Would I read another book by this same author?
Yes, but I would not put effort into hunting one of his books down.

Would I recommend this book?
Yes.

Who would I recommend it to?
People interested in historical fiction that is focused on the life of military families in the period running up to the First World War.

Did this book inspire me to do anything?
I have not done anything yet, but it has urged me to do more reading on the history of Europe in the run-up to WWI.

The book traces the life of three generations of a family, specifically the lives of an artillery sergeant who saves the life of the Emperor, the sergeant's son and grandson. Their lives are used to present the prevailing social structure of the time, and the rules and protocol of both society and the army. Their lives show the nature of the old world order of monarchy, military honour, and upholding the existence of the Empire. Through their lives and careers the reader sees the decline and fall of that world order in the face of various pressures and challenges both within and from beyond the borders of the Empire. This was the time of nationalist ideas becoming stronger, and people starting be feel unhappy with their lot. WWI lasted from 1914 to 1918. This covers a period when revolution was in the air and many monarchies experienced disquiet amongst their people. ( )

Prachtige weergave van tijdsgeest en sfeer. Ik heb erg genoten van dit boek ( )

Beeld van de ondergang van de Oostenrijks-Hongaarse dubbelmonarchie aan de hand van de lotgevallen van de adellijke familie Trotta. Hoofdpersonage is Carl Joseph Trotta, kleinzoon van een luitenant die bij de slag van Solferino het leven van de keizer Franz Joseph gered heeft en daar met geld en een adelijke titel voor beloond is. Het beeld van de grootvader, de held van Solferino, hangt als een schaduw over zijn bestaan als officier in de Donaumonarchie. Roth beschrijft het garnizoensleven op een prachtige zeer menselijke manier. ( )

The Radetzky March takes its title from the musical composition authored by Johann Strauss, father of the "waltz king", Strauss, junior. It is a classic military march, that you can hear, and view conducted by Andre Rieu on YouTube. Joseph Radetzky von Radetz was an Austrian marshal of Bohemian descent who fought in the Napoleonic Wars and let the Austrian army during the first war for Italian independence in 1848-49. He died in 1858, roughly a decade before the story that Roth unfolds in the Battle of Solferino in 1869, a failed campaign against the Italians that could be said to be the second major milestone in the decline of the Dual Monarchy led by Kaiser Franz Jospeh I following its defeat by Prussia in 1866 which foreclosed the possibility of German reunification occurring under the leadership of Austria.

Decline is the theme of The Radetzky March. Although, in our times it could be said with more than a little truth that decline is a choice, in Roth's account, the decline of the empire is the result of the movement of historical processes, chiefly the rise of nationalism and the gradual breaking apart of the spiritual bonds that held together the monarchy and the empire. This decline is paralleled by the story of the quick rise and decline of the fortunes of the Trotta family. At the Battle of Solferino in 1869 the youthful Kaiser is saved from a bullet and possible death on the battlefield by a Lt. Joseph Trotta, an officer of Slovenian peasant stock. Trotta is promoted to a captaincy and is, in effect, the recipient of a battlefield promotion to the nobility, henceforth to be known as Joseph Trotta von Sipolje, Baron Trotta.

The Hero of Solferino passes from the scene early on in the story. What he leaves beside his title is a portrait painted by a friend of his son. The portrait, even more so than the march, dominates the persons of his son, a "district captain" which is basically a minor government functionary position, and the grandson, Carl Jospeh Trotta, who is groomed from early in his life for a military career for which he is unsuited. Carl Jospeh is commissioned into the cavalry despite his mediocre horsemanship. Following a fatal confrontation between his only friend in his regiment, the Jewish regimental surgeon and another officer from the nobility for which Trotta was the inadvertent cause, he transfers to a rifle regiment in a remote outpost on the Eastern frontier. Here he falls into patterns of dissolution from the usual causes, drinking, gambling and women. Eventually his debts are called in and he is forced to petition his father, the district commissioner to bail him out of his predicament. The father, unable to borrow the needed funds from any other source petitions the emperor directly. Franz Joseph, vaguely remembering the service to him by the grandfather of our scapegrace, directs that the debts be discharged, and for good measure that the holder of the debt be deported.

At a regimental celebration in the summer of 1914, the rumor of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, is circulated among the officers. Trotta sends in his resignation, but the resulting war brings him back into uniform and he meets his fate at the hands of Russian snipers while trying to retrieve water for his parched troops. The novel concludes with the parallel deaths of the Kaiser and the district commissioner in 1916.

The Radetzky March is a beautifully written, albeit melancholy metaphor for decline - of the empire, the monarchy, the Trotta family. The empire and the Trottas adhere more or less faithfully to the time-honored forms, but the protagonists become gradually aware that the substance underlying the forms have become hollowed out and that the forms are on the verge of extinction. Roth is at his best in his sketches and development of his characters. This excerpt from early in the novel provides a portrait of Carl Jospeh's father Franz, the district commissioner.

"He spoke the nasal Austrian German of higher officials and lesser nobles. It vaguely recalled distant guitars twanging in the night and also the last dainty vibrations of fading bells; it was a soft but also precise language, tender and spiteful at once. It suited the speaker's thin, bony face, his curved, narrow nose, in which the sonorous, somewhat rueful consonants seemed to be lying. His nose and mouth, when the district captain spoke, were more like wind instruments than facial features. Aside from the lips, nothing moved in his face. The dark whiskers that Herr von Trotta wore as part of his uniform, as insignia demonstrating his fealty to Franz Jospeh I, as proof of his dynastic conviction--these whiskers likewise remained immobile when Herr von Trotta und Sipolje spoke. He sat upright at the table, as if clutching reins in his hard hands. When sitting he appeared to be standing, and when rising he always surprised others with his full ramrod height. He always worse dark blue, summer and winter, Sundays and weekdays: a dark-blue jacket with gray striped trousers that lay snug on his long legs and were tautened by straps over the smooth boots. Between the second and third course he would usually get up in order to 'stretch my legs'. But it seemed more as is he wanted to show the rest of the household how to rise, stand, and walk without relinquishing immobility."

The Radetzky March is a masterpiece and a sober meditation on the problem of decline, a problem that confronts his contemporary readers as it confronted the characters of this outstanding work. ( )

Radetzkymars' is de geschiedenis van het verval van de Habsburgse monarchie, gezien door de ogen van de hoofdpersoon, luitenant Von Trotta. Deze klassieker van Joseph Roth begint in 1859 met Von Trotta's grootvader, die door een toeval het leven van de jonge keizer Franz Joseph redt, en het eindigt met de dood van de keizer in 1916. De Eerste Wereldoorlog is dan gaande en de oude wereldorde van de adellijke familie Von Trotta, steunpilaar van keizer en staat, is definitief verdwenen. Terwijl luitenant Von Trotta zijn wereld langzaam ziet vergaan, zoekt hij zijn heil in gokken, alcohol en vrouwen. Radetzkymars is een ongeëvenaard portret van een beschaving in verval. Het meeslepend vertelde verhaal getuigt van groot psychologisch inzicht en wordt terecht gerekend tot de hoogtepunten van de wereldliteratuur.