“Brilliant and brave, Eugen was a fascinating figure, albeit rather enigmatic in his personal life.”

By Douglas Brown 

PRINCE EUGEN of Savoy may not be as well-known in the English-speaking world as his illustrious contemporary, the Duke of Marlborough. Yet, as one of Austria’s finest generals, he left a mark upon history that was just as indelible.

With a flair for dash unusual in an 18th-century general, Eugen often succeeded when the odds were stacked against him. His campaigns reshaped the map of Europe, stopped France’s bid to conquer the continent, sent the Ottomans into decline and brought Austria to the height of her power.

Here are 12 fascinating facts about one of military history’s bravest and most brilliant figures.

Despite being one of France’s greatest foes, he was actually born there

Eugen’s parents, Olympia Mazarin and Eugene Maurice of Savoy-Carignan, were of Italian descent, his father being of royal blood there, but they lived in Paris as part of “Sun King” Louis XIV’s court. In fact, Eugen was born there in 1663. He first applied to Louis for a commission in that country’s army, but the French monarch refused. Angered by this, along with his mother’s implication in a famous royal witchcraft and poisoning scandal and subsequent banishment, Eugen next approached Emperor Leopold I of Austria. He would serve Austria devotedly for the rest of his life. 

He signed his name in three languages

Although an Austrian general, Eugen could barely speak German and couldn’t write the language; French and Italian were more to his liking. Whenever signing a report or an official dispatch that his secretaries had prepared in German, he would leave his mark: “Eugenio (Italian) von (German) Savoye (French).”

He commanded a regiment at age 20; was a field marshal at 30

Eugen’s first taste of warfare came at the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. The battle saw the overthrow of a vast Ottoman army bent on conquering Austria and then Europe. Eugen fought as a subaltern, but performed his duties with such courage that Leopold awarded him command of the Kufstein Regiment of Dragoons. As his talents became ever more apparent, he attained the rank of field marshal at age 30.

He once captured part of a Sultan’s harem

Eugen scored his first great success as a military leader at the Battle of Zenta on Sept. 11, 1697. During the one-day clash in what is now Serbia, the young commander famously caught Sultan Mustafa II’s army as it was attempting to cross the River Tisza. To pull off the feat, Eugen daringly split his 30,000-man army into two smaller forces and, using the terrain to conceal his movements, quickly maneuvered the groups to envelop the enemy from both banks. Despite facing an enemy of equal size, Eugen’s forces were short of supplies and equipment and had conducted a forced march to the battlefield. Nevertheless, the Austrians inflicted 30,000 casualties on the Ottomans (a third of which drowned in the river), while suffering only 500 killed or wounded in return. The routed Turks left behind their artillery; herds of camels and livestock; the Grand Vizier’s great seal; a war chest full of gold; and 10 of the Sultan’s wives. Two years later, in the Treaty of Karlowitz, the Ottomans ceded Hungary to Austria, which it would control until the First World War.

He saved Europe with one split-second decision

At the Battle of Blenheim during the War of Spanish Succession on Aug. 13, 1704, Eugen faced one of his most intimidating challenges. The contest decided the fate of Europe in an afternoon. In control of both France and Spain, Louis XIV hoped to subdue Austria with a thrust through allied Bavaria. Two French armies waited along the Danube at Blenheim for a third to arrive, at which point Louis’ forces would push on to Vienna and total victory. Eugen and Britain’s Duke of Marlborough gambled everything on one bold engagement against an opponent that had enjoyed a 50-year winning streak.

The plan Eugen and Marlborough devised called for the British to pin down the French right, while Eugen moved on the French left with the Danes and Prussians. With the enemy off-balance, Marlborough would deliver the coup de grace to the French centre. Eugen’s men crossed boggy terrain under enfilade fire to engage a stronger foe. His forces suffered frightful casualties in three assaults. Meanwhile, the battle hung in the balance as a French counterattack threatened to roll up Marlborough’s line. Marlborough sent an urgent request to Eugen for aid. Although his own troops were being decimated and on the verge of defeat, Eugen quickly redeployed his reserves to support his colleague. This freed up the British general to thrust through the enemy’s centre, cutting off and destroying one of the two French armies, leaving the other to make a difficult retreat back through a hostile Germany.

With its defeat at Blenheim, France lost its Bavarian foothold in Germany and spent the rest of the war trying to repel Allied invasions. France would not have a chance to dominate Europe again until the wars of the revolution of the 1790s and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.

He was often found in the thick of the action

Eugen, like Marlborough, led from the front. At Blenheim, he reportedly shot two of his own wavering soldiers to stiffen the resolve of his troops. In fact, so close to the action was the general, one observer deemed it almost a miracle that Eugen survived at all. He very well might not have if one of his men had not run through an enemy dragoon who was about to shoot him at close range. In all, Eugen sustained 13 wounds over the course of his career.

He fought in the 18th Century’s bloodiest battle

After Blenheim, Eugen saved his relative the Prince of Savoy by relieving Turin from a French siege in 1706. The victory left Austria as the dominant power in Italy for more than a century. Together, he and Marlborough recovered from a French surprise maneuver and almost ended the War of Spanish Succession in an afternoon at Oudenaarde in 1708. The following year, they set out to invade France and strike the final blow at Malplaquet. Here, they found a French army well-led by Marshal Villars entrenched and covered on both flanks by woods. The resulting assault became a bloody battle of attrition with both sides using the modern innovation of massed artillery batteries. After turning the French left and unleashing their cavalry on the French center, Eugen and Marlborough forced the French from the field in the bloodiest battle of the 18th Century. Despite suffering a mauling, Louis’ forces escaped intact and had inflicted greater casualties on the Allies. Growing increasingly war weary, Britain looked to recall Marlborough and withdraw from the war. With his allies abandoning the war, Eugen negotiated the 1714 Treaty of Rastatt on Austria’s behalf. The war’s cause — that France and Spain not unite as a single Bourbon superpower — had been achieved after 14 years and tens of thousands of deaths.

His personal life remains shrouded

Eugen, who remained single his entire life, was called by many “a Mars without a Venus.” He had a close attachment to Countess Batthyany, which sparked rumors. Eugen’s personal life, however, remains extremely obscure to us as he left so little writing about it behind. Two interests of his he made no attempt to conceal were architecture and fine arts. Eugen built three palaces in Vienna and filled them with works of fine art and books. Today, his Belvedere Palace is an art museum.

His campaigns helped bring the vampire legend to Western Europe

Eugen’s last great successes came against the Turks, whose vast armies he defeated at Peterwardein in 1716 and Belgrade in 1717 in Serbia. For a time, the land became an Austrian possession. Here, 15 years later, villagers in Medvegia reported strange deaths and illnesses that they linked to another villager named Arnold Paole. He had died from a fall three weeks earlier, and they claimed he had become a vampire. Austrian army surgeon Johann Fluckinger investigated and witnessed the vampire exorcism, complete with garlic and a stake through the heart. His report became one of the first stories in Western Europe of the Slavic vampire myth, the one that eventually evolved into the archetype for today’s stories through Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

He taught Frederick the Great

Frederick, as Crown Prince of Prussia, served under Eugen in the War of Polish Succession (1733-1735), where the Austrian general mentored the future ruler. Eugen had also played a role in dissuading Frederick’s father from executing him after he had tried to flee Prussia. Ungratefully, Frederick turned the lessons he had learned against Austria when he became King of Prussia after Eugen’s death in 1736 at the age of 72. Since Eugen had not instilled in the Austrian army the tradition of training and drilling that Frederick’s father had given Prussia, the Prussians practically walked over the Austrians in the War of Austrian Succession.

He made Napoleon’s list of the “Top 7 Generals.”

Napoleon Bonaparte considered Eugen one of history’s greatest commanders. In fact, when    he compiled his list of the seven best generals — one that also included Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Marshal Turenne, and Frederick the Great — Prince Eugen of Savoy made the cut.

Douglas Brown is a Texas-based writer who specializes in military history and historical fiction. His novel The Honorable Spy was released by Cheetah Publishing in July of 2022. Buy it on Amazon HERE. Follow him on Twitter @DougBrownAuthor or Instagram at douglasbrownauthor, or like his Facebook page, “Douglas Brown – Author.”

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