Ottenfeld’s Austrian Army 1840-1866 By Philip Cranz
23 Pages of text and 22 color plates.
Few armies have garnered more fascination than the famous “White Coats” of the Hapsburgs. By 1840 it was a vast and barely manageable organization encompassing nationalities that included Czechs, Bohemians, Slovaks, Slovenes, Ruthenians, Hungarians, Croats and Italians not to mention the Austrians themselves. The German speaking officers who commanded these disparate units did not speak any of their languages, nor cared to. However, in the mid eighteen forties the Army was led by a number of brilliant but ruthless Generals, notably Radetzky, Windischgratz and Haynau who put down the revolutions of 1848 / 9 with remarkable efficiency. Not so in 1859 and 1866 where the Austrian armies were defeated by the French and then the Prussians. Rudolf von Ottenfeld was an artist of the late nineteenth century who illustrated the huge and detailed work by Otto von Teuber - “Die Österriechen Armee 1700-1867”. Here we publish twenty of his plates of the period along with detailed descriptions for each illustration. In 1867, Austria entered the dual-monarchy with Hungary and the infantry uniforms changed to blue. The White Coats would never be seen on the battlefield again.
23 Pages of text and 22 color plates.
Few armies have garnered more fascination than the famous “White Coats” of the Hapsburgs. By 1840 it was a vast and barely manageable organization encompassing nationalities that included Czechs, Bohemians, Slovaks, Slovenes, Ruthenians, Hungarians, Croats and Italians not to mention the Austrians themselves. The German speaking officers who commanded these disparate units did not speak any of their languages, nor cared to. However, in the mid eighteen forties the Army was led by a number of brilliant but ruthless Generals, notably Radetzky, Windischgratz and Haynau who put down the revolutions of 1848 / 9 with remarkable efficiency. Not so in 1859 and 1866 where the Austrian armies were defeated by the French and then the Prussians. Rudolf von Ottenfeld was an artist of the late nineteenth century who illustrated the huge and detailed work by Otto von Teuber - “Die Österriechen Armee 1700-1867”. Here we publish twenty of his plates of the period along with detailed descriptions for each illustration. In 1867, Austria entered the dual-monarchy with Hungary and the infantry uniforms changed to blue. The White Coats would never be seen on the battlefield again.