Introduction: The belated great power -- Modest origins -- The Habsburg monarchy during the second half of the seventeenth century: The domestic foundations -- The primacy of power politics -- Home defence -- The standing army -- Austria's 'Age of heroes' 1683-1733: The Turkish War 1683-1699 -- The Nine Years War 1689-1697 -- The War of Spanish Succession 1701-1714 -- Renewed expansion -- The crisis of a great power 1733-1748: Diplomatic reverses and military defeats -- Squaring the circle or how to administer and defend a territorial giant -- The War of Austrian Succession 1740-1748 -- Reform -- revenge -- aggression?: The modernization of the Habsburg monarchy in the age of enlightened Absolutism 1740-1790 -- Army and society -- The Seven Years War 1756-1763 -- Peacetime expansion in the east 1764-1775 -- Streamlining the Habsburg monarchy -- The Russian maelstrom -- State crisis and recovery -- The revolutionary challenge 1789-1797: From 'military promenade' to life-and-death struggle, 1789-1794 -- In search of compensations 1792-1795 -- False hopes 1796-1797 -- Prospect.
