If not for Johann Strauss's Radetzky March, the name of Field Marshal Count Johann Joseph Radetzky von Radetz would be practically unknown outside of Austria. Yet the field marshal ranks as the most significant Austrian military figure of the nineteenth century, in part because of his remarkable longevity. Born in 1766, he entered the Habsburg army at age 18 and remained on active duty until shortly before his death in 1858. He was senior enough to play an important role in the Napoleonic wars, becoming a general in 1805, but went on to maintain a unique vitality well into his ninth decade, directing a campaign in northern Italy in 1849 in which he spent ten hours a day in the saddle.

Why has history largely forgotten him? As chief of staff to Prince Karl zu Schwarzenberg, allied commander in the decisive campaign against Napoleon in 1813–1814, Radetzky orchestrated the French emperor's defeat, only to have his (and Austria's) achievement overshadowed the following year by Napoleon's return from exile and ultimate defeat in the Waterloo campaign, in which Austria played no part. Likewise, in the twilight of his career, as commanding general of Austrian forces in northern Italy, Radetzky crushed the revolutions of 1848–1849 in Lombardy and Venetia, an achievement undone shortly after his death when Austria lost those lands in the unification of Italy.

Though his victories proved to be ephemeral, at the time Radetzky's accomplishments were appreciated by soldiers and statesmen across Europe. During the campaign of 1813–1814, official dispatches hailed his “military genius” (59), praise echoed by Sked in his subtitle and thesis. Radetzky enjoyed the confidence of Emperor Francis I, Schwarzenberg, Prince Clemens von Metternich, and, at the end of his career, the young Emperor Francis Joseph. Beyond Austria, his admirers included Tsar Alexander I and his son, Nicholas I, as well as Prussian military reformer August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, mentor of Carl von Clausewitz. By the time of his death, Radetzky had been awarded the highest military honors his country could offer, along with those of Russia, Prussia, and several other foreign states. He had few detractors, but they included the cautious Archduke Charles, Austria's leading general in the wars against Napoleon, who disliked Radetzky's fiery temperament. Ironically, after the archduke's forced retirement in 1809, Radetzky succeeded him as the army's leading proponent of reform. Nevertheless, as late as the 1830s, Charles opposed Radetzky's appointment to his ultimate post, as commanding general in northern Italy.

In addition to chronicling Radetzky's military campaigns, Sked focuses considerable attention on his role as a military reformer. Radetzky initiated lasting reforms in a variety of branches of the Austrian military, including the pioneers (sappers), the veterinary service, and the Institute for Military Geography. His guidelines for military attachés serving in foreign embassies, written in 1810, were still in effect when the Habsburg Empire dissolved in 1918. As commander in northern Italy, Radetzky conducted annual peacetime maneuvers in the 1830s and 1840s, decades before other armies did so. Like the Prussian military reformers Gneisenau and Gerhard von Scharnhorst, Radetzky's experiences fighting Napoleon made him appreciate the need for a well-educated general staff, but despite his best efforts the necessary reforms in military education came more slowly and were less systematic than those in Prussia. As early as 1811, Radetzky devised a course of study for staff officers, but the Austrian general staff school (Kriegsschule) was not established until 1852, forty-two years after its Prussian counterpart.

Sked's work is not a comprehensive biography. He covers Radetzky's first eighteen years in two pages, highlighted by a physician's ironic assessment that the young count was too frail for “the exertions of a soldier's life” (3). Sked likewise devotes just two pages to his subject's often-stormy marriage of fifty-six years to Countess Franziska (Fanny) Romana Strassoldo-Graffenberg, who bore him eight children. Ultimately Radetzky's own longevity gave him the sad fate of surviving his much younger wife and all but two of his children. Although a bit more attention to his personal life might have added more insight into the man and the mind behind the great deeds, there is little to quarrel with here. Sked does an excellent job in explaining Radetzky's historical significance and arguing that he has been unfairly ignored. This work will be recognized for its valuable contribution to the literature on the history of nineteenth century, by specialists in Austrian history, as well as military historians.