Hungarian Campaign 1697: Planning and Preparations

The article examines the preparation activities for the military campaign of 1697, carried out in the period from December 1696 to July 1697. The study focuses on the military operations planning and the relationships between various military-bureaucratic departments and military leaders, the process of procuring all the resources necessary for the campaign, the methods of coordinating commanders and military officials in order to ensure the combat readiness. The preparatory activities were studied, which involved not only the high command and the Court Military Council, but also the Banus of Croatia and Emperor Leopold I. The next stage was a detailed analysis of the measures taken by the military leadership in July 1697, in particular, Eugene of Savoy, at a time when the army was already in Hungary, but was not ready to act against the Ottomans. The sources used were the published letters of Eugene of Savoy from January to September 1697 and the minutes of the Court War Council and the War Council of Lower Austria. The sources allowed us to study the systemic interactions between different levels of the military hierarchy, officials and the emperor and to achieve a contextual perception of military command institutions, which made possible to separate the system-factors from the phenomenons of the 1697 campaign. Finally, the decisive role of systemic and collective efforts in ensuring the combat readiness of the armies of the Danube Monarchy was established. The competence of the commander-in-chief in the Danube Monarchy was determined during the period of equipping the troops, during the period of stay with the army in the theater of military operations and during preparation for a combat clash. In addition, the degree of personal efforts of Eugene of Savoy in organizing and successfully conducting the campaign of 1697 was assessed.