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Geoffrey Wawro (born 1960) is an American Professor of Military History at the University of North Texas, and Director of the UNT Military History Center. His primary area of emphasis is modern and contemporary military history, from the French Revolution to the present.
Wawro grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut and as a boy delivered newspapers for the Hartford Courant . He received his diploma from the Loomis-Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut in 1978, and his A-levels in English Literature and German from Cheltenham College, in England, the following year. After receiving his bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Brown University (1983), he attended Yale University, where he received his Master of Arts in European history (1987), his M. Phil. in European History in 1989, and his Ph.D. in 1992. His dissertation, entitled "The Austro-Prussian War: Politics, Strategy and War in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1859-1866" (1992), supervised by Paul Kennedy, argued that the battle of Königgrätz (1866) was not so much won by the brilliance of the Prussian commander Helmuth von Moltke the Elder as it was lost by the incompetence of the Austrian commander Ludwig von Benedek. [1]
Wawro hosted the History Channel's book show Hardcover History, and was host and anchor of the History Channel programs History's Business and History vs. Hollywood , Hard Target, Global View, and History in Focus. His guests have included Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Jack Welch, Robert Rubin, Caspar Weinberger, Warren Christopher, Niall Ferguson, Richard Overy, Stephen Ambrose, Michael Howard, Robert Dallek, Paul Theroux and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Wawro, an expert on military innovation and international security in Europe, the U.S., and Canada, was also (before his move to Texas) Professor of Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College as well as the Naval War College Review's "special correspondent," a designation that took him to "places or events of strategic or technological interest," including Iran, Brazil and the Paris Air Show. [2]
Wawro won the Austrian Cultural Institute Prize and the Society for Military History Moncado Prize for Excellence in the Writing of Military History. From 1989 to 1991, he was Fulbright Scholar at University of Vienna, Austria, and from 1991 to 1992, an Andrew W. Mellon Doctoral Fellow at Yale University. [1]
In a review of Wawro's 1996 book on the Austro-Prussian War, Lawrence Sondhaus criticizes Wawro for falsely claiming that the Austrian Empire intended to destroy the Kingdom of Italy in the Third Italian War of Independence of 1866. Wawro gives no evidence for his thesis of Austrian aggression and then proceeds to lambaste the Austrians for not achieving "goals they never intended to pursue". Wawro also ignores Italy's "sweeping war aims"; her intentions of seizing Trieste, Istria, and Dalmatia, aims that were prevented by the Austrian victory at the Battle of Lissa, and claims the Italians only wanted to acquire Venetia. [3]
He has also served on the editorial teams for over twenty volumes, including The Cambridge Military Histories, which he co-edits with Oxford's Hew Strachan. [1]
The Austro-Prussian War, also by many variant names such as Seven Weeks' War, German Civil War, Brothers War or Fraternal War, known in Germany as Deutscher Krieg, Deutscher Bruderkrieg and by a variety of other names, was fought in 1866 between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, with each also being aided by various allies within the German Confederation. Prussia had also allied with the Kingdom of Italy, linking this conflict to the Third Independence War of Italian unification. The Austro-Prussian War was part of the wider rivalry between Austria and Prussia, and resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states.
Franz Xaver Josef Conrad von Hötzendorf, sometimes anglicised as Hoetzendorf, was an Austrian general who played a central role in World War I. He served as K.u.k. Feldmarschall and Chief of the General Staff of the military of the Austro-Hungarian Army and Navy from 1906 to 1917. He was in charge during the July Crisis of 1914 that caused World War I.
The unification of Germany was a process of building the first nation-state for Germans with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany. It commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of the North German Confederation Treaty establishing the North German Confederation, initially a military alliance de facto dominated by Prussia which was subsequently deepened through adoption of the North German Constitution. The process symbolically concluded when most of south German states joined the North German Confederation with the ceremonial proclamation of the German Empire i.e. the German Reich having 25 member states and led by the Kingdom of Prussia of Hohenzollerns on 18 January 1871; the event was later celebrated as the customary date of the German Empire's foundation, although the legally meaningful events relevant to the accomplishment of unification occurred on 1 January 1871 and 4 May 1871.
The Battle of Custoza took place on the 24 June 1866 during the Third Italian War of Independence in the Italian unification process.
The Battle of Langensalza was fought on 27 June 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War, near Bad Langensalza in what is now modern Germany, between the Kingdom of Hanover and the Kingdom of Prussia. The Hanoverians won the battle but were then surrounded by a larger and reinforced Prussian army. Unable to link up with their Bavarian allies to the south, the Hanoverians surrendered.
The Battle of Gitschin or Jičín took place during of the Austro-Prussian War on 29 June 1866, ending with a Prussian victory over the Austrian forces. There is a memorial there today at Jičín in the Czech Republic.
The Third Italian War of Independence was a war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Austrian Empire fought between June and August 1866. The conflict paralleled the Austro-Prussian War and resulted in Austria conceding the region of Venetia to France, which was later annexed by Italy after a plebiscite. Italy's acquisition of this wealthy and populous territory represented a major step in the Unification of Italy.
The 1866 Treaty of Vienna was an agreement signed on 3 October 1866 and ratified on 12 October by the Kingdom of Italy and the Austrian Empire that concluded the hostilities of the Third War of Italian Independence, a theatre of the concurrent Austro-Prussian War.
The causes of the Franco-Prussian War are deeply rooted in the events surrounding German unification. In the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War (1866), Prussia had annexed numerous ethnically German territories and formed the North German Confederation with other German territories. Prussia then turned its attention towards the south of Germany, where it sought to expand its influence.
Archduke Leopold Ludwig Maria Franz Julius Estorgius Gerhard of Austria was an Austrian general and admiral.
Albert Ferdinand Adolf Karl Friedrich von Bonin was a corps commander of the Prussian Army at the Battle of Trautenau in 1866, and a colleague of Karl Friedrich von Steinmetz. He made his military career from Oberst (1851), Major general (1854) to Lieutenant general and adjutant of the king (1858). In 1863 he became Kommanierender General and 1864 General of the Infantry.
The Battle of Schweinschädel took place during the Austro-Prussian War between Prussia and Austria on 29 June 1866. The IV Army Corps of the Austrian Army under Tassilo Festetics tried to stop the advance of the Prussian 2nd Army under Crown Prince Friedrich, but was defeated by the V Army Corps under General von Steinmetz and had to withdraw.
The Armistice of Cormòns was signed in Cormons on 12 August 1866, between the Kingdom of Italy and the Austrian Empire and was a prelude to the Treaty of Vienna, which ended the Third Italian War of Independence.
Count Eduard Clam-Gallas was an Austrian general. He was the eldest son of Count Christian Christoph Clam-Gallas (1771–1838), patron of Beethoven, and Countess Josephine Clary-Aldringen (1777–1828).
Konstantin Bernhard von Voigts-Rhetz was a Prussian general who served in the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War.
The Battle of Hühnerwasser (Kuřívody) was the first battle of the Austro-Prussian War. It was the first engagement in the opening days of the Königgrätz campaign, fought in Bohemia on 26 June 1866. It was fought between troops of the Prussian Elbe army under General Herwarth von Bittenfeld and troops from the Austrian I Corps, led by Leopold Gondrecourt.
The Battle of Burkersdorf was fought on 28 June 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War. It featured the Austrian X Corps against the Prussian Guard Corps and ended in a Prussian victory.
SMS Habsburg was the second and final member of the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max class of broadside ironclads built for the Austrian Navy in the 1860s. She was built by the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino; her keel was laid down in June 1863, she was launched in June 1865, and commissioning in June 1866 at the outbreak of the Third Italian War of Independence and the Austro-Prussian War, fought concurrently. The ship was armed with a main battery of sixteen 48-pounder guns, though the rifled guns originally intended, which had been ordered from Prussia, had to be replaced with old smoothbore guns until after the conflicts ended.
Ludwig Karl Wilhelm Freiherr von Gablenz was an Austrian general of Saxon origin.
Ernst Ritter von Hartung was an Austrian Feldzeugmeister and military theorist.
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