I am asking because it seems so un believable that the Habsburgs lost that many wars - and still kept their rather large empire.

I’m writing this on mobile so apologies for any formatting errors that crop up.

I’m not going to try and do the math on how many battles and wars the Austrian Habsburg “won” it “lost.” However, what I will try and address is the standard perception that the Austrians tended to lose their wars, and the apparent disconnect between this and the longevity of the Austrian Habsburg empire which endured all the way through to 1918 in some form or another.

On one hand—and this is anecdotal—it seems as though the Austrians get the short end of the stick in terms of interest they draw. This is espescially true when it comes time for them to face some of their biggest foes. It’s fair to say that there is a ton of history and focus lavished on figures like Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte, all leaders of states that fought against the Austrian Habsburg state. These leaders definitely delivered harsh blows to Habsburg armies, and battles like Breitenfeld, Hohenfreidberg, Ulm, and Austerlitz are well remembered as Habsburg defeats. In this sense, I’d argue that we’re the victims of a bit of bias. In many way, the figures who fought against Austria have captured the historical imagination, and thus draw attention to their actions and in many cases, this means a bit of an overly tight focus on Austrian defeats. On the other hand, of the great well remembered battles where the Austrians were on the victorious side, it seems like they are often kept out of the spotlight. The Siege of Vienna is often remembered more as a Polish-Lithuanian victory, while Blenheim is held up as Marlborough’s great triumph. I’m not trying to argue that these are actually Austrian victories snatched from them, but rather highlighting that Austrian defeats tend to be remembered as Austrian defeats, while some major victories for the Austrians tend to see their allies get more of the focus.

Of course, there was much more conflict surrounding these battles. After the Siege of Vienna, Austria played a major role in the conquest of Hungary from the Ottomans, while simultaneously fending off the advances of Louis XIV in the West. During the War of the Austrian Succession, the Austrians managed to avoid dissolution of their empire against a major coalition of foes, despite being in a very weak position to start. And while it may be a bit early to talk of ‘Austrians’, in the Thirty Years War imperialist forces under Wallenstein drove to the Baltic and—alongside the Spanish—defeated the Swedes at Nordlingen. However, none of these quite capture the mind in the same way as someone like Napoleon or Frederick the Great, and don’t get the same level of attention. To be more specific, what I’d argue was the Habsburgs greatest military triumph—the conquest of Hungary from the Ottomans while simultaneously fighting the French—hardly gets much attention after the story of the great and dramatic Polish cavalry charge at Vienna.

To add on a bit of a side note, while Prince Eugene of Savoy was one of the most well known Austrian leaders, he was far from their only successful ones. Archduke Charles shares statues on the Heldenplatz with Prince Eugene, and Wallenstein—while again a bit early to be called an ‘austrian’ leader—also deserves a degree of recognition for his ability to raise an impressive army for the Emperor in the early phases of the Thirty Years War.

To go deeper, answering this also calls into question what we mean by “victory” or “defeat”. From a modern perspective, both of these seem very total terms. After all, many of the great conflicts of the 20th century have meant complete victory for one side of war and annihilation for the loser. From this perspective, the history of the Habsburg empire with major defeats very clearly remembered seems almost impossible. However, most early modern wars did not end so decisively. The defeats against Frederick cost the Habsburgs Silesia, but victories elsewhere prevented the dissolution of the entire monarchy. Should this be considered victory or defeat? I’d say a bit of both, which of course complicates the whole question, as you can’t exactly generate a clean win:loss ratio while looking at the treaties that ended many European wars of the 18th century.

So, to wrap up, and to restate my argument I’d say that in many senses the Austrians have ended with the short end of the stick in terms of how they’re remembered militarily. Their defeats are well remembered and highly focused on, while their victories don’t capture the imagination in the same way. The Austrian Habsburgs won plenty of their wars, and—I’d argue—played their hand as well as they could. They perhaps deservedly do not get the reputation as revolutionary military leaders like Frederick, Napoleon, or Gustavus, but I do think the reputation of the Austrians as “the worst military in Europe” is a bit undeserved. The Austrian Habsburg state has many many issues that threatened it but—despite that—it endured. Somehow.

I hope this answers your question. Please feel free to answer any follow ups.

P.S. I admittedly have not talked about much of modern imperial Austria in the post-Napoleonic era, and that’s because I don’t know enough about that era to talk about it in the detail it deserves. Hopefully someone else can chime in on that front.

could someone explain what happened when they lost so many wars? did they pay tribute instead of giving up land?