And All That

The danger of a war on two fronts presented the late seventeenth-century Habsburg court in Vienna with a strategic choice, epitomised by the two factions of ‘Easterners’ versus ‘Westerners’. As long as Leopold I wanted to keep his hopes of claiming the Spanish inheritance alive, the priority of western issues was hardly ever in doubt. There was little evidence of an Austrian Drang nach Osten at the time, perhaps surprisingly. But there was a predictable tug-of-war between ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’ (or ‘appeasers’) in Vienna. The issue that concerned imperial decision makers in 1681–2 was less the French ‘réunions’ and the ‘rape of Strasbourg’ than the far less strident but potentially far more dangerous moves of Louis XIV to secure footholds in Italy. Above all, turning their back on the nascent anti-French coalition would have entailed huge opportunity costs for the Habsburgs. That is why the Emperor was willing to risk a war on two fronts. What was regarded as a desperate gamble before the battle of the Kahlenberg developed into a subtle attempt to let others bear the brunt of fighting for the Austrians on both fronts after the relief of Vienna. Leopold signed the armistice of Ratisbon in August 1684, but only when he could be fairly certain that it would not allow Louis XIV to play off the allies one against the other. His brinkmanship in 1683 laid the groundwork for the Grand Alliances of 1689 and 1702

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