title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In March 1684, Leopold I formed the Holy League with Poland and Venice to counter the Ottoman threat. For the next two years, Eugene continued to perform with distinction on campaign and establish himself as a dedicated, professional soldier; by the end of 1685, still only 22 years old, he was made a Major-General. Little is known of Eugene's life during these early campaigns. Contemporary observers make only passing comments of his actions, and his own surviving correspondence, largely to his cousin Victor Amadeus, are typically reticent about his own feelings and experiences. Nevertheless, it is clear that Baden was impressed with Eugene's qualities—"This young man will, with time, occupy the place of those whom the world regards as great leaders of armies."


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In June 1686, the Duke of Lorraine besieged Buda (Budapest), the centre of the Ottoman occupation in Hungary. After resisting for 78 days, the city fell on 2 September, and Turkish resistance collapsed throughout the region as far away as Transylvania and Serbia. Further success followed in 1687, where, commanding a cavalry brigade, Eugene made an important contribution to the victory at the Battle of Mohács on 12 August. Such was the scale of their defeat that the Ottoman army mutinied—a revolt which spread to Constantinople. The Grand Vizier, Suluieman Pasha, was executed and Sultan Mehmed IV, deposed. Once again, Eugene's courage earned him recognition from his superiors, who granted him the honour of personally conveying the news of victory to the Emperor in Vienna. For his services, Eugene was promoted to Lieutenant-General in November 1687. He was also gaining wider recognition. King Charles II of Spain bestowed upon him the Order of the Golden Fleece, while his cousin, Victor Amadeus, provided him with money and two profitable abbeys in Piedmont. Eugene's military career suffered a temporary setback in 1688 when, on 6 September, the Prince suffered a severe wound to his knee by a musket ball during the Siege of Belgrade, and did not return to active service until January 1689.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Just as Belgrade was falling to Imperial forces under Max Emmanuel in the east, French troops in the west were crossing the Rhine into the Holy Roman Empire. Louis XIV had hoped that a show of force would lead to a quick resolution to his dynastic and territorial disputes with the princes of the Empire along his eastern border, but his intimidatory moves only strengthened German resolve, and in May 1689, Leopold I and the Dutch signed an offensive compact aimed at repelling French aggression.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: The Nine Years' War was professionally and personally frustrating for the Prince. Initially fighting on the Rhine with Max Emmanuel—receiving a slight head wound at the Siege of Mainz in 1689—Eugene subsequently transferred himself to Piedmont after Victor Amadeus joined the Alliance against France in 1690. Promoted to general of cavalry, he arrived in Turin with his friend the Prince of Commercy; but it proved an inauspicious start. Against Eugene's advice, Amadeus insisted on engaging the French at Staffarda and suffered a serious defeat—only Eugene's handling of the Savoyard cavalry in retreat saved his cousin from disaster. Eugene remained unimpressed with the men and their commanders throughout the war in Italy. "The enemy would long ago have been beaten," he wrote to Vienna, "if everyone had done their duty." So contemptuous was he of the Imperial commander, Count Caraffa, he threatened to leave Imperial service.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In Vienna, Eugene's attitude was dismissed as the arrogance of a young upstart, but so impressed was the Emperor by his passion for the Imperial cause, he promoted him to Field-Marshal in 1693. When Caraffa's replacement, Count Caprara, was himself transferred in 1694, it seemed that Eugene's chance for command and decisive action had finally arrived. But Amadeus, doubtful of victory and now more fearful of Habsburg influence in Italy than he was of French, had begun secret dealings with Louis XIV aimed at extricating himself from the war. By 1696, the deal was done, and Amadeus transferred his troops and his loyalty to the enemy. Eugene was never to fully trust his cousin again; although he continued to pay due reverence to the Duke as head of his family, their relationship would forever after remain strained.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Military honours in Italy undoubtedly belonged to the French commander Marshal Catinat, but Eugene, the one Allied general determined on action and decisive results, did well to emerge from the Nine Years' War with an enhanced reputation. With the signing of the Treaty of Ryswick in September/October 1697, the desultory war in the west was finally brought to an inconclusive end, and Leopold I could once again devote all his martial energies into defeating the Ottoman Turks in the east.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: The distractions of the war against Louis XIV had enabled the Turks to recapture Belgrade in 1690. In August 1691, the Austrians, under Louis of Baden, regained the advantage by heavily defeating the Turks at the Battle of Slankamen on the Danube, securing Habsburg possession of Hungary and Transylvania. When Baden was transferred west to fight the French in 1692, his successors, first Caprara, then from 1696, Frederick Augustus, the Elector of Saxony, proved incapable of delivering the final blow. On the advice of the President of the Imperial War Council, Rüdiger Starhemberg, thirty-four-year old Eugene was offered supreme command of Imperial forces in April 1697. This was Eugene's first truly independent command—no longer need he suffer under the excessively cautious generalship of Caprara and Caraffa, or be thwarted by the deviations of Victor Amadeus. But on joining his army, he found it in a state of 'indescribable misery'. Confident and self-assured, the Prince of Savoy (ably assisted by Commercy and Guido Starhemberg) set about restoring order and discipline.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Leopold I had warned Eugene that "he should act with extreme caution, forgo all risks and avoid engaging the enemy unless he has overwhelming strength and is practically certain of being completely victorious", but when the Imperial commander learnt of Sultan Mustafa II's march on Transylvania, Eugene abandoned all ideas of a defensive campaign and moved to intercept the Turks as they crossed the River Tisza at Zenta on 11 September 1697.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: It was late in the day before the Imperial army struck. The Turkish cavalry had already crossed the river so Eugene decided to attack immediately, arranging his men in a half-moon formation. The vigour of the assault wrought terror and confusion amongst the Turks, and by nightfall, the battle was won. For the loss of some 2,000 dead and wounded, Eugene had inflicted an overwhelming defeat upon the enemy with approximately 25,000 Turks killed—including the Grand Vizier, Elmas Mehmed Pasha, the vizirs of Adana, Anatolia, and Bosnia, plus more than thirty aghas of the Janissaries, sipahis, and silihdars, as well as seven horsetails (symbols of high authority), 100 pieces of heavy artillery, 423 banners, and the revered seal which the sultan always entrusted to the grand vizir on an important campaign, Eugene had annihilated the Turkish army and brought to an end the War of the Holy League. Although the Ottomans lacked western organisation and training, the Savoyard prince had revealed his tactical skill, his capacity for bold decision, and his ability to inspire his men to excel in battle against a dangerous foe.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: After a brief terror-raid into Ottoman-held Bosnia, culminating in the sack of Sarajevo, Eugene returned to Vienna in November to a triumphal reception. His victory at Zenta had turned him into a European hero, and with victory came reward. Land in Hungary, given him by the Emperor, yielded a good income, enabling the Prince to cultivate his newly acquired tastes in art and architecture (see below); but for all his new-found wealth and property, he was, nevertheless, without personal ties or family commitments. Of his four brothers, only one was still alive at this time. His fourth brother, Emmanuel, had died aged 14 in 1676; his third, Louis Julius (already mentioned) had died on active service in 1683, and his second brother, Philippe, died of smallpox in 1693. Eugene's remaining brother, Louis Thomas—ostracised for incurring the displeasure of Louis XIV—travelled Europe in search of a career, before arriving in Vienna in 1699. With Eugene's help, Louis found employment in the Imperial army, only to be killed in action against the French in 1702. Of Eugene's sisters, the youngest had died in childhood. The other two, Marie Jeanne-Baptiste and Louise Philiberte, led dissolute lives. Expelled from France, Marie joined her mother in Brussels, before eloping with a renegade priest to Geneva, living with him unhappily until her premature death in 1705. Of Louise, little is known after her early salacious life in Paris, but in due course, she lived for a time in a convent in Savoy before her death in 1726.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: The Battle of Zenta proved to be the decisive victory in the long war against the Turks. With Leopold I's interests now focused on Spain and the imminent death of Charles II, the Emperor terminated the conflict with the Sultan; he signed the Treaty of Karlowitz on 26 January 1699.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: With the death of the infirm and childless Charles II of Spain on 1 November 1700, the succession of the Spanish throne and subsequent control over her empire once again embroiled Europe in war—the War of the Spanish Succession. On his deathbed Charles II had bequeathed the entire Spanish inheritance to Louis XIV's grandson, Philip, Duke of Anjou. This threatened to unite the Spanish and French kingdoms under the House of Bourbon—something unacceptable to England, the Dutch Republic, and Leopold I, who had himself a claim to the Spanish throne. From the beginning, the Emperor had refused to accept the will of Charles II, and he did not wait for England and the Dutch Republic to begin hostilities. Before a new Grand Alliance could be concluded Leopold I prepared to send an expedition to seize the Spanish lands in Italy.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene crossed the Alps with some 30,000 men in May/June 1701. After a series of brilliant manoeuvres the Imperial commander defeated Catinat at the Battle of Carpi on 9 July. "I have warned you that you are dealing with an enterprising young prince," wrote Louis XIV to his commander, "he does not tie himself down to the rules of war." On 1 September Eugene defeated Catinat's successor, Marshal Villeroi, at the Battle of Chiari, in a clash as destructive as any in the Italian theatre. But as so often throughout his career the Prince faced war on two fronts—the enemy in the field and the government in Vienna.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Starved of supplies, money, and men, Eugene was forced into unconventional means against the vastly superior enemy. During a daring raid on Cremona on the night of 31 January/1 February 1702 Eugene captured the French commander-in-chief. Yet the coup was less successful than hoped: Cremona remained in French hands, and the Duke of Vendôme, whose talents far exceeded Villeroi's, became the theatre's new commander. Villeroi's capture caused a sensation in Europe and had a galvanising effect on English public opinion. "The surprise at Cremona," wrote the diarist John Evelyn, "… was the great discourse of this week"; but appeals for succour from Vienna remained unheeded, forcing Eugene to seek battle and gain a 'lucky hit'. The resulting Battle of Luzzara on 15 August proved inconclusive. Although Eugene's forces inflicted double the number of casualties on the French the battle settled little except to deter Vendôme trying an all-out assault on Imperial forces that year, enabling Eugene to hold on the south of the Alps. With his army rotting away, and personally grieving for his long-standing friend Prince Commercy who had died at Luzzara, Eugene returned to Vienna in January 1703.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene's European reputation was growing (Cremona and Luzzara had been celebrated as victories throughout the Allied capitals), yet because of the condition and morale of his troops the 1702 campaign had not been a success. Austria itself was now facing the direct threat of invasion from across the border in Bavaria where the state's Elector, Maximilian Emanuel, had declared for the Bourbons in August the previous year. Meanwhile, in Hungary a small-scale revolt had broken out in May and was fast gaining momentum. With the monarchy at the point of complete financial breakdown Leopold I was at last persuaded to change the government. At the end of June 1703 Gundaker Starhemberg replaced Gotthard Salaburg as President of the Treasury, and Prince Eugene succeeded Henry Mansfeld as the new President of the Imperial War Council ("Hofkriegsratspräsident").


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: As head of the war council Eugene was now part of the Emperor's inner circle, and the first president since Montecuccoli to remain an active commander. Immediate steps were taken to improve efficiency within the army: encouragement and, where possible, money, was sent to the commanders in the field; promotion and honours were distributed according to service rather than influence; and discipline improved. But the Austrian monarchy faced severe peril on several fronts in 1703: by June the Duke of Villars had reinforced the Elector of Bavaria on the Danube thus posing a direct threat to Vienna, while Vendôme remained at the head of a large army in northern Italy opposing Guido Starhemberg's weak Imperial force. Of equal alarm was Francis II Rákóczi's revolt which, by the end of the year, had reached as far as Moravia and Lower Austria.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Dissension between Villars and the Elector of Bavaria had prevented an assault on Vienna in 1703, but in the Courts of Versailles and Madrid, ministers confidently anticipated the city's fall. The Imperial ambassador in London, Count Wratislaw, had pressed for Anglo-Dutch assistance on the Danube as early as February 1703, but the crisis in southern Europe seemed remote from the Court of St. James's where colonial and commercial considerations were more to the fore of men's minds. Only a handful of statesmen in England or the Dutch Republic realised the true implications of Austria's peril; foremost amongst these was the English Captain-General, the Duke of Marlborough.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: By early 1704 Marlborough had resolved to march south and rescue the situation in southern Germany and on the Danube, personally requesting the presence of Eugene on campaign so as to have "a supporter of his zeal and experience". The Allied commanders met for the first time at the small village of Mundelsheim on 10 June, and immediately formed a close rapport—the two men becoming, in the words of Thomas Lediard, 'Twin constellations in glory'. This professional and personal bond ensured mutual support on the battlefield, enabling many successes during the Spanish Succession war. The first of these victories, and the most celebrated, came on 13 August 1704 at the Battle of Blenheim. Eugene commanded the right wing of the Allied army, holding the Elector of Bavaria's and Marshal Marsin's superior forces, while Marlborough broke through the Marshal Tallard's center, inflicting over 30,000 casualties. The battle proved decisive: Vienna was saved and Bavaria was knocked out of the war. Both Allied commanders were full of praise for each other's performance. Eugene's holding operation, and his pressure for action leading up to the battle, proved crucial for the Allied success.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In Europe Blenheim is regarded as much a victory for Eugene as it is for Marlborough, a sentiment echoed by Sir Winston Churchill (Marlborough's descendant and biographer), who pays tribute to "the glory of Prince Eugene, whose fire and spirit had exhorted the wonderful exertions of his troops." France now faced the real danger of invasion, but Leopold I in Vienna was still under severe strain: Rákóczi's revolt was a major threat; and Guido Starhemberg and Victor Amadeus (who had once again switched loyalties and rejoined the Grand Alliance in 1703) had been unable to halt the French under Vendôme in northern Italy. Only Amadeus' capital, Turin, held on.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene returned to Italy in April 1705, but his attempts to move west towards Turin were thwarted by Vendôme's skillful manoeuvres. Lacking boats and bridging materials, and with desertion and sickness rife within his army, the outnumbered Imperial commander was helpless. Leopold I's assurances of money and men had proved illusory, but desperate appeals from Amadeus and criticism from Vienna goaded the Prince into action, resulting in the Imperialists' bloody defeat at the Battle of Cassano on 16 August. Following Leopold I's death and the accession of Joseph I to the Imperial throne in May 1705, Eugene began to receive the personal backing he desired. Joseph I proved to be a strong supporter of Eugene's supremacy in military affairs; he was the most effective emperor the Prince served and the one he was happiest under. Promising support, Joseph I persuaded Eugene to return to Italy and restore Habsburg honour.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: The Imperial commander arrived in theatre in mid-April 1706, just in time to organise an orderly retreat of what was left of Count Reventlow's inferior army following his defeat by Vendôme at the Battle of Calcinato on 19 April. Vendôme now prepared to defend the lines along the river Adige, determined to keep Eugene cooped to the east while the Marquis of La Feuillade threatened Turin. Feigning attacks along the Adige, Eugene descended south across the river Po in mid-July, outmanoeuvring the French commander and gaining a favourable position from which he could at last move west towards Piedmont and relieve Savoy's capital.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Events elsewhere now had major consequences for the war in Italy. With Villeroi's crushing defeat by Marlborough at the Battle of Ramillies on 23 May, Louis XIV recalled Vendôme north to take command of French forces in Flanders. It was a transfer that Saint-Simon considered something of a deliverance for the French commander who was "now beginning to feel the unlikelihood of success [in Italy] … for Prince Eugene, with the reinforcements that had joined him after the Battle of Calcinato, had entirely changed the outlook in that theatre of the war." The Duke of Orléans, under the direction of Marsin, replaced Vendôme, but indecision and disorder in the French camp led to their undoing. After uniting his forces with Victor Amadeus at Villastellone in early September, Eugene attacked, overwhelmed, and decisively defeated the French forces besieging Turin on 7 September. Eugene's success broke the French hold on northern Italy, and the whole Po valley fell under Allied control. Eugene had gained a victory as signal as his colleague had at Ramillies—"It is impossible for me to express the joy it has given me;" wrote Marlborough, "for I not only esteem but I really love the prince. This glorious action must bring France so low, that if our friends could but be persuaded to carry on the war with vigour one year longer, we cannot fail, with the blessing of God, to have such a peace as will give us quiet for all our days."


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: The Imperial victory in Italy marked the beginning of Austrian rule in Lombardy, and earned Eugene the Governorship of Milan. But the following year was to prove a disappointment for the Prince and the Grand Alliance as a whole. The Emperor and Eugene (whose main goal after Turin was to take Naples and Sicily from Philip duc d'Anjou's supporters), reluctantly agreed to Marlborough's plan for an attack on Toulon—the seat of French naval power in the Mediterranean. Disunion between the Allied commanders—Victor Amadeus, Eugene, and the English Admiral Shovell—doomed the Toulon enterprise to failure. Although Eugene favoured some sort of attack on France's south-eastern border it was clear he felt the expedition impractical, and showed none of the "alacrity which he had displayed on other occasions." Substantial French reinforcements finally brought an end to the venture, and on 22 August 1707, the Imperial army began its retirement. The subsequent capture of Susa could not compensate for the total collapse of the Toulon expedition and with it any hope of an Allied war-winning blow that year.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: At the beginning of 1708 Eugene successfully evaded calls for him to take charge in Spain (in the end Guido Starhemberg was sent), thus enabling him to take command of the Imperial army on the Moselle and once again unite with Marlborough in the Spanish Netherlands. Eugene (without his army) arrived at the Allied camp at Assche, west of Brussels, in early July, providing a welcome boost to morale after the early defection of Bruges and Ghent to the French. " … our affairs improved through God's support and Eugene's aid," wrote the Prussian General Natzmer, "whose timely arrival raised the spirits of the army again and consoled us." Heartened by the Prince's confidence the Allied commanders devised a bold plan to engage the French army under Vendôme and the Duke of Burgundy. On 10 July the Anglo-Dutch army made a forced march to surprise the French, reaching the river Scheldt just as the enemy was crossing to the north. The ensuing battle on 11 July—more a contact action rather than a set-piece engagement—ended in a resounding success for the Allies, aided by the dissension of the two French commanders. While Marlborough remained in overall command, Eugene had led the crucial right flank and centre. Once again the Allied commanders had co-operated remarkably well. "Prince Eugene and I," wrote the Duke, "shall never differ about our share of the laurels."


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Marlborough now favoured a bold advance along the coast to bypass the major French fortresses, followed by a march on Paris. But fearful of unprotected supply-lines, the Dutch and Eugene favoured a more cautious approach. Marlborough acquiesced and resolved upon the siege of Vauban's great fortress, Lille. While the Duke commanded the covering force, Eugene oversaw the siege of the town which surrendered on 22 October but Marshal Boufflers did not yield the citadel until 10 December. Yet for all the difficulties of the siege (Eugene was badly wounded above his left eye by a musket ball, and even survived an attempt to poison him), the campaign of 1708 had been a remarkable success. The French were driven out of almost all the Spanish Netherlands. "He who has not seen this," wrote Eugene, "has seen nothing."


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: The recent defeats, together with the severe winter of 1708–09, had caused extreme famine and privation in France. Louis XIV was close to accepting Allied terms, but the conditions demanded by the leading Allied negotiators, Anthonie Heinsius, Charles Townshend, Marlborough, and Eugene—principally that Louis XIV should use his own troops to force Philip V off the Spanish throne—proved unacceptable to the French. Neither Eugene nor Marlborough had objected to the Allied demands at the time, but neither wanted the war with France to continue, and would have preferred further talks to deal with the Spanish issue. But the French King offered no further proposals. Lamenting the collapse of the negotiations, and aware of the vagaries of war, Eugene wrote to the Emperor in mid-June 1709. "There can be no doubt that the next battle will be the biggest and bloodiest that has yet been fought."


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: After the fall of Tournai on 3 September (itself a major undertaking), the Allied generals turned their attention towards Mons. Marshal Villars, recently joined by Boufflers, moved his army south-west of the town and began to fortify his position. Marlborough and Eugene favoured an engagement before Villars could render his position impregnable; but they also agreed to wait for reinforcements from Tournai which did not arrive until the following night, thus giving the French further opportunity to prepare their defences. Notwithstanding the difficulties of the attack, the Allied generals did not shrink from their original determination. The subsequent Battle of Malplaquet, fought on 11 September 1709, was the bloodiest engagement of the war. On the left flank, the Prince of Orange led his Dutch infantry in desperate charges only to have it cut to pieces; on the other flank, Eugene attacked and suffered almost as severely. But sustained pressure on his extremities forced Villars to weaken his centre, thus enabling Marlborough to breakthrough and claim victory. Villars was unable to save Mons, which subsequently capitulated on 21 October, but his resolute defence at Malplaquet—inflicting up to 25% casualties on the Allies—may have saved France from destruction.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In August 1709 Eugene's chief political opponent and critic in Vienna, Prince Salm, retired as court chamberlain. Eugene and Wratislaw were now the undisputed leaders of the Austrian government: all major departments of state were in their hands or those of their political allies. Another attempt at a negotiated settlement at Geertruidenberg in April 1710 failed, largely because the English Whigs still felt strong enough to refuse concessions, while Louis XIV saw little reason to accept what he had refused the previous year. Eugene and Marlborough could not be accused of wrecking the negotiations, but neither showed regret at the breakdown of the talks. There was no alternative but to continue the war, and in June the Allied commanders captured Douai. This success was followed by a series of minor sieges, and by the close of 1710 the Allies had cleared much of France's protective ring of fortresses. Yet there had been no final, decisive breakthrough, and this was to be the last year that Eugene and Marlborough would work together.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Following the death of Joseph I on 17 April 1711 his brother, Charles, the pretender to the Spanish throne, became emperor. In England the new Tory government (the 'peace party' who had deposed the Whigs in October 1710) declared their unwillingness to see Charles VI become Emperor as well as King of Spain, and had already begun secret negotiations with the French. In January 1712 Eugene arrived in England hoping to divert the government away from its peace policy, but despite the social success the visit was a political failure: Queen Anne and her ministers remained determined to end the war regardless of the Allies. Eugene had also arrived too late to save Marlborough who, seen by the Tories as the main obstacle to peace, had already been dismissed on charges of embezzlement. Elsewhere the Austrians had made some progress—the Hungarian revolt had finally came to end. Although Eugene would have preferred to crush the rebels the Emperor had offered lenient conditions, leading to the signing of the Treaty of Szatmár on 30 April 1711.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Hoping to influence public opinion in England and force the French into making substantial concessions, Eugene prepared for a major campaign. But on 21 May 1712—when the Tories felt they had secured favourable terms with their unilateral talks with the French—the Duke of Ormonde (Marlborough's successor) received the so-called 'restraining orders', forbidding him to take part in any military action. Eugene took the fortress of Le Quesnoy in early July, before besieging Landrecies, but Villars, taking advantage of Allied disunity, outmanoeuvred Eugene and defeated the Earl of Albermarle's Dutch garrison at Denain on 24 July. The French followed the victory by seizing the Allies' main supply magazine at Marchiennes, before reversing their earlier losses at Douai, Le Quesnoy and Bouchain. In one summer the whole forward Allied position laboriously built up over the years to act as the springboard into France had been precipitously abandoned.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: With the death in December of his friend and close political ally, Count Wratislaw, Eugene became undisputed 'first minister' in Vienna. His position was built on his military successes, but his actual power was expressed through his role as president of the war council, and as "de facto" president of the conference which dealt with foreign policy. In this position of influence Eugene took the lead in pressing Charles VI towards peace. The government had come to accept that further war in the Netherlands or Spain was impossible without the aid of the Maritime Powers; yet the Emperor, still hoping that somehow he could place himself on the throne in Spain, refused to make peace at the Utrecht conference along with the other Allies. Reluctantly, Eugene prepared for another campaign, but lacking troops, finance, and supplies his prospects in 1713 were poor. Villars, with superior numbers, was able to keep Eugene guessing as to his true intent. Through successful feints and stratagems Landau fell to the French commander in August, followed in November by Freiburg. Eugene was reluctant to carry on the war, and wrote to the Emperor in June that a bad peace would be better than being 'ruined equally by friend and foe'. With Austrian finances exhausted and the German states reluctant to continue the war, Charles VI was compelled to enter into negotiations. Eugene and Villars (who had been old friends since the Turkish campaigns of the 1680s) initiated talks on 26 November. Eugene proved an astute and determined negotiator, and gained favourable terms by the Treaty of Rastatt signed on 7 March 1714 and the Treaty of Baden signed on 7 September 1714. Despite the failed campaign in 1713 the Prince was able to declare that, "in spite of the military superiority of our enemies and the defection of our Allies, the conditions of peace will be more advantageous and more glorious than those we would have obtained at Utrecht."


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene's main reason for desiring peace in the west was the growing danger posed by the Turks in the east. Turkish military ambitions had revived after 1711 when they had mauled Peter the Great's army on the river Pruth (Pruth River Campaign): in December 1714 Sultan Ahmed III's forces attacked the Venetians in the Morea. To Vienna it was clear that the Turks intended to attack Hungary and undo the whole Karlowitz settlement of 1699. After the Porte rejected an offer of mediation in April 1716, Charles VI despatched Eugene to Hungary to lead his relatively small but professional army. Of all Eugene's wars this was the one in which he exercised most direct control; it was also a war which, for the most part, Austria fought and won on her own.Eugene left Vienna in early June 1716 with a field army of between 80,000 and 90,000 men. By early August 1716 the Ottoman Turks, some 200,000 men under the sultan's son-in-law, the Grand Vizier Damat Ali Pasha, were marching from Belgrade towards Eugene's position west of the fortress of Petrovaradin on the north bank of the Danube. The Grand Vizier had intended to seize the fortress; but Eugene gave him no chance to do so. After resisting calls for caution and forgoing a council of war, the Prince decided to attack immediately on the morning of 5 August with approximately 70,000 men. The Turkish janissaries had some initial success, but after an Imperial cavalry attack on their flank, Ali Pasha's forces fell into confusion. Although the Imperials lost almost 5,000 dead or wounded, the Turks, who retreated in disorder to Belgrade, seem to have lost double that amount, including the Grand Vizier himself who had entered the mêlée and subsequently died of his wounds.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene proceeded to take the Banat fortress of Timișoara (Temeswar in German, from its original name in hungarian, Temesvár) in mid-October 1716 (thus ending 164 years of Turkish rule), before turning his attention to the next campaign and to what he considered the main goal of the war, Belgrade. Situated at the confluence of the Rivers Danube and Sava, Belgrade held a garrison of 30,000 men under Serasker Mustapha Pasha.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Imperial troops besieged the place in mid-June 1717, and by the end of July large parts of the city had been destroyed by artillery fire. By the first days of August, however, a huge Turkish field army (150,000–200,000 strong), under the new Grand Vizier Hacı Halil Pasha had arrived on the plateau east of the city to relieve the garrison. News spread through Europe of Eugene's imminent destruction; but he had no intention of lifting the siege. With his men suffering from dysentery, and continuous bombardment from the plateau, Eugene, aware that a decisive victory alone could extricate his army, decided to attack the relief force. On the morning of 16 August, 40,000 Imperial troops marched through the fog, caught the Turks unaware, and routed Halil Pasha's army; a week later Belgrade surrendered, effectively bringing an end to the war. The victory was the crowning point of Eugene's military career and had confirmed him as the leading European general. His ability to snatch victory at the moment of defeat had shown the Prince at his best.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: The principal objectives of the war had been achieved: the task Eugene had begun at Zenta was complete, and the Karlowitz settlement secured. By the terms of the Treaty of Passarowitz, signed on 21 July 1718, the Turks surrendered the Banat of Temeswar, along with Belgrade and most of Serbia, although they regained the Morea from the Venetians. The war had dispelled the immediate Turkish threat to Hungary and was a triumph for the Empire and for Eugene personally.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: While Eugene fought the Turks in the east, unresolved issues following the Utrecht/Rastatt settlements led to hostilities between the Emperor and Philip V of Spain in the west. Charles VI had refused to recognise Philip V as King of Spain, a title which he himself claimed; in return, Philip V had refused to renounce his claims to Naples, Milan, and the Netherlands, all of which had transferred to the House of Austria following the Spanish Succession war. Philip V was roused by his influential wife, Elisabeth Farnese, daughter of the Hereditary Prince of Parma, who personally held dynastic claims in the name of her son, Don Charles, to the duchies of Tuscany, Parma and Piacenza. Representatives from a newly formed Anglo-French alliance—who were desirous of European peace for their own dynastic securities and trade opportunities—called on both parties to recognise each other's sovereignty. Yet Philip V remained intractable, and on 22 August 1717 his chief minister, Alberoni, effected the invasion of Austrian Sardinia in what seemed like the beginning of the reconquest of Spain's former Italian empire.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene returned to Vienna from his recent victory at Belgrade (before the conclusion of the Turkish war) determined to prevent an escalation of the conflict, complaining that, "two wars cannot be waged with one army"; only reluctantly did the Prince release some troops from the Balkans for the Italian campaign. Rejecting all diplomatic overtures Philip V unleashed another assault in June 1718, this time against Savoyard Sicily as a preliminary to attacking the Italian mainland. Realising that only the British fleet could prevent further Spanish landings, and that pro-Spanish groups in France might push the regent, Duke of Orléans, into war against Austria, Charles VI had no option but to sign the Quadruple Alliance on 2 August 1718, and formally renounce his claim to Spain. Despite the Spanish fleet's destruction off Cape Passaro, Philip V and Elisabeth remained resolute, and rejected the treaty.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Although Eugene could have gone south after the conclusion of the Turkish war, he chose instead to conduct operations from Vienna; but Austria's military effort in Sicily proved derisory, and Eugene's chosen commanders, Zum Jungen, and later Count Mercy, performed poorly. It was only from pressure exerted by the French army advancing into the Basque provinces of northern Spain in April 1719, and the British Navy's attacks on the Spanish fleet and shipping, that compelled Philip V and Elisabeth to dismiss Alberoni and join the Quadruple Alliance on 25 January 1720. Nevertheless, the Spanish attacks had strained Charles VI's government, causing tension between the Emperor and his Spanish Council on the one hand, and the conference, headed by Eugene, on the other. Despite Charles VI's own personal ambitions in the Mediterranean it was clear to the Emperor that Eugene had put the safeguarding of his conquests in Hungary before everything else, and that military failure in Sicily also had to rest on Eugene. Consequently, the Prince's influence over the Emperor declined considerably.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene had become governor of the Southern Netherlands—then the Austrian Netherlands—in June 1716, but he was an absent ruler, directing policy from Vienna through his chosen representative the Marquis of Prié. Prié proved unpopular with the local population and the guilds who, following the Barrier Treaty of 1715, were obliged to meet the financial demands of the administration and the Dutch barrier garrisons; with Eugene's backing and encouragement, civil disturbances in Antwerp and Brussels were forcibly suppressed. After displeasing the Emperor over his initial opposition to the formation of the Ostend Company, Prié also lost the support of the native nobility from within his own council of state in Brussels, particularly from the Marquis de Mérode-Westerloo. One of Eugene's former favourites, General Bonneval, also joined the noblemen in opposition to Prié, further undermining the Prince. When Prié's position became untenable, Eugene felt compelled to resign his post as governor of the Southern Netherlands on 16 November 1724. As compensation, Charles VI conferred on him the honorary position as vicar-general of Italy, worth 140,000 gulden a year, and an estate at Siebenbrunn in Lower Austria said to be worth double that amount. But his resignation distressed him, and to compound his concerns Eugene caught a severe bout of influenza that Christmas, marking the beginning of permanent bronchitis and acute infections every winter for the remaining twelve years of his life.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: The 1720s saw rapidly changing alliances between the European powers and almost constant diplomatic confrontation, largely over unsolved issues regarding the Quadruple Alliance. The Emperor and the Spanish King continued to use each other's titles, and Charles VI still refused to remove the remaining legal obstacles to Don Charles' eventual succession to the duchies of Parma and Tuscany. Yet in a surprise move Spain and Austria moved closer with the signing of the Treaty of Vienna in April/May 1725. In response Britain, France, and Prussia joined together in the Alliance of Hanover to counter the danger to Europe of an Austro-Spanish hegemony. For the next three years there was the continual threat of war between the Hanover Treaty powers and the Austro-Spanish bloc.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: From 1726 Eugene gradually began to regain his political influence. With his many contacts throughout Europe Eugene, backed by Gundaker Starhemberg and Count Schönborn, the Imperial vice-chancellor, managed to secure powerful allies and strengthen the Emperor's position—his skill in managing the vast secret diplomatic network over the coming years was the main reason why Charles VI once again came to depend upon him. In August 1726 Russia acceded to the Austro-Spanish alliance, and in October Frederick William of Prussia followed suit by defecting from the Allies with the signing of a mutual defensive treaty with the Emperor.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Despite the conclusion of the brief Anglo-Spanish conflict, war between the European powers persisted throughout 1727–28. In 1729 Elisabeth Farnese abandoned the Austro-Spanish alliance. Realizing that Charles VI could not be drawn into the marriage pact she wanted, Elisabeth concluded that the best way to secure her son's succession to Parma and Tuscany now lay with Britain and France. To Eugene it was 'an event that which is seldom to be found in history'. Following the Prince's determined lead to resist all pressure, Charles VI sent troops into Italy to prevent the entry of Spanish garrisons into the contested duchies. By the beginning of 1730 Eugene, who had remained bellicose throughout the whole period, was again in control of Austrian policy.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In Britain there now emerged a new political re-alignment as the Anglo-French "entente" became increasingly defunct. Believing that a resurgent France now posed the greatest danger to their security British ministers, headed by Robert Walpole, moved to reform the Anglo-Austrian alliance, leading to the signing of the Second Treaty of Vienna on 16 March 1731. Eugene had been the Austrian minister most responsible for the alliance, believing once again it would provide security against France and Spain. The treaty compelled Charles VI to sacrifice the Ostend Company and accept, unequivocally, the accession of Don Charles to Parma and Tuscany. In return King George II as King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction, the device to secure the rights of the Emperor's daughter, Maria Theresa, to the entire Habsburg inheritance. It was largely through Eugene's diplomacy that in January 1732 the Imperial diet also guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction which, together with the Treaties with Britain, Russia, and Prussia, marked the culmination of the Prince's diplomacy. But the Treaty of Vienna had infuriated the court of King Louis XV: the French had been ignored and the Pragmatic Sanction guaranteed, thus increasing Habsburg influence and confirming Austria's vast territorial size. The Emperor also intended Maria Theresa to marry Francis Stephen of Lorraine which would present an unacceptable threat on France's border. By the beginning of 1733 the French army was ready for war: all that was needed was the excuse.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In 1733 the Polish King and Elector of Saxony, Augustus the Strong, died. There were two candidates for his successor: first, Stanisław Leszczyński, the father-in-law of Louis XV; second, the Elector of Saxony's son, Augustus, supported by Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The Polish succession had afforded Louis XV's chief minister, Fleury, the opportunity to attack Austria and take Lorraine from Francis Stephen. In order to gain Spanish support France backed the succession of Elisabeth Farnese's sons to further Italian lands.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene entered the War of the Polish Succession as President of the Imperial War Council and commander-in-chief of the army, but he was severely handicapped by the quality of his troops and the shortage of funds; now in his seventies, the Prince was also burdened by rapidly declining physical and mental powers. France declared war on Austria on 10 October 1733, but without the funds from the Maritime Powers—who, despite the Vienna treaty, remained neutral throughout the war—Austria could not hire the necessary troops to wage an offensive campaign. "The danger to the monarchy," wrote Eugene to the Emperor in October, "cannot be exaggerated". By the end of the year Franco-Spanish forces had seized Lorraine and Milan; by early 1734 Spanish troops had taken Sicily.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene took command on the Rhine in April 1734, but vastly outnumbered he was forced onto the defensive. In June Eugene set out to relieve Philippsburg, yet his former drive and energy was now gone. Accompanying Eugene was a young Frederick the Great, sent by his father to learn the art of war. Frederick gained considerable knowledge from Eugene, recalling in later life his great debt to his Austrian mentor, but the Prussian prince was aghast at Eugene's condition, writing later, "his body was still there but his soul had gone." Eugene conducted another cautious campaign in 1735, once again pursuing a sensible defensive strategy on limited resources; but his short-term memory was by now practically non-existent, and his political influence disappeared completely—Gundaker Starhemberg and Johann Christoph von Bartenstein now dominated the conference in his place. Fortunately for Charles VI, Fleury was determined to limit the scope of the war, and in October 1735 he granted generous peace preliminaries to the Emperor.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene returned to Vienna from the War of the Polish Succession in October 1735, weak and feeble; when Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen married in February 1736 Eugene was too ill to attend. After playing cards at Countess Batthyány's on the evening of 20 April until nine in the evening, he returned home at the Stadtpalais, his attendant offered him to take his prescribed medicine which Eugene declined.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: When his servants arrived to wake him the next morning on 21 April 1736, they found Prince Eugene dead after passing away quietly during the night. It has been said that on the same morning he was discovered dead, the great lion in his menagerie was also found dead.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene's heart was buried with the ashes of his ancestors in Turin, in the mausoleum of the Superga. His remains were carried in a long procession to St. Stephen's Cathedral, where his embalmed body was buried in the "Kreuzkapelle". It is said that the emperor himself attended as a mourner without anybody's knowledge.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: The Prince's niece Maria Anna Victoria, whom he had never met, inherited Eugene's immense possessions. Within a few years she sold off the palaces, the country estates and the art collection of a man who had become one of the wealthiest in Europe, after arriving in Vienna as a refugee with empty pockets.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In what has been interpreted as a sign that he considered himself French by birth, Italian by dynastic extraction, and German-Austrian by allegiance, Eugene of Savoy signed himself using trilingual forms such as "Eugenio" (in Italian) "Von" (in German) "Savoye" (in French) or "Eugène" (in French) "Von" (in German) "Savoia" (in Italian). EVS was sometimes used as an abbreviation.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene never married and was reported to have said that a woman was a hindrance in a war, and that a soldier should never marry, because of this he was called "Mars without Venus". Winston Churchill in his of the 1st Duke of Marlborough described Eugene as "a bachelor, almost a misogynist, disdainful of money, content with his bright sword and his lifelong animosity against Louis XIV"


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: During the last 20 years of his life Eugène had a relationship with one woman, Hungarian Countess Eleonore Batthyány-Strattmann the widowed daughter of the former Theodor von Strattman. Much of their acquaintance remains speculative since Eugene left no personal papers: only letters of war, diplomacy and politics. Eugène and Eleonore were constant companions, meeting for dinner, receptions and card games almost every day till his death; although they lived apart most foreign diplomats assumed that Eleonore was his long time mistress. It is not known precisely when their relationship began, but his acquisition of a property in Hungary after the Battle of Zenta, near Rechnitz Castle, made them neighbours. In the years immediately following the War of the Spanish Succession she began to be mentioned regularly in diplomatic correspondence as "Eugen's Egeria" and within a few years she was referred to as his constant companion and his mistress. When asked if she and the Prince would marry, Countess Batthyány replied: "I love him too well for that, I would rather have a bad reputation than deprive him of his".


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In spite of the lack of clear evidence, rumours that he was homosexual dated back to his teenage years. The origin of those rumours was Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, the famous Versailles gossip-monger known as "Madame," whose husband was the brother of Eugene's lifelong adversary, Louis XIV. The Duchess wrote about young Eugene's alleged antics with lackeys and pages and that he was refused an ecclesiastical benefice due to his "depravity". Eugene's biographer, historian Helmut Oehler, reported the Duchess's remarks but credited them to Elizabeth's personal resentment against the Prince. Aware of the malicious rumours, Eugene mocked them in his memoirs, calling them "the invented anecdotes from the gallery of Versailles". Whether or not Eugene had homosexual relationships in his youth, the Duchess's remarks about him were made years later, and only after Eugene had severely humiliated the armies of her brother-in-law, the King of France. After Eugene had left France at the age of nineteen, until his death at the age of seventy two, there were no further insinuations of homosexuality.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Being one of the richest and most celebrated men of his age certainly created enmity: jealousy and spite pursued Eugene from the battlefields to Vienna. His old subordinate Guido Starhemberg in particular was an incessant and rancorous detractor of Eugene's fame, and became known at the court of Vienna, according to Montesquieu, as Eugene’s main rival. In a letter to a friend, Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg, another bitter rival, who had previously served under him during the wars of Spanish Succession, but whose ambition to obtain command in the Austrian army had been foiled by Eugene, wrote that the prince "has no idea but to fight whenever the opportunity offers; he thinks that nothing equals the name of Imperialists, before whom all should bend the knee. He loves ""la petite débauche et la p----" above all things" That last sentence in French with a word intentionally censored, started speculations by some. For writer Curt Riess, it was "a testament to sodomy"; according to Eugene's foremost biographer, German historian Max Braubach, "la p..." meant (fornication), or , ie., Whoring. While Governor-General of the Southern Netherland, Eugene was known to be a regular at an exclusive brothel on Amsterdam's Prinsengracht, the keeper of the place was known as Madame Therese. Eugene once famously brought the English consul in Amsterdam with him. A drawing by Cornelis Troost, kept at the Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands, depicts a scene in which Prince Eugene had "the 'available' women parade in review, just as he did his own troops" according to the museum, Troost based his drawing on an anecdote circulating at the time.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene's other friends such as the papal nuncio, Passionei, who delivered the funeral oration of Prince Eugene, made up for the family he lacked. For his only surviving nephew, Emmanuel, the son of his brother Louis Thomas, Eugene arranged marriage with one of the daughters of Prince Liechtenstein, but Emmanuel died of smallpox in 1729. With the death of Emmanuel's son in 1734, no close male relatives remained to succeed the Prince. His closest relative, therefore, was Louis Thomas's unmarried daughter, Princess Maria Anna Victoria of Savoy, daughter of his eldest brother, the count of Soissons, whom Eugene had never met and had made no effort to do so.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene's rewards for his victories, his share of booty, his revenues from his abbeys in Savoy, and a steady income from his Imperial offices and governorships, enabled him to contribute to the landscape of Baroque architecture Eugene spent most of his life in Vienna at his Winter Palace, the Stadtpalais, built by Fischer von Erlach. The palace acted as his official residence and home, but for reasons that remain speculative the Prince's association with Fischer ended before the building was complete, favouring instead Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt as his chief architect. Eugene first employed Hildebrandt to finish the Stadtpalais before commissioning him to prepare plans for a palace (Savoy Castle) on his Danubian island at Ráckeve. Begun in 1701 the single-story building took twenty years to complete; yet, probably because of the Rákóczi revolt, the Prince seems to have visited it only once—after the siege of Belgrade in 1717.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Of more importance was the grandiose complex of the two Belvedere palaces in Vienna. The single-storey Lower Belvedere, with its exotic gardens and zoo, was completed in 1716. The Upper Belvedere, completed between 1720 and 1722, is a more substantial building; with sparkling white stucco walls and copper roof, it became a wonder of Europe. Eugene and Hildebrandt also converted an existing structure on his Marchfeld estate into a country seat, the Schlosshof, situated between the Rivers Danube and Morava. The building, completed in 1729, was far less elaborate than his other projects but it was strong enough to serve as a fortress in case of need. Eugene spent much of his spare time there in his last years accommodating large hunting parties.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: In the years following the Peace of Rastatt Eugene became acquainted with a large number of scholarly men. Given his position and responsiveness, they were keen to meet him: few could exist without patronage and this was probably the main reason for Gottfried Leibniz's association with him in 1714. Eugene also befriended the French writer Jean-Baptiste Rousseau who, by 1716, was receiving financial support from Eugene. Rousseau stayed on attached to the Prince's household, probably helping in the library, until he left for the Netherlands in 1722. Another acquaintance, Montesquieu, already famous for his "Persian Letters" when he arrived in Vienna in 1728, favourably recalled his time spent at the Prince's table. Nevertheless, Eugene had no literary pretensions of his own, and was not tempted like Maurice de Saxe or Marshal Villars to write his memoirs or books on the art of war. He did, however, become a collector on the grandest scale: his picture galleries were filled with 16th- and 17th-century Italian, Dutch and Flemish art; his library at the Stadtpalais crammed with over 15,000 books, 237 manuscripts as well as a huge collection of prints (of particular interest were books on natural history and geography). "It is hardly believable," wrote Rousseau, "that a man who carries on his shoulders the burden of almost all the affairs of Europe … should find as much time to read as though he had nothing else to do."


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: At Eugene's death his possessions and estates, except those in Hungary which the crown reclaimed, went to his niece, Princess Maria Anna Victoria, who at once decided to sell everything. The artwork was bought by Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia. Eugene's library, prints and drawings were purchased by the Emperor in 1737 and have since passed into Austrian national collections.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Napoleon considered Eugene one of the seven greatest commanders of history. Although later military critics have disagreed with that assessment, Eugene was undoubtedly the greatest Austrian general. He was no military innovator, but he had the ability to make an inadequate system work. He was equally adept as an organizer, strategist, and tactician, believing in the primacy of battle and his ability to seize the opportune moment to launch a successful attack. "The important thing," wrote Maurice de Saxe in his "Reveries", "is to see the opportunity and to know how to use it. Prince Eugene possessed this quality which is the greatest in the art of war and which is the test of the most elevated genius." This fluidity was key to his battlefield successes in Italy and in his wars against the Turks. Nevertheless, in the Low Countries, particularly after the battle of Oudenarde in 1708, Eugene, like his cousin Louis of Baden, tended to play safe and become bogged down in a conservative strategy of sieges and defending supply lines. After the attempt on Toulon in 1707, he also became very wary of combined land/sea operations. To historian Derek McKay the main criticism of him as a general is his legacy—he left no school of officers nor an army able to function without him.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Eugene was a disciplinarian—when ordinary soldiers disobeyed orders he was prepared to shoot them himself—but he rejected blind brutality, writing "you should only be harsh when, as often happens, kindness proves useless".


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: On the battlefield Eugene demanded courage in his subordinates, and expected his men to fight where and when he wanted; his criteria for promotion were based primarily on obedience to orders and courage on the battlefield rather than social position. On the whole, his men responded because he was willing to push himself as hard as them. His position as President of the Imperial War Council proved less successful. Following the long period of peace after the Austro-Turkish War, the idea of creating a separate field army or providing garrison troops with effective training for them to be turned into such an army quickly was never considered by Eugene. By the time of the War of the Polish Succession, therefore, the Austrians were outclassed by a better prepared French force. For this Eugene was largely to blame—in his view (unlike the drilling and manoeuvres carried out by the Prussians which to Eugene seemed irrelevant to real warfare) the time to create actual fighting men was when war came.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: Although Frederick the Great had been struck by the muddle of the Austrian army and its poor organisation during the Polish Succession war, he later amended his initial harsh judgements. "If I understand anything of my trade," commented Frederick in 1758, "especially in the more difficult aspects, I owe that advantage to Prince Eugene. From him I learnt to hold grand objectives constantly in view, and direct all my resources to those ends." To historian Christopher Duffy it was this awareness of the 'grand strategy' that was Eugene's legacy to Frederick.


title: Prince Eugene of Savoy

text: To his responsibilities, Eugene attached his own personal values—physical courage, loyalty to his sovereign, honesty, self-control in all things—and he expected these qualities from his commanders. Eugene's approach was dictatorial, but he was willing to co-operate with someone he regarded as his equal, such as Baden or Marlborough. Yet the contrast with his co-commander of the Spanish Succession war was stark. "Marlborough," wrote Churchill, "was the model husband and father, concerned with building up a home, founding a family, and gathering a fortune to sustain it"; whereas Eugene, the bachelor, was "disdainful of money, content with his bright sword and his lifelong animosities against Louis XIV".


title: Sensei

text: Sensei, Seonsaeng, Tiên sinh or Xiansheng, corresponding to Chinese characters , is an East Asian honorific term shared in Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese; it is literally translated as "person born before another" or "one who comes before". In general usage, it is used, with proper form, after a person's name and means "teacher"; the word is also used as a title to refer to or address other professionals or people of authority, such as clergy, accountants, lawyers, physicians and politicians or to show respect to someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery in an art form or some other skill, e.g., accomplished novelists, musicians, artists and martial artists.


title: Sensei

text: The two characters that make up the term can be directly translated as "born before" and imply one who teaches based on wisdom from age and experience.


title: Sensei

text: The word prefaced by the adjective 大, pronounced "dai" (or "ō"), which means "great" or "large", is often translated "grand master". This compound term, "dai-sensei" (大先生), is sometimes used to refer to the top sensei in a particular school or tradition, particularly within the iemoto system. For a more senior member of a group who has not achieved the level of sensei, the term is used – note the common use of 先 "before"; in martial arts, this is particularly used for the most senior non-sensei member.


title: Sensei

text: The Japanese expression of 'sensei' shares the same characters as the Chinese word 先生, pronounced "xiānshēng" in Standard Chinese. Xiansheng was a courtesy title for a man of respected stature. Middle Chinese pronunciation of this term may have been * or *. In modern Standard Chinese, it is used in the same way as the title "Mr". Prior to the development of the modern vernacular, "xiānshēng" was used to address teachers of both genders; this has fallen out of usage in Standard Chinese, though it is retained in some southern Chinese Chinese varieties such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Wu, Teochew and Hakka, where it still has the meaning "teacher" or "doctor". In Japanese, "sensei" is still used to address people of both genders. It is likely both the current Southern Chinese and Japanese usages are more reflective of its Middle Chinese etymology. For Hokkien and Teochew communities in Singapore and Malaysia, ""Sensei"" is the proper word to address school teachers. Malays in Singapore traditionally addressed Chinese physicians as ""Sensei"" too.


title: Sensei

text: In Sanbo Kyodan related zen schools, "sensei" is used to refer to ordained teachers below the rank of rōshi. However, other schools of Buddhism in Japan use the term for any priest regardless of seniority; for example, this title is also used for Jōdo Shinshū ministers in the United States, whether they are ethnic Japanese or not. In the Kwan Um School of Zen, according to Zen master Seungsahn, the Korean title "ji do poep sa nim" is much like the Japanese title "sensei".


title: Sensei

text: In Nichiren Buddhism, members of the Soka Gakkai International refer to the president of the sangha, currently Daisaku Ikeda, as Sensei.


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: Rifkin's Festival is a 2020 comedy film, written and directed by Woody Allen. An American-Spanish-Italian co-production, it stars Wallace Shawn, Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel, Gina Gershon, Sergi López, and Christoph Waltz. It premiered at the 68th San Sebastián International Film Festival on September 18, 2020, and was released in Spain on October 2, 2020, by Tripictures. A short plot summary appeared in "The Guardian" on September 4, 2019, stating: "The movie, "Rifkin’s Festival", is about a couple who fall in love while in town for the San Sebastián film festival, drawing on the annual event as the backdrop to a romantic comedy."


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: On January 28, 2022, the film began a limited release in United States theaters and on streaming services.


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: Mort Rifkin, a snobby elderly film critic from New York, is telling his therapist about the recent developments in his life. In the recount, he's accompanying his much younger wife Sue to a film festival in San Sebastián. She works as a press agent for Philippe, a French director whose banal and derivative anti-war film is being universally celebrated as a masterpiece, to Mort's chagrin. Mort quickly becomes jealous of Sue and Philippe's relationship, which increasingly moves into open flirtation. Mort's inner thoughts and fears causes him to have nightmares inspired by well-known black and white cinematic classics like "Citizen Kane", "Breathless", "Jules and Jim", "Persona", "Wild Strawberries", "The Exterminating Angel", and "8½".


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: While at the festival, Mort reminisces about his life and the pretentious novel that he's been writing for decades, trying to achieve a literary relevance that eludes him. He reflects upon his younger years when he used to teach cinema at the university and felt happy and stimulated. Meanwhile, he's helpless to keep Sue and Philippe from spending time with each other. Eventually, he seeks medical advice about some chest pains and meets Joanna "Jo" Rojas, a Spanish doctor who spent some time in New York and is now unhappily married with an unfaithful, temperamental artist. Joanna leaves a lasting impression on Mort and he repeatedly tries to engage her attention by faking health issues. Eventually, the two go on a sight-seeing drive through the surrounding country, both having a good time in the process.


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: On their way back to town, a flat tire forces Joanna and Mort to hitchhike back to Joanna's home, where she discovers her husband cheating on her with one of his models. The two have a bitter fight, then Joanna takes Mort back to his hotel. Here, Sue confronts Mort about their deteriorating relationship, eventually announcing she's leaving him to start a new life with Philippe. The next morning, Mort calls Joanna, hoping to see her again before he has to return to New York, but she politely declines, despite harboring some affection for Mort and doubts about her own marriage's toxicity.


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: Finally, Mort imagines himself playing chess with Death in a parody of Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film "The Seventh Seal". Death tells him that human life is ultimately meaningless, but doesn't need to be empty. In a parting word of advice, Death tells Mort that he will see him again in the future, but Mort might win some extra time by making sure to exercise and to avoid processed foods. As the festival reaches its closing day, Mort reflects upon his changed circumstances, pondering going back to being a teacher, this time with a less rigid attitude towards art. Back in New York, he asks his therapist what he should do now.


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: In February 2019, Amazon Studios dropped Allen from a five-picture deal to produce and finance films, following the revival of the sexual abuse allegations made against him in 1992. That month, it was announced Allen would write and direct the film, with Jaume Roures producing under his Mediapro banner. In June 2019, Gina Gershon, Christoph Waltz, Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel, Sergi López and Wallace Shawn joined the cast. In July 2020, Richard Kind announced he would appear in the film.


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: Principal photography began July 10, 2019, in San Sebastián, Spain and ended on August 16, a week ahead of schedule.


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: In April 2020, Tripictures acquired distribution rights to the film in Spain. It had its world premiere at the 68th San Sebastián International Film Festival on September 18, 2020 and was released in Spain on October 2, 2020. It was previously scheduled to be released in Spain on September 25. It was scheduled to be released in Italy on November 5, 2020, by Vision Distribution, but it was postponed to May 6, 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On January 28, 2022, the film began a limited release in United States theaters and on streaming services.


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: , the film has grossed $768,449 in Spain and $1.8 million worldwide (Spain, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Italy and Russia).


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: "Rifkin's Festival" holds a 42% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 79 reviews, and an average score of 5.30/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "While it doesn't rank among Woody Allen's truly lesser late-period efforts, Rifkin's Festival finds the filmmaker content to revisit well-worn territory." On Metacritic, it holds a weighted average score of 44 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: Jonathan Romney of "The Observer" gave the film three stars out of five and stated, "In some ways, Rifkin’s Festival is absolutely familiar Allen territory, and, whatever else his detractors can or can’t accuse him of, there’s no way he’ll get off the charge of ploughing the same ground for the last couple of decades. Once again, he has made a brittle comedy about marital angst in a glamorous setting." Jessica Kiang of "The New York Times" commented, "So it’s a relief to report that “Rifkin’s Festival” is, to the ravenous captive, like finding an unexpected stash of dessert: not substantial and not nutritious, but sweet enough to remind you in passing of the good times you once had, despite all that's happened in the interim." Guy Lodge of "Variety" added, "His 49th feature, “Rifkin’s Festival” is the latest in a lengthy string of undistinguished bagatelles that might all be described as effortless, and not in an especially complimentary fashion."


title: Rifkin's Festival

text: In a less favorable review, Kaleem Aftab of IndieWire gave the movie a C grade, writing, " There's a strange meta quality to the way the movie drifts around, dipping in and out of a tepid plot. Of course, there's no surprise here. Like a lot of recent Allen movies, it's easy enough to figure out the intentions at hand early on." Chuck Bowen of "Slant Magazine" gave the film one star out of four, noting "Decades into his iconic career, Woody Allen is still fixated on wannabe intellectual artists obsessively grappling with the meaninglessness of life as they have dalliances with much younger women who’re yearning for passion. That scenario was curdling into shtick some 40 years ago, but it at least felt personal to Allen in his salad days, when he was determined to fuse the existential agony of the films made by his heroes with his own scrappy, impertinent stand-up spirit. Now Allen is seemingly filming whatever writing spills from his typewriter, which is more often than not a copy of a copy of a copy of past hits, material so anachronistic and contrived that it feels closer to ritual than art."


title: Eastern United States

text: The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East Coast plus Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Mississippi, and their border states.


title: Eastern United States

text: In 2011, the 26 states east of the Mississippi (in addition to Washington, D.C. but not including the small portions of Louisiana and Minnesota east of the river) had an estimated population of 179,948,346 or 58.28% of the total U.S. population of 331,745,358 (excluding Puerto Rico).


title: Eastern United States

text: New England is a region of the United States located in the northeastern corner of the country, bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, Canada and the state of New York, consisting of the modern states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.


title: Eastern United States

text: In one of the earliest English settlements in the New World, English Pilgrims from Europe first settled in New England in 1620, in the colony of Plymouth. In the late 18th century, the New England colonies would be among the first North American British colonies to demonstrate ambitions of independence from the British Crown.


title: Eastern United States

text: New England produced the first examples of American literature and philosophy and was home to the beginnings of free and compulsory public education. In the 19th century, it played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery in the United States. It was the first region of the United States to be transformed by the Industrial Revolution.


title: Eastern United States

text: Historically an area in which parts were strongly Republican, it is now a region with one of the highest levels of support for the Democratic Party in the United States, with the majority of voters in every state voting for the Democrats in the 1992, 1996, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections, and every state but New Hampshire voting for Al Gore in 2000.


title: Eastern United States

text: The midwestern United States, generally referred to as the Midwest, is one of the four geographic regions within the United States that are recognized by the United States Census Bureau.


title: Eastern United States

text: Five states in the central and inland northeastern US, traditionally considered to be part of the Midwest, can also be classified as being part of the Eastern United States: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. A 2006 Census Bureau estimate put the population at 66,217,736. The United States Census Bureau divides this region into the East North Central States (essentially the Great Lakes States) and the West North Central States.


title: Eastern United States

text: Chicago is the largest city in the region, followed by Columbus and Indianapolis. Chicago has the largest metropolitan statistical area, followed by Detroit, and Minneapolis – Saint Paul. Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan is the oldest city in the region, having been founded by French missionaries and explorers in 1668.


title: Eastern United States

text: The term Midwest has been in common use for over 100 years. Another term sometimes applied to the same general region is "the heartland". Other designations for the region have fallen into disuse, such as the "Northwest" or "Old Northwest" (from "Northwest Territory") and "Mid-America". Since the book "Middletown" appeared in 1929, sociologists have often used Midwestern cities (and the Midwest generally) as "typical" of the entire nation. The region has a higher employment-to-population ratio (the percentage of employed people at least 16 years old) than the Northeast, the West, the South, or the Sun Belt states.


title: Eastern United States

text: Four of the states associated with the Midwestern United States (Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota) are also traditionally referred to as belonging in part to the Great Plains region.


title: Eastern United States

text: The southern United States is a large region of the United States that is sometimes considered to overlap with the Eastern United States, especially in the cases of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi.


title: Eastern United States

text: These aspects among other things, led to "the South" developing distinctive customs, literature, musical styles, and varied cuisines, that have profoundly shaped traditional American culture.


title: Eastern United States

text: A shift from mainly a rural society, to more cities and metropolitan areas becoming urbanized, started to largely form following World War II in the 1940s. Since the late 20th century, certain Southern states and areas have seen great economic growth. This growth has led to many migrants moving to southern states, including many that are in the eastern United States. In 2020, Fortune 500 companies headquartered in eastern southern states included: Virginia with 22, Georgia with 18, Florida with 18, North Carolina with 13, and Tennessee with 10.


title: Eastern United States

text: The following is a list of the 25 largest cities in the Eastern United States, based on 2021 population estimates:


title: Indian mathematics

text: Indian mathematics emerged in the Indian subcontinent from 1200 BCE until the end of the 18th century. In the classical period of Indian mathematics (400 CE to 1200 CE), important contributions were made by scholars like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhaskara II, and Varāhamihira. The decimal number system in use today was first recorded in Indian mathematics. Indian mathematicians made early contributions to the study of the concept of zero as a number, negative numbers, arithmetic, and algebra. In addition, trigonometry


title: Indian mathematics

text: was further advanced in India, and, in particular, the modern definitions of sine and cosine were developed there. These mathematical concepts were transmitted to the Middle East, China, and Europe and led to further developments that now form the foundations of many areas of mathematics.


title: Indian mathematics

text: Ancient and medieval Indian mathematical works, all composed in Sanskrit, usually consisted of a section of "sutras" in which a set of rules or problems were stated with great economy in verse in order to aid memorization by a student. This was followed by a second section consisting of a prose commentary (sometimes multiple commentaries by different scholars) that explained the problem in more detail and provided justification for the solution. In the prose section, the form (and therefore its memorization) was not considered so important as the ideas involved. All mathematical works were orally transmitted until approximately 500 BCE; thereafter, they were transmitted both orally and in manuscript form. The oldest extant mathematical "document" produced on the Indian subcontinent is the birch bark Bakhshali Manuscript, discovered in 1881 in the village of Bakhshali, near Peshawar (modern day Pakistan) and is likely from the 7th century CE.


title: Indian mathematics

text: A later landmark in Indian mathematics was the development of the series expansions for trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, and arc tangent) by mathematicians of the Kerala school in the 15th century CE. Their remarkable work, completed two centuries before the invention of calculus in Europe, provided what is now considered the first example of a power series (apart from geometric series). However, they did not formulate a systematic theory of differentiation and integration, nor is there any "direct" evidence of their results being transmitted outside Kerala.


title: Indian mathematics

text: Excavations at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and other sites of the Indus Valley civilisation have uncovered evidence of the use of "practical mathematics". The people of the Indus Valley Civilization manufactured bricks whose dimensions were in the proportion 4:2:1, considered favourable for the stability of a brick structure. They used a standardised system of weights based on the ratios: 1/20, 1/10, 1/5, 1/2, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500, with the unit weight equaling approximately 28 grams (and approximately equal to the English ounce or Greek uncia). They mass-produced weights in regular geometrical shapes, which included hexahedra, barrels, cones, and cylinders, thereby demonstrating knowledge of basic geometry.


title: Indian mathematics

text: The inhabitants of Indus civilisation also tried to standardise measurement of length to a high degree of accuracy. They designed a ruler—the "Mohenjo-daro ruler"—whose unit of length (approximately 1.32 inches or 3.4 centimetres) was divided into ten equal parts. Bricks manufactured in ancient Mohenjo-daro often had dimensions that were integral multiples of this unit of length.


title: Indian mathematics

text: Hollow cylindrical objects made of shell and found at Lothal (2200 BCE) and Dholavira are demonstrated to have the ability to measure angles in a plane, as well as to determine the position of stars for navigation.


title: Indian mathematics

text: The religious texts of the Vedic Period provide evidence for the use of large numbers. By the time of the "" (1200–900 BCE), numbers as high as were being included in the texts. For example, the "mantra" (sacred recitation) at the end of the "annahoma" ("food-oblation rite") performed during the "aśvamedha", and uttered just before-, during-, and just after sunrise, invokes powers of ten from a hundred to a trillion:


title: Indian mathematics

text: The solution to partial fraction was known to the Rigvedic People as states in the purush Sukta (RV 10.90.4):


title: Indian mathematics

text: The Satapatha Brahmana ( 7th century BCE) contains rules for ritual geometric constructions that are similar to the Sulba Sutras.


title: Indian mathematics

text: The "Śulba Sūtras" (literally, "Aphorisms of the Chords" in Vedic Sanskrit) (c. 700–400 BCE) list rules for the construction of sacrificial fire altars. Most mathematical problems considered in the "Śulba Sūtras" spring from "a single theological requirement," that of constructing fire altars which have different shapes but occupy the same area. The altars were required to be constructed of five layers of burnt brick, with the further condition that each layer consist of 200 bricks and that no two adjacent layers have congruent arrangements of bricks.


title: Indian mathematics

text: According to , the "Śulba Sūtras" contain "the earliest extant verbal expression of the Pythagorean Theorem in the world, although it had already been known to the Old Babylonians." The diagonal rope (') of an oblong (rectangle) produces both which the flank ("pārśvamāni") and the horizontal (') <ropes> produce separately." Since the statement is a "sūtra", it is necessarily compressed and what the ropes "produce" is not elaborated on, but the context clearly implies the square areas constructed on their lengths, and would have been explained so by the teacher to the student.


title: Indian mathematics

text: They contain lists of Pythagorean triples, which are particular cases of Diophantine equations. They also contain statements (that with hindsight we know to be approximate) about squaring the circle and "circling the square."


title: Indian mathematics

text: Baudhayana (c. 8th century BCE) composed the "Baudhayana Sulba Sutra", the best-known "Sulba Sutra", which contains examples of simple Pythagorean triples, such as: , , , , and , as well as a statement of the Pythagorean theorem for the sides of a square: "The rope which is stretched across the diagonal of a square produces an area double the size of the original square." It also contains the general statement of the Pythagorean theorem (for the sides of a rectangle): "The rope stretched along the length of the diagonal of a rectangle makes an area which the vertical and horizontal sides make together." Baudhayana gives an expression for the square root of two:


title: Indian mathematics

text: The expression is accurate up to five decimal places, the true value being 1.41421356... This expression is similar in structure to the expression found on a Mesopotamian tablet from the Old Babylonian period (1900–1600 BCE):


title: Indian mathematics

text: According to mathematician S. G. Dani, the Babylonian cuneiform tablet Plimpton 322 written c. 1850 BCE "contains fifteen Pythagorean triples with quite large entries, including (13500, 12709, 18541) which is a primitive triple, indicating, in particular, that there was sophisticated understanding on the topic" in Mesopotamia in 1850 BCE. "Since these tablets predate the Sulbasutras period by several centuries, taking into account the contextual appearance of some of the triples, it is reasonable to expect that similar understanding would have been there in India." Dani goes on to say:


title: Indian mathematics

text: In all, three "Sulba Sutras" were composed. The remaining two, the "Manava Sulba Sutra" composed by Manava (fl. 750–650 BCE) and the "Apastamba Sulba Sutra", composed by Apastamba (c. 600 BCE), contained results similar to the "Baudhayana Sulba Sutra".


title: Indian mathematics

text: An important landmark of the Vedic period was the work of Sanskrit grammarian, (c. 520–460 BCE). His grammar includes early use of Boolean logic, of the null operator, and of context free grammars, and includes a precursor of the Backus–Naur form (used in the description programming languages).


title: Indian mathematics

text: Among the scholars of the post-Vedic period who contributed to mathematics, the most notable is Pingala (') (fl. 300–200 BCE), a music theorist who authored the Chhandas Shastra (', also Chhandas Sutra ""), a Sanskrit treatise on prosody. There is evidence that in his work on the enumeration of syllabic combinations, Pingala stumbled upon both Pascal's triangle and binomial coefficients, although he did not have knowledge of the binomial theorem itself. Pingala's work also contains the basic ideas of Fibonacci numbers (called "maatraameru"). Although the "Chandah sutra" hasn't survived in its entirety, a 10th-century commentary on it by Halāyudha has. Halāyudha, who refers to the Pascal triangle as "Meru-prastāra" (literally "the staircase to Mount Meru"), has this to say:


title: Indian mathematics

text: Kātyāyana (c. 3rd century BCE) is notable for being the last of the Vedic mathematicians. He wrote the "Katyayana Sulba Sutra", which presented much geometry, including the general Pythagorean theorem and a computation of the square root of 2 correct to five decimal places.


title: Indian mathematics

text: Although Jainism as a religion and philosophy predates its most famous exponent, the great Mahaviraswami (6th century BCE), most Jain texts on mathematical topics were composed after the 6th century BCE. Jain mathematicians are important historically as crucial links between the mathematics of the Vedic period and that of the "classical period."


title: Indian mathematics

text: A significant historical contribution of Jain mathematicians lay in their freeing Indian mathematics from its religious and ritualistic constraints. In particular, their fascination with the enumeration of very large numbers and infinities led them to classify numbers into three classes: enumerable, innumerable and infinite. Not content with a simple notion of infinity, their texts define five different types of infinity: the infinite in one direction, the infinite in two directions, the infinite in area, the infinite everywhere, and the infinite perpetually. In addition, Jain mathematicians devised notations for simple powers (and exponents) of numbers like squares and cubes, which enabled them to define simple algebraic equations ("beejganita samikaran"). Jain mathematicians were apparently also the first to use the word "shunya" (literally "void" in Sanskrit) to refer to zero. More than a millennium later, their appellation became the English word "zero" after a tortuous journey of translations and transliterations from India to Europe. (See Zero: Etymology.)


title: Indian mathematics

text: In addition to "Surya Prajnapti", important Jain works on mathematics included the "Sthananga Sutra" (c. 300 BCE – 200 CE); the "Anuyogadwara Sutra" (c. 200 BCE – 100 CE), which includes the earliest known description of factorials in Indian mathematics; and the "Satkhandagama" (c. 2nd century CE). Important Jain mathematicians included Bhadrabahu (d. 298 BCE), the author of two astronomical works, the "Bhadrabahavi-Samhita" and a commentary on the "Surya Prajinapti"; Yativrisham Acharya (c. 176 BCE), who authored a mathematical text called "Tiloyapannati"; and Umasvati (c. 150 BCE), who, although better known for his influential writings on Jain philosophy and metaphysics, composed a mathematical work called "Tattwarthadhigama-Sutra Bhashya".


title: Indian mathematics

text: Mathematicians of ancient and early medieval India were almost all Sanskrit pandits (' "learned man"), who were trained in Sanskrit language and literature, and possessed "a common stock of knowledge in grammar ('), exegesis ("") and logic ("nyāya")." Memorisation of "what is heard" ("śruti" in Sanskrit) through recitation played a major role in the transmission of sacred texts in ancient India. Memorisation and recitation was also used to transmit philosophical and literary works, as well as treatises on ritual and grammar. Modern scholars of ancient India have noted the "truly remarkable achievements of the Indian pandits who have preserved enormously bulky texts orally for millennia."


title: Indian mathematics

text: Prodigious energy was expended by ancient Indian culture in ensuring that these texts were transmitted from generation to generation with inordinate fidelity. For example, memorisation of the sacred "Vedas" included up to eleven forms of recitation of the same text. The texts were subsequently "proof-read" by comparing the different recited versions. Forms of recitation included the " (literally "mesh recitation") in which every two adjacent words in the text were first recited in their original order, then repeated in the reverse order, and finally repeated in the original order. The recitation thus proceeded as:


title: Indian mathematics

text: In another form of recitation, " (literally "flag recitation") a sequence of "N" words were recited (and memorised) by pairing the first two and last two words and then proceeding as:


title: Indian mathematics

text: The most complex form of recitation, "" (literally "dense recitation"), according to , took the form:


title: Indian mathematics

text: That these methods have been effective, is testified to by the preservation of the most ancient Indian religious text, the "" (c. 1500 BCE), as a single text, without any variant readings. Similar methods were used for memorising mathematical texts, whose transmission remained exclusively oral until the end of the Vedic period (c. 500 BCE).


title: Indian mathematics

text: Mathematical activity in ancient India began as a part of a "methodological reflexion" on the sacred Vedas, which took the form of works called ', or, "Ancillaries of the Veda" (7th–4th century BCE). The need to conserve the sound of sacred text by use of ' (phonetics) and "chhandas" (metrics); to conserve its meaning by use of ' (grammar) and "nirukta" (etymology); and to correctly perform the rites at the correct time by the use of "kalpa" (ritual) and ' (astrology), gave rise to the six disciplines of the ". Mathematics arose as a part of the last two disciplines, ritual and astronomy (which also included astrology).


title: Indian mathematics

text: Since the " immediately preceded the use of writing in ancient India, they formed the last of the exclusively oral literature. They were expressed in a highly compressed mnemonic form, the "sūtra" (literally, "thread"):


title: Indian mathematics

text: Extreme brevity was achieved through multiple means, which included using ellipsis "beyond the tolerance of natural language," using technical names instead of longer descriptive names, abridging lists by only mentioning the first and last entries, and using markers and variables. The "sūtras" create the impression that communication through the text was "only a part of the whole instruction. The rest of the instruction must have been transmitted by the so-called "Guru-shishya parampara", 'uninterrupted succession from teacher ("guru") to the student ("śisya"),' and it was not open to the general public" and perhaps even kept secret. The brevity achieved in a "sūtra" is demonstrated in the following example from the Baudhāyana "Śulba Sūtra" (700 BCE).


title: Indian mathematics

text: The domestic fire-altar in the Vedic period was required by ritual to have a square base and be constituted of five layers of bricks with 21 bricks in each layer. One method of constructing the altar was to divide one side of the square into three equal parts using a cord or rope, to next divide the transverse (or perpendicular) side into seven equal parts, and thereby sub-divide the square into 21 congruent rectangles. The bricks were then designed to be of the shape of the constituent rectangle and the layer was created. To form the next layer, the same formula was used, but the bricks were arranged transversely. The process was then repeated three more times (with alternating directions) in order to complete the construction. In the Baudhāyana "Śulba Sūtra", this procedure is described in the following words:


title: Indian mathematics

text: According to , the officiant constructing the altar has only a few tools and materials at his disposal: a cord (Sanskrit, "rajju", f.), two pegs (Sanskrit, "śanku", m.), and clay to make the bricks (Sanskrit, "", f.). Concision is achieved in the "sūtra", by not explicitly mentioning what the adjective "transverse" qualifies; however, from the feminine form of the (Sanskrit) adjective used, it is easily inferred to qualify "cord." Similarly, in the second stanza, "bricks" are not explicitly mentioned, but inferred again by the feminine plural form of "North-pointing." Finally, the first stanza, never explicitly says that the first layer of bricks are oriented in the east–west direction, but that too is implied by the explicit mention of "North-pointing" in the "second" stanza; for, if the orientation was meant to be the same in the two layers, it would either not be mentioned at all or be only mentioned in the first stanza. All these inferences are made by the officiant as he recalls the formula from his memory.


title: Indian mathematics

text: With the increasing complexity of mathematics and other exact sciences, both writing and computation were required. Consequently, many mathematical works began to be written down in manuscripts that were then copied and re-copied from generation to generation.


title: Indian mathematics

text: The earliest mathematical prose commentary was that on the work, "" (written 499 CE), a work on astronomy and mathematics. The mathematical portion of the ' was composed of 33 "sūtras" (in verse form) consisting of mathematical statements or rules, but without any proofs. However, according to , "this does not necessarily mean that their authors did not prove them. It was probably a matter of style of exposition." From the time of Bhaskara I (600 CE onwards), prose commentaries increasingly began to include some derivations ("upapatti"). Bhaskara I's commentary on the ', had the following structure:


title: Indian mathematics

text: Typically, for any mathematical topic, students in ancient India first memorised the "sūtras", which, as explained earlier, were "deliberately inadequate" in explanatory details (in order to pithily convey the bare-bone mathematical rules). The students then worked through the topics of the prose commentary by writing (and drawing diagrams) on chalk- and dust-boards ("i.e." boards covered with dust). The latter activity, a staple of mathematical work, was to later prompt mathematician-astronomer, Brahmagupta (fl. 7th century CE), to characterise astronomical computations as "dust work" (Sanskrit: "dhulikarman").


title: Indian mathematics

text: It is well known that the decimal place-value system "in use today" was first recorded in India, then transmitted to the Islamic world, and eventually to Europe. The Syrian bishop Severus Sebokht wrote in the mid-7th century CE about the "nine signs" of the Indians for expressing numbers. However, how, when, and where the first decimal place value system was invented is not so clear.


title: Indian mathematics

text: The earliest extant script used in India was the script used in the Gandhara culture of the north-west. It is thought to be of Aramaic origin and it was in use from the 4th century BCE to the 4th century CE. Almost contemporaneously, another script, the Brāhmī script, appeared on much of the sub-continent, and would later become the foundation of many scripts of South Asia and South-east Asia. Both scripts had numeral symbols and numeral systems, which were initially "not" based on a place-value system.


title: Indian mathematics

text: The earliest surviving evidence of decimal place value numerals in India and southeast Asia is from the middle of the first millennium CE. A copper plate from Gujarat, India mentions the date 595 CE, written in a decimal place value notation, although there is some doubt as to the authenticity of the plate. Decimal numerals recording the years 683 CE have also been found in stone inscriptions in Indonesia and Cambodia, where Indian cultural influence was substantial.


title: Indian mathematics

text: There are older textual sources, although the extant manuscript copies of these texts are from much later dates. Probably the earliest such source is the work of the Buddhist philosopher Vasumitra dated likely to the 1st century CE. Discussing the counting pits of merchants, Vasumitra remarks, "When [the same] clay counting-piece is in the place of units, it is denoted as one, when in hundreds, one hundred." Although such references seem to imply that his readers had knowledge of a decimal place value representation, the "brevity of their allusions and the ambiguity of their dates, however, do not solidly establish the chronology of the development of this concept."


title: Indian mathematics

text: A third decimal representation was employed in a verse composition technique, later labelled "Bhuta-sankhya" (literally, "object numbers") used by early Sanskrit authors of technical books. Since many early technical works were composed in verse, numbers were often represented by objects in the natural or religious world that correspondence to them; this allowed a many-to-one correspondence for each number and made verse composition easier. According to , the number 4, for example, could be represented by the word "Veda" (since there were four of these religious texts), the number 32 by the word "teeth" (since a full set consists of 32), and the number 1 by "moon" (since there is only one moon). So, Veda/teeth/moon would correspond to the decimal numeral 1324, as the convention for numbers was to enumerate their digits from right to left. The earliest reference employing object numbers is a c. 269 CE Sanskrit text, "Yavanajātaka" (literally "Greek horoscopy") of Sphujidhvaja, a versification of an earlier (c. 150 CE) Indian prose adaptation of a lost work of Hellenistic astrology. Such use seems to make the case that by the mid-3rd century CE, the decimal place value system was familiar, at least to readers of astronomical and astrological texts in India.