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The Enemy At The Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans And The Battle For Europe (2009)

by Andrew Wheatcroft(Favorite Author)

3.6 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0224073648 (ISBN13: 9780224073646)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

The Bodley Head Ltd

review 1: Enjoyable narrative on the clash between the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires in 1683. A high-water mark for Ottoman conquest in Europe, the Turks were forced back by a Hapsburg counterattack and compelled to surrender Hungary.Most fascinating for me was the tactical differences between the two armies and the effect of the printing press on Western military development. Turks were hand-to-hand masters who surged forward in a mob, while Hapsburg forces maneuvered in mass thanks to drills codified and disseminated in manuals. Thus Western generals kept more control over their forces once a battle commenced.The book seemed uneven, with great behind the scenes research on both sides up to the climax at Vienna. Afterwards, the focus shifted to the Hapsburg reconquest of Central Eur... moreope, reconciliation between two second-class empires, and, the final irony, alliance against the allies in World War I. All covered very rapidly.That said, Wheatcroft's book is accessible to both students of the era and novices such as myself. A worthwhile competent history.
review 2: The Ottomans provide a history that keeps on giving, and they are especially prolific when contrasted against the Austria-Hungarian empire. Enemy at the Gate focuses on the borderlands between the two empires and the struggle to control the Slavic states. The conflict is fascinating in its own right and the reader finds both sides simultaneously sympathetic and foolish (even provincial). And, while the conflict is fascinating enough in its own time to more than warrant the read, it also sheds light on so many small details of the modern eastern European condition and that of Anatolia. less

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