in the 1620s.

17:13

He kind of misses out on that. His patrons

17:15

win out, and so he

17:18

has access to them, these Italian patrons

17:20

who serve under Wallenstein

17:23

and are doing very well.

17:25

So he's got connections.

17:27

It's very, very important. He's got Italian

17:29

connections in the Imperial Army,

17:32

but it is very difficult. It's

17:34

clear that it is chaotic. It is not

17:36

at all easy. He is struggling.

17:38

He has a relative who is a top

17:40

general, Ernesto Montecucoli,

17:43

and certainly benefits from that.

17:45

But he struggles to

17:48

gain the kind of command position that

17:50

he really needs, which is ownership of a regiment.

17:53

That's when you can start to build

17:55

the true wealth and position once you get ownership

17:57

of a regiment.

17:58

couple of instances

18:01

he tried to get

18:03

ownership of a regiment. He travels to Vienna.

18:05

He

18:06

gets an audience with the emperor.

18:08

He has promised a certain person's regiment.

18:11

He goes back out into the field,

18:13

travels back,

18:15

and it's already been given away to somebody else. I mean,

18:17

it's not systematic. It's

18:19

not like the emperor has as

18:21

much control on the ground because

18:24

communications are slow. He

18:26

really needed to have good relationships

18:28

on the

18:31

ground

18:33

in the army, and he needed to

18:36

progress there

18:37

as well as at court. But fundamentally at the

18:39

start, he had to figure out

18:41

how to advance in the army itself

18:43

with these patrons. So it

18:45

was tough, and he was

18:48

imprisoned. He

18:51

was detained prior to his

18:53

extended imprisonment.

18:55

All of that, anything that took him away from

18:57

the action, he could just lose everything

18:59

he'd gained. These

19:02

guys had to pay their own ransoms. So

19:04

he would constantly fall back on the Este family

19:07

because they had connections in Central

19:09

Europe

19:10

and in the Imperial Army, including

19:13

family members, Este family members who

19:15

had their own regiments. If

19:19

he had no position, he would go

19:21

back to them and say, ask

19:23

to be taken in basically and

19:25

absorbed and

19:28

go along with them in their regiment until he could find

19:30

another position. So he was surviving,

19:33

and a lot of these figures,

19:35

they complain quite a bit. It sounds

19:38

like it is a very difficult

19:39

job. Would you say

19:42

it's more important to have connections

19:45

in the military or have a sponsorship

19:47

of

19:47

the Emperor

19:49

to advance your place as

19:51

a military entrepreneur?

19:53

Yeah, that's a good question. I

19:55

think at a certain point, he

19:58

absolutely needed the court connection.

19:59

and not just the emperor, but other

20:02

members of the Habsburg family and the

20:04

most important Central European

20:07

magnet clans.

20:10

He did definitely have to cross over

20:12

a border

20:14

into this zone of high

20:16

influence in Vienna.

20:18

Initially though, I

20:20

would say in the 1630s, he was especially

20:22

just trying to get control of one

20:24

or more regiments.

20:26

And then it's later

20:29

when he, for him to really get to the top

20:31

of the hierarchy, he needs those

20:33

closer Habsburg connections. He had to

20:35

get married.

20:36

He wanted, and he eventually succeeded

20:39

in marrying into the Dietrich Stein clan.

20:42

Absolutely critical for his advancement

20:44

in Vienna.

20:45

And he became very close to

20:48

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm.

20:50

But that was at the end of the Thirty

20:52

Years War. And then that was in

20:54

the 1650s after the Thirty Years War. Also

20:58

extremely critical for his

21:00

advancement to the top.

21:02

So he gets captured

21:04

in 1639, I believe by the Swedes.

21:09

And he spends much of his time reading

21:11

and writing about the art of war. What

21:14

did he write and theorize about while

21:17

he was a prisoner?

21:18

Yeah. That was a terrible

21:20

moment for him. And it was very long.

21:24

He was in prison for quite a few years.

21:26

It could really spell disaster

21:29

because he lost the regiments

21:32

he'd been in command of. He had to pay

21:35

his ransom. He had to figure

21:38

out how to even pay.

21:39

Often they're paying for their own heat while

21:41

they're imprisoned.

21:44

So it's cut off his military career

21:46

in terms of the battlefield. And he decides, well,

21:48

the only thing I can really do is read and

21:51

maybe I can write about my experience

21:54

and provide this to a potential

21:56

patron. He talks about wanting to

21:58

account for what...

21:59

he was doing during this period

22:02

away from the battlefield. So

22:05

reading and writing about war was a way to account

22:07

for himself. So

22:08

he writes treatise,

22:11

which is basically tries to define the

22:17

principles

22:19

of war,

22:20

much of which he does absorb from

22:22

other writers like Machiavelli or Lipsius.

22:26

He studies the Roman army. He's

22:28

very interested in this

22:30

literary art of war and

22:33

studying it and then kind of parroting it.

22:36

But what he wants to do is make it

22:38

as systematic, more systematic. He gets

22:41

much more systematic later on.

22:43

He's trying to take all this knowledge

22:46

and make it more systematic and then really

22:48

relate it to his actual experience on

22:51

the battlefields of the 30 years war. So he

22:54

is putting in examples

22:56

that come out of actual 30 years

22:58

war experience. So it's an interesting, it's

23:01

probably a more literary

23:03

treatise compared to later treatises. He tends

23:06

to develop, tries

23:08

to become more and more systematic and

23:11

pithy with his maxims.

23:14

This is the era in which drill manuals

23:16

are developing. So you can see it's

23:18

a more pedagogical style. So this

23:21

evolution from the art of war represented

23:23

by a figure like Machiavelli who's writing

23:25

a Renaissance dialogue

23:28

to a more systematic manual-esque

23:33

pedagogical genre. And this

23:35

is his first foray into that.

23:37

He discusses the use of mathematics.

23:42

He is obviously

23:44

inspired by the scientific revolution and

23:48

Galileo, Galilean science. He

23:50

talks about

23:51

empiricism. So

23:54

he's on this kind of more scientific

23:57

track and this is something that he'll continue

23:59

to develop.

23:59

in his writings. Very,

24:02

very interesting description

24:05

about also how his life

24:07

kind of just reflects this changing, you

24:10

know, as you mentioned, the art of war to a

24:12

more

24:13

scientific approach. After

24:16

his release from imprisonment,

24:18

he goes back to Italy. He's

24:22

leading soldiers there, and then he goes

24:24

back to the

24:26

service of the emperor. Is

24:29

this kind of a normal path for

24:31

military entrepreneurs? Would they go back to,

24:33

I mean, in his case, Italy,

24:36

or to another place, and then

24:38

go back to the emperor?

24:39

Was this a common thing for

24:41

military entrepreneurs to do?

24:44

Yeah, I think for some of them, it definitely

24:46

was. I mean, Italy, there

24:49

was the war of Castro, but

24:51

other than that, it was a much more pacified

24:53

region. If you wanted

24:55

experience at war, you had to travel, and

24:58

there were so many different opportunities out

25:00

there across Europe during this era.

25:03

So people really did travel and

25:07

move from army to army. Oftentimes,

25:10

what would happen as an Italian nobleman would

25:13

travel to the imperial army, gain some experience,

25:15

and come back home, and get a position

25:17

in a local government, or as the general

25:20

of, you know, papal forces, or as

25:22

one of the armies in Italy, and

25:24

then it kind of helped

25:26

him advance in a way he couldn't have

25:28

done if he'd stayed home because there weren't enough

25:30

opportunities to gain this experience. Monte

25:33

Cucily is somewhat

25:34

unusual in that,

25:37

you know, he does consider coming back permanently,

25:39

but he keeps getting these opportunities in Central

25:42

Europe, and he keeps advancing, he keeps

25:44

succeeding.

25:45

It's much harder to

25:47

move to Central Europe on

25:49

a permanent basis through warfare. I

25:51

would say the back and forth is pretty common,

25:54

but to actually stay

25:56

and be really successful is the

25:58

more unusual part.

26:00

So but it's again,

26:03

he's a

26:04

Super successful, but everything he does

26:06

a lot of a whole lot of other people are

26:08

doing very similar things to him

26:10

And and to us, of course, it's strange to imagine

26:13

people going back and forth

26:15

and serving in different armies but we

26:17

have to remember that they were that

26:19

his family did consider themselves to

26:21

be vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor who was

26:23

the Habsburg ruler and

26:25

They thought of themselves

26:27

as part of a larger empire

26:29

and they were all Catholic. So the

26:32

Italians generally

26:34

overwhelmingly served in Catholic

26:37

armies Central European

26:39

families might have members serving

26:41

in Protestant or Catholic Armies

26:44

they might they were more splintered

26:46

but the Italians were uniform noblemen

26:48

at least were uniformly Catholic

26:50

so they did have loyalties and what

26:54

I see as the century goes

26:57

on is they're quite loyal to the Habsburgs

26:59

they might actually

27:00

Betray their own patrons

27:02

in Italy a little bit, right? They may not

27:05

Do what their you know, Monte Cuculis Lord

27:08

Francesco d'Este

27:10

He wanted him to come back and

27:12

stay in Modena He did to support him going

27:14

off and getting the experience in Central Europe.

27:16

He supported that. Absolutely. It was good for him,

27:19

too but

27:21

He wanted Monte Cuculis to come back and

27:23

eventually Monte Cuculis just said

27:26

No, I mean he made excuses. He said it's

27:28

not it's out of my control. I can't it's

27:30

really not my choice I would serve you if I could

27:33

but it was his choice and he he chose

27:35

to stay with the Habsburgs and

27:37

he never ever

27:39

Betrayed the Habsburgs it loyalty

27:41

to the Habsburgs was just absolutely

27:44

number one Most

27:47

important to him So

27:49

did um Many

27:52

is this a common I guess it's well, I don't

27:54

know how common but he's called

27:56

to come back But he wants to stay and fight for the Emperor.

27:59

Is this something? that many entrepreneurs

28:01

have to deal with was Montecolia's

28:04

special situation. How did

28:06

you define your,

28:09

I mean, did they have to make their own decisions about how to define

28:11

their loyalty to local or to imperial?

28:14

It

28:14

seems a very

28:17

complex tug and pull from

28:19

lots of directions. Yeah,

28:22

absolutely. I think there was a whole lot of gray

28:24

area. I think it's interesting

28:26

because they sometimes use the language of vassalage.

28:29

They are

28:30

vassals. They are subjects.

28:33

At other times, they're clearly clients

28:35

and they see themselves, you know, they're signing

28:37

contracts with different rulers

28:39

and there's this market

28:41

out there, but it's never the impersonal

28:44

market.

28:46

So they have different ways,

28:48

I think, of conceiving how they move

28:51

around between rulers and I think they're

28:53

all kind of legitimate.

28:57

So it's very interesting. As long

29:00

as they don't go off and serve

29:02

a Protestant, there

29:04

are certain boundaries, right? They

29:07

stay within the bounds of this Catholic

29:10

imperial

29:12

world. Now, some Italians did

29:14

serve France, which was an enemy, right,

29:17

of the Bourbon dynasty was an enemy of the Habsburg

29:19

dynasty. So there is some of that.

29:21

But yeah, I would say there's quite

29:23

a lot of movement. But where

29:26

I probably see

29:28

the most stability is just, you know, looking at

29:30

the family and the family is trying

29:33

to build a strong network and

29:36

they need a certain amount of trust. They

29:38

do have to be careful

29:40

about their reputation. So,

29:43

you know, it's not entirely impersonal.

29:46

These are not easy decisions. They're treading very,

29:49

very carefully and they're very concerned

29:51

about looking like

29:53

they are loyal. You

29:55

can trust them and you can trust them

29:58

with high office. Great. So

30:01

what happens to military

30:03

entrepreneurs once the 30 years war

30:06

is over and what specifically

30:08

did Montacoli do?

30:12

He was kind of at a loss. He had trouble

30:14

after the end of the 30 years war

30:16

and he complains

30:19

about it in his letters. He uses this phrase,

30:21

everything is overturned and

30:23

he's referring to what's going on in Vienna

30:26

and kind of the reordering of

30:28

power and authority now

30:31

that the war is over.

30:32

You would think this creates peace

30:35

and stability to the military entrepreneur,

30:37

everything is overturned. We had established

30:40

ways of doing things and now it's more even

30:42

worse than before.

30:44

Some nobles in

30:46

Vienna are trying to take over the control

30:48

of military matters

30:51

and they don't know what they're doing. His

30:56

pension was reduced. He

30:59

did have money from the court but it

31:01

wasn't consistent.

31:03

It

31:07

was reduced. He needed to find

31:09

another job. He was looking in other armies.

31:12

He was interested in the army of Flanders and

31:15

in Venice. He got an offer to serve there.

31:18

He really

31:20

wanted to stick with the Habsburgs though. He was trying

31:23

to stay on that path. He

31:25

would often ask. He

31:28

would request

31:31

money and positions and

31:34

he would often feel like he

31:36

wasn't getting what he deserved. Then

31:38

just before he was going to leave,

31:41

just asked to be

31:44

excused, he was going to go back to Italy.

31:46

The emperor would often or some patron

31:48

in Vienna would find him something to do. In 1653

31:52

he was actually appointed an

31:54

imperial diplomat to Queen Christina

31:57

of Sweden. He traveled to Sweden.

31:59

And then he was part of this really fantastic

32:02

episode where she actually

32:05

abdicated the Swedish throne,

32:08

moved to the Spanish Netherlands, converted

32:10

secretly at first to Catholicism, and

32:12

then later moved to Rome. Nobody

32:15

fully understands what she was doing. She was such

32:17

an

32:18

exciting and fascinating figure.

32:21

He was part of this. He was the

32:23

imperial diplomat sent to

32:25

be at her side in these various locations

32:27

to try to discern what was going on. She

32:30

also seemed to want him. She requested

32:32

him

32:33

and used him as an agent to

32:36

communicate with Habsburg

32:38

patrons. So he suddenly became

32:40

a diplomat in this very

32:42

interesting, unusual situation

32:45

after the 30 years war. Of course, nobody knew if

32:47

war was about to break out again. So his

32:50

people like Christina or like the

32:52

emperor wanted to keep

32:54

him around, right?

32:56

But he certainly had to

32:58

now become a courtly figure.

33:01

He needed all the skills

33:03

of the courtier, which of course he'd studied. And he

33:07

was good at, turns out one of the reasons he

33:09

was successful was because he was a wonderful courtier.

33:12

Queen Christina grew very close to him.

33:14

And I think this really helped his international

33:16

profile. I

33:17

mean, there were rumors that they were even getting married,

33:20

which never happened. But

33:23

there were all kinds of rumors out there. And so he was

33:25

becoming famous through this unusual

33:27

episode. Diplomacy

33:28

really

33:31

was the bridge though from battlefield

33:33

to court. It was the way for these

33:35

figures to

33:37

test themselves at court and

33:39

establish a name for themselves and show

33:42

that they can handle diplomatic

33:44

missions and court life and court

33:46

politics. What that particular

33:49

mission did for him, I think

33:51

more than anything else was

33:53

helped him continue

33:55

to

33:56

pursue a relationship to Archduke

33:58

Leopoldville home who was was the Governor

34:00

General of the Spanish Netherlands at that time.

34:03

And so he would meet

34:06

with Leopold Wilhelm as often

34:08

as possible

34:09

and discuss the army

34:11

of Flanders and the sad state of

34:14

affairs. They

34:16

became very, very close at that time. And then

34:18

I think Leopold Wilhelm

34:20

was instrumental when he went back to

34:22

Vienna in helping him

34:24

succeed further. Of course, he

34:27

was

34:28

the uncle and

34:30

the very

34:32

influential over Leopold

34:34

I who then became emperor shortly

34:37

after that. Leopold Wilhelm died,

34:39

but

34:40

he really, I think, set Monte Kukuli up

34:42

for success.

34:44

Helped him pay back some loans,

34:46

those ties to important

34:48

court figures that help you deal

34:50

even with financial aspects

34:54

of war. Yeah, it sounds

34:56

like these military entrepreneurs often

34:59

were in debt. You talked about his pension

35:01

being reduced. Was

35:04

it

35:04

common for them to end up in debt

35:07

or were they able to eventually,

35:09

I mean, their goal was to, as

35:12

admittedly nobles, to advance. Was

35:14

that

35:15

possible for most of them? It's

35:17

a great question. They were heavily

35:20

indebted. I think that is something that we see

35:22

in many cases that they

35:25

did not

35:26

necessarily personally benefit

35:28

financially. Some of them did. And

35:30

Wallenstein is the great example

35:33

of someone who benefited enormously

35:36

and gained so much wealth and

35:38

territory. But he was assassinated.

35:40

He rose very, very high and then he

35:43

fell very, very far. So he's

35:46

very exceptional figure. That

35:47

kind of success was not really

35:50

going to happen again. So yeah, a

35:53

lot of them were in debt, including

35:56

Monte Kukuli. But what I learned

35:58

from really closely following.

35:59

his life and the story of his family

36:02

was that this was a family business.

36:04

This was a larger enterprise. It was larger

36:07

than himself alone.

36:09

So I got

36:11

the strong sense that they

36:16

believed they were going to benefit eventually. So

36:19

even if a single figure

36:22

may not have achieved the kind of wealth

36:25

that he

36:26

hoped to achieve, he had certainly advanced

36:28

his family's interest and his nephew

36:30

was coming right up behind him.

36:34

There was a collective

36:36

sense of success across generations

36:39

that they were helping to establish. And

36:42

of course, it's

36:43

also really hard to

36:47

calculate exactly how

36:49

wealthy they were because they had

36:52

a lot of unreported wealth

36:54

gifts. And this is something that I talk about in the

36:56

epilogue

36:57

because Motei Kukli is accused of corruption

37:00

like a lot of people were.

37:02

And he tries to defend his record, but

37:04

it's clear that he, from what he says,

37:06

that he's received a lot of gifts.

37:08

But we may never know how

37:10

much money

37:11

he

37:12

had.

37:14

Interesting. So

37:17

he gets back to court

37:21

and he finds himself at war again, helping

37:24

to defend the Habsburgs against the Ottomans.

37:28

How did he do as a general

37:30

in the imperial army and

37:32

were there similarities and differences

37:35

between this, what was

37:37

going on in the 1660s and with the 30

37:39

years war for military

37:41

entrepreneurs?

37:42

What I love about this

37:45

life and looking at these generations

37:48

is being able to bridge the 30

37:50

years war to the later Habsburg-Ottoman

37:53

wars.

37:54

As they've kind of in traditional

37:56

periodization, they're kind of in two

37:58

different periods. created by 1648, Peace of

38:00

Westphalia. But

38:03

the same figures actually, many

38:07

of the same figures served in wars

38:09

from the 1620s to the 1660s, or

38:13

that's Montecucchli's case at

38:15

least. So there's this outbreak of war

38:18

with the Ottomans, 1663 to 1664. And

38:21

this is

38:22

terrifying because the Ottomans

38:24

were the most powerful

38:27

force, right? They had the most

38:29

powerful and the largest army in

38:32

Europe and

38:33

they were intent

38:35

on invading Froupsburg lands. So

38:39

he made this jump to then fighting

38:41

against the Ottomans on the Eastern Front. A

38:44

lot of similarities, differences as

38:46

well. The problems were

38:49

many of them the same, poor communications,

38:52

logistics. I mean, this was

38:54

much harder in the Eastern European

38:56

front than it even had been in Central

38:59

Europe. The space was much

39:01

bigger and it was swampy.

39:04

The local Hungarian peasantry

39:08

were very opposed to Imperial

39:11

troops passing through. It was very difficult

39:13

to know who to trust. And then the

39:15

Hungarian nobles who had traditionally

39:17

defended

39:18

the frontier and had also served in the Imperial

39:20

army, they were

39:22

powerful and they were very difficult

39:25

for Montecucchli to deal with. So there was

39:27

a lot of dissent. There was a lot of infighting.

39:30

Essentially

39:33

semi-autonomous troops

39:35

led by semi-autonomous nobles

39:38

kind of out there in the field struggling

39:41

with these terrible logistical

39:44

and financial problems with their troops

39:46

who are starving and disease-ridden. I mean,

39:49

it would have been really, really hard. And he has

39:51

a lot of issues

39:52

with how that conflict

39:55

in

39:57

the 1660s goes and he writes

39:59

about it in his.

39:59

later treatises, he has a great

40:02

success

40:03

at the 1664 Battle of St. Goddard

40:06

where troops that he's in command of actually

40:09

turn the Ottoman army back.

40:12

It's huge. It's a huge victory.

40:14

The

40:15

peace that gets signed afterward

40:17

is kind of undermines the victory because Emperor

40:20

Leopold I first, sorry, conceded

40:22

a lot.

40:23

But the victory itself was just a fabulous

40:26

and unexpected victory

40:29

for Christian Europe.

40:32

It was a big surprise. So he had the

40:34

success. They were on the verge of invading

40:36

the Austrian hereditary lands and

40:38

he was able to win this battle

40:41

and then the Ottomans decided it was

40:43

time to go home. They weren't going to continue. It's

40:46

not that he had routed the army, right? But

40:49

they just turned back at this point. So

40:53

I think it's another example

40:55

of his career depending very

40:58

much on these episodes

41:00

of great battlefield success.

41:04

Would he still be considered a military

41:06

entrepreneur as an imperial general

41:09

at this point or was he something

41:11

a bit different

41:13

by this time? Yeah. So

41:15

he was definitely, this is the era

41:17

in which he achieved the high command of

41:20

the army. So he

41:22

was the commander in chief.

41:24

This is not something that you

41:26

retained

41:27

on a permanent basis. It was awarded to

41:29

different people at different times, but this is

41:32

where he was in charge of

41:34

the unified

41:37

troops and a larger contingent

41:39

of troops. So it absolutely was different,

41:41

but of course entrepreneurial aspects

41:44

of

41:45

armies continued

41:46

and it continued into

41:48

the 18th century as well. It really wasn't until

41:51

the era of Maria Theresa

41:53

that something

41:55

closer

41:57

to what we think of as a standing army

41:59

was function.

41:59

in Habsburg, Austria.

42:03

And even then there

42:05

were still a lot of entrepreneurial

42:07

elements with powerful and wealthy

42:09

noblemen still devoting their own resources

42:12

to armies. But,

42:15

you know, other things had changed, and

42:18

they were able to impose

42:20

more order.

42:22

The estates were playing more

42:24

of a role in local estates

42:26

in helping

42:27

organize and provide

42:30

some financing for the army passing through.

42:33

So there's a bit of a

42:35

difference, but he's also holding

42:37

a bit

42:38

different title at this time.

42:41

He also found himself

42:43

in a debate about how to fight

42:45

war during this period in time. So

42:48

what was this debate about?

42:51

In a sense, it was the classic debate that he'd

42:53

been having in his treatises

42:56

as he developed his science of war about how

42:58

one needs to experience war and also

43:01

understand the principles of war

43:03

and become more scientific

43:05

and objective and learn how to control

43:07

war. But in this case, he

43:09

was dealing with the Hungarian frontier,

43:12

and he had a really powerful

43:14

enemy

43:15

or rival in the

43:17

Hungarian

43:19

commander, Srinjí. And

43:23

so

43:24

what emerges during this time is that

43:27

kind of like a pamphlet war

43:29

and a campaign to influence

43:32

elite

43:33

court opinion from each of these men

43:36

who to blame for losses.

43:40

The Hungarian magnets really

43:42

had a different –

43:44

I would say they probably practiced war

43:47

and thought about war in many of the same ways. Monte

43:50

Kukli claimed that they were all about

43:52

glory seeking, and they were

43:54

too bold and unthinking. They weren't

43:56

careful enough. They weren't cautious enough. They

43:59

wanted to bully.

43:59

go out and confront the enemy and

44:02

he associated this with a more traditional

44:05

dying form of war

44:09

and he wanted it to be more controlled,

44:11

objective, scientific, cautious, rational.

44:14

But honestly, they read

44:16

the same literature.

44:18

They knew a lot of the same information.

44:20

They had

44:23

very different experiences though in

44:26

terms of having their own territories

44:29

were right there. On

44:31

the frontier and I think

44:33

the Hungarian, powerful

44:36

Hungarian noblemen felt like the Habsburgs just treated

44:38

their lands like a buffer zone

44:40

and this wasn't right. They didn't

44:43

feel like the Habsburgs

44:45

were protecting them in

44:47

the way they were supposed to, the way it

44:49

should have worked.

44:50

And so

44:52

there was a disagreement, what

44:54

I found was fundamentally a disagreement about

44:56

what the common good was

44:58

and how to defend

45:01

against the Ottomans with an understanding

45:03

of where the common good was. For

45:05

Monte Kukuli, it was absolutely with this Catholic

45:07

Habsburg imperial world order. His

45:09

family had done extremely well,

45:12

allied to the emperor,

45:14

but the Hungarian noblemen had

45:17

a different experience.

45:19

Monte Kukuli did want

45:22

to eventually conduct an

45:24

offensive war against

45:26

the Ottomans. The Hungarian magnates definitely

45:29

did want to do that. He

45:30

didn't think that they were prepared

45:33

to do it at that time. He thought

45:35

there needed to be a whole lot more military

45:38

reform, the

45:39

building of a better standing, larger,

45:41

better financed standing army.

45:44

And he was very

45:46

focused too on the authority of

45:49

the general, General Elissimo, the

45:51

commander in chief.

45:52

He thought all of these divided commands

45:55

and all of this infighting was just terrible.

45:57

They really needed to centralize.

46:01

under a Supreme Commander and

46:03

that he looked at the Ottoman

46:06

army as this great model. He

46:07

wanted the Habsburg army

46:09

to be more like the Ottoman army.

46:11

He wanted the commander of

46:13

the Habsburg army to have

46:16

the kind of quote

46:18

unquote despotic power that

46:20

one often associated with the Ottomans at that

46:22

time, right? It was one of the prevailing

46:25

stereotypes about the Ottomans.

46:26

Monte Coogly thought it was

46:29

great for the army,

46:31

that that's actually what you need. You need this stronger

46:34

control. You need someone

46:36

who

46:37

he thought a general can't even be valorous

46:39

if he's constantly questioned and constantly

46:42

opposed and constantly undermined.

46:45

He just can't be an effective general. So

46:47

he was he and of course he wanted it to be himself.

46:50

He thought that he was the perfect

46:52

scientific rational person

46:54

to fulfill this role. So

46:57

more of a direct

46:59

chain of command would be what

47:01

he was looking for.

47:03

So after the

47:05

war against the Ottomans, he returns to court,

47:08

but he also sets out to write

47:10

down

47:12

his ideas of military theory.

47:14

So what were the main

47:16

takeaways for his scientific

47:19

approach, I guess, to warfare at this point?

47:22

Right. So again, a lot of it he

47:25

talks about in previous treatises, but

47:28

he's focused very much. He's been

47:30

very shaped by this experience

47:32

fighting the Ottomans on the Hungarian

47:35

frontier.

47:36

And he's very focused on trying to adopt

47:39

the

47:40

you know, what the Ottomans do well

47:42

to try to bring that to the

47:45

army that he oversees.

47:47

So he's

47:49

focused on this idea of a standing army. He

47:51

says it's absolutely necessary. You must

47:53

have a large standing army that's ready at all times

47:55

to go to war because the threat of war with

47:57

the Ottomans is continuous.

47:59

So we need to have the continuous ability

48:02

to go to war. He

48:05

talks about the independence of

48:07

the War Council from other governing bodies.

48:10

He was always very disturbed by other

48:12

court figures intervening in the War Council,

48:15

where he thought they didn't have the competence to

48:17

do so.

48:18

The singular authority of the commander in chief,

48:21

funding war through regular tax streams.

48:24

This

48:27

last, this final

48:29

treatise on the war against the Turks

48:32

becomes

48:34

his most famous and influential

48:36

treatise,

48:37

in part because of this vision

48:40

of a standing army, in part because

48:42

he recommends on the way

48:44

to attack the Ottomans in the future, but

48:47

also because he

48:48

goes back over the history of the Habsburg

48:51

and Ottoman conflicts of the early 1660s. And

48:54

he's

48:55

defending his record. He's explaining

48:57

what went wrong. And I think there's a huge amount of

48:59

interest, especially in the immediate

49:02

decade or two after this war

49:05

was fought.

49:07

Huge amount of interest in understanding what happened.

49:11

And so he, it's

49:13

initially influential because people

49:15

really wanna know more about Hungary

49:18

and the Ottoman Empire and this

49:20

specific conflict. And then

49:23

after 1683, the siege of Vienna, this

49:26

is when

49:27

Austria starts to

49:29

go on the offensive and they

49:32

do it in ways that are very similar to

49:34

what Montecucoli recommends in this treatise.

49:36

So we know Eugene of Savoy and

49:38

later figures most

49:41

certainly read Montecucoli's treatise

49:43

and seem to have

49:45

learned a lot from it. So then there's

49:48

these victorious decades of conquering

49:50

Eastern European territories from the Ottomans.

49:53

And shortly

49:55

after that,

49:57

Montecucoli's treatises, which had circulated in

49:59

manuscript form were published

50:04

and published in many versions

50:06

in the early 18th century

50:08

and just generated, I think, a whole

50:11

lot of interest.

50:12

I think this is interesting because in

50:15

the earlier phase when he was still alive,

50:17

he felt like he was under attack all

50:19

the time

50:20

and he was waging this

50:22

campaign for public influence against

50:25

other generals. They were

50:28

with pamphlets and things. It's really

50:30

interesting to think about generals just disseminating

50:32

this information to try to control public opinion.

50:35

He

50:38

was pretty good at it, but so were his rivals.

50:40

And Zrinye, I think, was very

50:43

widely admired across Europe.

50:45

But it's in the decades after Monte Kukli's

50:47

death with his

50:49

really wonderful publications, his

50:52

treatises,

50:53

that

50:54

he probably finally wins

50:56

the debate.

50:57

These treatises are just very, very

50:59

well read in the early 18th century. Right.

51:02

So he's very influential. And you also

51:04

mentioned in the book that he's very influential

51:07

on one of the military theorists that is

51:10

almost always cited, and that's Kalsowitz. And

51:12

so what kind of influence do you

51:14

think that Monte Kukli had

51:16

on Kalsowitz?

51:17

Yeah. So that

51:20

definitely kind of

51:22

goes beyond the content of the book

51:24

itself. But

51:28

this is where he, if you want to fit him

51:30

into a timeline

51:32

of military theorists, he's kind

51:34

of a missing link between the age

51:36

of Machiavelli and the age of Kalsowitz. He

51:40

again,

51:40

it's his treatises. It's

51:43

the way in which, my

51:45

sense of it, is it's the way in which

51:47

he has basically, by the

51:50

late 17th century, collected all

51:53

the knowledge on war.

51:55

His treatises have an encyclopedic

51:58

quality to them.

51:59

takes this encyclopedic

52:02

knowledge and then he really

52:04

disciplines it according to principles,

52:07

pithy principles

52:09

and good concrete examples.

52:12

And so it's these treatises

52:14

are ultimately the source of

52:16

a great deal of information for anyone who

52:18

comes afterwards,

52:21

but he really creates the model

52:23

of the scientific,

52:25

cautious, calm, methodical

52:29

commander who will subvert

52:32

his own, subordinate

52:34

his own personal glory.

52:36

This is at least what he

52:39

makes it look like, right? Of

52:41

course he was interested in personal glory, but he

52:43

will subordinate that to the interests of

52:45

the ruling dynasty.

52:47

He is emphasizing

52:49

loyalty, loyalty, loyalty

52:52

to the Habsburgs.

52:53

And

52:54

to be loyal, you have to be scientific. There's

52:56

a connection in his mind between those

52:58

two things.

53:01

Being scientific, being objective

53:03

means you're not following your own personal

53:06

glory. It means you're doing what needs to be

53:08

done to achieve the common good. The

53:10

common good is associated with this dynasty.

53:13

So this more cautious

53:16

style of warfare

53:18

and he's also associated with maneuver

53:20

warfare, which then became, is not something

53:22

that, you know, was necessarily lauded

53:24

later on, but in

53:27

terms of how calculating he was

53:30

with his battlefield strategy,

53:32

I think that was very influential.

53:35

And would these be the same

53:37

influences that he had on

53:39

the generation of 1683 as well?

53:42

Sure. I think that would be the

53:45

beginning, the first

53:47

generation that was really influenced

53:49

by this model, but

53:52

for them, it was more directly tied

53:54

to the

53:55

conquest of Eastern Europe from the Ottomans

53:58

and trying to understand the immediate. history

54:00

and the immediate need

54:02

on the frontier.

54:04

Great. Well, we've taken

54:06

up a lot of your time. So

54:09

I'm going to ask you now the traditional last question.

54:11

And that is, what are you working on

54:14

next? Yeah, this is

54:16

the fun question at this point.

54:18

I am

54:21

very interested in continuing to understand

54:23

what the family business of war meant,

54:25

and then looking at how other

54:27

members of the family were involved in that,

54:30

especially women.

54:31

One thing that emerged

54:33

from this research was the

54:36

importance of women as wives, marriage

54:38

alliances, military contractors

54:40

intermarried.

54:41

They married in nobilitys,

54:44

intermarried,

54:45

not just great dynasties. We know the Habsburgs

54:47

intermarried. That was one of their strategies

54:50

for gaining power. But other

54:52

noble dynasties did that as well.

54:55

And they moved around Europe and set

54:57

up these kinds of transregional houses.

55:00

So I'm interested in the role

55:03

women played. Mothers, in Monte

55:05

Cuculis' case, his mom

55:07

was, after his father died, she was the

55:09

one who helped to manage finance and

55:12

helped him, essentially,

55:14

when he was at an early phase in his career.

55:17

She was extremely influential. He was

55:19

extremely sad when she died.

55:21

So I'd

55:24

like to know more about that. It's a little harder

55:26

to find out about. But

55:29

that's one of the aspects I'd like to

55:31

follow up on.

55:32

Well, it sounds really fascinating, would be

55:34

definitely an interesting

55:36

look at these

55:38

military entrepreneurs and the families and how they

55:40

operated during this period. So

55:43

I want to thank you very much for talking

55:45

with me. The book is

55:48

The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur by

55:50

Suzanne Sutherland, and it's published by Cornell

55:53

University Press. Thank you very much,

55:55

Suzanne. Thank you. Thank

55:57

you. Thank you. You