Zu viele Schlachten des Grafen Leopold Schlick
Too Many Battles of Count Leopold Schlick

Summary/Abstract: The career of the Czech nobleman Leopold Anton Joseph Schlick (1663–1723), brother-in-law of Johann Wenzel Wratislaw of Mitrowitz and his successor as Grand Bohemian Chancellor, is partly documented in existing scholarship. Schlick began his military service as a volunteer in a cuirassier regiment of the allied army during the Habsburg–Ottoman War (1683–1699) and later contributed, as one of the emperor’s envoys, to the negotiations of the Treaty of Karlowitz. Less well known, however, is his subsequent role in directing and, later as General War Commissioner, overseeing military campaigns against the forces of Ferenc II Rákóczi in Hungary, as well as in operations during the War of the Spanish Succession across the Empire, Italy, and the Netherlands. Even more obscure is the fact that, in 1713, the emperor appointed Schlick as head of the Bohemian Court Chancellery, partly in response to ongoing conflicts with Prince Eugene of Savoy, president of the Imperial War Council. This study reconstructs Schlick’s career within the broader European context at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Drawing primarily on correspondence between Schlick and Ferdinand Joseph of Dietrichstein, as well as on Schlick’s personal diary from his diplomatic mission to German courts, the analysis illuminates the operational challenges of multi-front Baroque warfare. These sources provide insight into the practical realities of military logistics, the responsibilities and constraints of a war commissioner in imperial service, and the broader political dynamics underpinning Habsburg military strategy.

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