Summary of The Radetzky March
“The Radetzky March” is a historical novel that follows three generations of the von Trotta family during the era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The story begins when Joseph Trotta, a young Slovenian lieutenant, saves Emperor Franz Joseph’s life at the Battle of Solferino (1859). As a reward, he is ennobled by the Emperor. Later on, disillusioned with the army, he steers his son Franz towards a career as a civil servant. In turn, Franz decides that his own son, Carl-Joseph, should pursue a military career, although the young man is ill-suited to the rigours of army life. Throughout the novel, the reputation of their illustrious ancestor looms over the fates of Franz and Carl-Joseph von Trotta.
Reasons to read The Radetzky March
“The Radetzky March” is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th century and the lead-up to the First World War. While Joseph Roth deplored the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy and its pan-European mindset, “The Radetzky March” is also a critique on the empire’s traditionalism, patriotism, and the dominant role of the army. Fathers play a central role in the novel, with the ageing Emperor Franz Joseph as a symbolic father figure to his subjects. “The Radetzky March” was included in Reich-Ranicki’s Canon of German Literature in 2001. Mario Vargas Llosa praised it as the best political novel ever written. Readers who enjoy this book might also be interested in Roth’s subsequent novel “The Emperor’s Tomb” (“Die Kapuzinergruft”), which follows a member of the Trotta family in Vienna from 1913 to the Anschluss of Austria with Nazi Germany in 1938. Other notable works by Joseph Roth include “The Spider’s Web“, “The Hundred Days“, and “Hotel Savoy“.
Setting: Austria, Czech Republic, Ukraine (Austria-Hungary)
A small part of “The Radetzky March” is set in Vienna, but much of the story unfolds in other regions of the empire. Franz serves as a district administrator in the town W. in Moravia (likely Wischau, now Vyškov, in the Czech Republic). Carl-Jospeh is first stationed at army barracks somewhere in Moravia before being transferred close to the Russian border, to B., probably Brody (Ukraine), Roth’s birthplace, which was then at the empire’s easter frontier.
Original title: Radetzky Marsch
Year of publication: 1932
Nr of pages: 369
