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Chivalry, Gentlemanly Honor, and Virtuous Ladies in Austria-Hungary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

István Deák
István Deák
Affiliation:
Seth Low Professor of History at Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.
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Abstract

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Type
Robert A. Kann Memorial Lecture (1992)
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 25 , January 1994 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1994

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References

1 Cited in von Hötzendorf, Franz Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit 1906–1918, 5 vols. and 2 vols. of appendices (Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, 1921–1925), 4:162Google Scholar. Sources disagree on what exactly the emperor said on that day; for instance, according to some he used the expression “in Ehren untergehen.” In any case, the essence of his statement has remained unchallenged.

2 The nineteenth-century Central European concepts of gentlemanly honor and chivalrous conduct as well as the code of behavior prevalent in the Austro-Hungarian armed forces boast a voluminous but far from satisfactory literature. Here is a sampling, first of contemporary writings on these subjects and, following, of recent secondary literature.

Bartunek, Josef, Die Austragung von Ehrenangelegenheiten. Ein Beitrag zur zeitgemässen Lösung der Satisfaktionsfrage (Vienna, 1912)Google Scholar; (Captain) Berger, Ludwig, Der Waffengebrauch des Offiziers. Ein Orientierungsbehelf (Linz, 1898)Google Scholar; von Boguslawski, Alfred, Die Ehre und das Duell (Berlin, 1896)Google Scholar; von Bolgar, Franz, ed., Regeln des Duells (Vienna, 1882Google Scholar, followed by many editions in German and other languages); Burian, Josef, Der kaiserlich-königliche Oesterreichische Offizier. Systematische Darstellung der Pflichten, Rechte, Ansprüche und Gebühren der Offiziere im Allgemeinen, sowie der Obliegenheiten mit Bezug auf die Dienstsphäre im Besondren, 3 vols. (Prague, 1860), esp. l:25ffGoogle Scholar.; Dienstverkehr des Reserve-Offiziers. Instruktionsbuch für Reserveoffiziersschulen, 10. Teil (Vienna, 1915); (Judge-Advocate Major) Hajdecki, Alexander, Officiers-Standes-Privilegien. System und Praxis des geltenden Officiersrechtes der k.u.k. bewaffneten Macht (Vienna, 1897)Google Scholar; Hergsell, Gustav, Duell-Codex (Vienna, 1891)Google Scholar; Kielhauser, August, ed., Die Vorschrift für das ehrenrätliche Verfahren im k.u.k. Heere und Ehrenratsfragen, 4th ed. (Vienna, 1914)Google Scholar; Kurz, K. F., ed., Militär-Taschen-Lexikon, I. Teil, 10th ed. (Vienna, 1911)Google Scholar, esp. s.v. “Ehrenangelegenheiten”; (Captain) Schneider, Adalbert, Der Officier im gesellschaftlichen Verkehr, 3rd ed. (Graz, 1895)Google Scholar; Vorschrift für das ehrenrätliche Verfahren im k.u.k. Heere (Vienna, 1894, 1908); and Vorschrift über die Behandlung unverbesserlicher Offiziere (Vienna, 1862).

Among recent works on the concept of honor and dueling, see Deák, István, Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848–1918 (New York and Oxford, 1990), chap. 6Google Scholar; Frevert, Ute, Ehrenmänner. Das Duell in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Munich, 1991)Google Scholar; Kiernan, V. G., The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy (Oxford and New York, 1988)Google Scholar; Mader, Hubert, Duellwesen und altösterreichisches Offiziersethos, Studien zur Militär geschichte, Militärwissenschaft und Konfliktforschung, no. 31 (Osnabrück, 1983)Google Scholar; and McAleer, Kevin T., “The Last Imperial Knights: The Duel for Honor in Fin-de-Siècle Germany” (unpublished manuscript, 1992)Google Scholar. Despite its obvious concentration on the Second Reich, McAleer's monograph contains valuable information on the Habsburg monarchy. It clearly shows the similarities and the dissimilarities between the Reich German and Habsburg codes of honor and gentlemanly practices.

3 Section XIV of the Austrian military penal code promulgated in 1855 and Section XIX of the Austrian civilian penal code (in Hungary, Law V of 1878) specified the punishments to be meted out for the crime of dueling; see Hajdecki, Officiers-Standes-Privilegien, 197–205, and Kirsch, Heinrich, ed., Die in Oesterreich-Ungarn geltenden Gesetze gegen das Duell (Vienna, 1901)Google Scholar.

4 See especially McAleer, “The Last Imperial Knights,” chap. 5.

5 See, for instance, Krause, Peter, “O Du alte schöne Burschenherrlichkeit”. Die Studenten und ihr Brauchtum (Vienna and Cologne, 1979), 137Google Scholar. Also, von Bardolff, Carl Freiherr, Soldat im alten Österreich. Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben (Jena, 1938), 38–41, 55–56Google Scholar; (Major) Hans MailathPokorny, “Memoiren,” Kriegsarchiv, Vienna, B/700, Nr. 2, 33–34; and (Colonel) Kurt von Schmedes, “Jugend- und Kriegserinnerungen,” Kriegsarchiv, Vienna, B/1044, 2, 17.

6 The Dienstverkehr des Reserveoffiziers, 236–37, states categorically: “It is against the [Austro-Hungarian] army's notion of honor to refuse chivalrous satisfaction [ritterliche Genugtuung] to a person simply because he belongs to another nation or religious community.”

7 On the reserve officer system, see Danzer, Alfons, Bancalari, Gustav, and Rieger, Franz, Unter den Fahnen. Die Völker Österreich-Ungarns in Waffen (Prague, Vienna, Leipzig, 1889), 16–18, 112, 260–63Google Scholar; Kainz, Anton, “70 Jahre Reserveoffiziere in Österreich,” Militärwissenschaftliche Mitteilungen 68 (1937)Google Scholar; Dienstverkehr des Reserveoffiziers; Der Weg zum Einjährigen-Freiwilligen in der k.u.k. Armee. Erlangung der Einjährig-Freiwilligen-Begünstigung nach dem Wehrgesetze vom Jahre 1912, 9th ed. (Vienna, 1917); and Kurz, Militär-Taschen-Lexikon, s.v. “Einjährig-Freiwillige, Angelegenheiten derselben.”

The most important secondary sources on the subject are Deák, Beyond Nationalism, 87–88 and passim, and Allmayer-Beck, Johann Christoph, “Die bewaffnete Macht in Staat und Gesellschaft,” in Die bewaffnete Macht ed. Wandruszka, Adam and Urbanitsch, Peter (Vienna, 1987), vol. 5Google Scholar, Die Habsburgermonarchie, 1848–1918, 99–109 and passim.

8 On the training of career officers in the Habsburg Monarchy, the shortage of military students in the last decades of the monarchy, and changes in their social composition, see Deák, Beyond Nationalism, chap. 3.

9 On Jewish officers in the Habsburg army, see Deák, István, Jewish Soldiers in Austro-Hungarian Society, Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture no. 34 (New York, 1990)Google Scholar, and Schmidl, Erwin A., Juden in der k.(u.)k. Armee 1788–1918. Jews in the Habsburg Armed Forces, Studia Judaica Austriaca, no. 11 (Eisenstadt, 1989)Google Scholar.

10 Roth, Joseph, The Radetzky March trans. Tucker, Eva (New York, 1974), 98ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Militärstatistisches Jahrbuch für das Jahr 1911 (Vienna, 1912), 143–45Google Scholar.

12 On nobles and nonnobles in the officer corps, see Deák, Beyond Nationalism, chap. 9, and von Preradovich, Nikolaus, Die Führungsschichten in Österreich und Preussen 1804–1918, mit einem Ausblick zum Jahre 1945, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz, vol. 11 (Wiesbaden, 1955), 56–58Google Scholar, and passim.

13 See Rothenberg, Gunther E., The Army of Francis Joseph (West Lafayette, Ind., 1976)Google Scholar. An interesting case study of the attraction exercised by the army on even such a rebellious nationality as the Italians is Sondhaus, Lawrence, In the Service of the Emperor: Italians in the Austrian Armed Forces, 1814–1918, East European Monographs, no. 291 (Boulder, Colo., 1990)Google Scholar.

14 See Schnitzler, Arthur, Meistererzählungen (Frankfurt am Main, 1975)Google Scholar.

15 Berger, Der Waffengebrauch des Offiziers, 12–13.

16 On officers' marriages, see Müller, Gerwin, “Heiratsvorschriften und Heiratsverhalten im altösterreichischen Offizierskorps” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1980)Google Scholar.

17 Fourteen characteristic examples of insults and the resulting affairs of honor are discussed in Dienstverkehr des Reserveoffiziers, 231–44.

18 McAleer, “The Last Imperial Knights,” chap. 2.

19 Dienstverkehr des Reserveoffiziers, 228. On the complications of Ehrennotwehr, see, among others, Hajdecki, Officiers-Standes-Privilegien, 188–96.

20 The three different grades of insult are treated in Mader, Duellwesen, 45–51.

21 Ibid., 62–79; and McAleer, “The Last Imperial Knights,” chap. 2.

22 McAleer, “The Last Imperial Knights,” chaps. 5 and 6.

23 On the pay of officers in the Austro-Hungarian armed forces, see Deák, Beyond Nationalism, chap. 5; on statistics regarding marriage deposits, see ibid., chap. 7, and Müller, “Heiratsvorschriften.”

24 On officers' memoirs, see Deák, Beyond Nationalism, chap. 7 and app. 1.