1832.] On the Military Resources of the Austrian Empire. 

 The monthly pay of the officers is as follows : 



137 



s. d. 



s. d. 



Ensign 



2d Lieutenant 



1st Ditto . 



2d Captain . 



1st Ditto . 



Major 



The officers of the staff, from the rank of major, upwards, have horse- 

 rations, according to their rank. 



To compensate in some degree for this reduced scale of pay, the 

 lodgings of the Austrian officer are paid by the government at half price 

 his rations are delivered to him at the same rate and the theatres are 

 open to him for about a third of the usual price of admission, to which 

 may be added fuel, and half a loaf of bread of very inferior quality. Not- 

 withstanding these allowances, the condition of the subaltern, who has no 

 resources of his own, in spite of the low price of all the necessaries of life, 

 is most miserable j so slow is the promotion, that an Austrian officer may 

 linger away a life without distinction. In this service the crack regiments 

 of infantry rank much before the cavalry, and have more men of family 

 and fortune among the officers. 



The composition of the Austrian army is magnificent ; the Hungarian 

 grenadiers are remarkably fine men, they display not the iron hardihood 

 of frame of the Russian Imperial Guard, neither have they that smartness 

 under arms which marks the Prussian, or the animated intelligence of 

 look of the soldiers of France, but they are very warlike ; a veteran look 

 marked by the bivouac, stature tall, limbs large as the spectator contem- 

 plates their iron formation, he wonders that these men could ever have 

 been beaten. The cavalry of this power has always been distinguished ; 

 the Hungarian hussars rank first among the light cavalry of Europe, 

 while the heavy cavalry is unrivalled for a matchless union of size, weight, 

 and activity. When Murat, at the battle of Lusig-, made a desperate 

 effort at the head of the French cavalry to retrieve the fortune of the day, 

 he was borne back by a " charge en muraile" of six regiments of Austrian 

 cuirassiers -, in fact, nothing can be superior to the organization and 

 equitation of the Austrian cavalry. 



With the exception of the Hungarian regiments, the uniforms of the 

 army would sadly disappoint the military dandy j the " tenue" of the 

 artillery in particular, is painfully unmartial a drab-coloured coat with a 

 red collar, white breeches, and boots " a la Suwarof," with a hat half 

 " bourgeois," half military, surmounted by a green plume, is the very 

 antithesis of a martial costume. But the science and instruction of this 

 corps is on a par with that of the artillery of any power on the continent. 

 The material of the Austrian equipages, compared with our own, is 

 clumsy and heavy. There is one feature in the army which distinguishes 

 it from all others, the bands j in some corps there are from eighty to ninety 

 musicians. A celebrated German professor, who was present at Dresden 

 at the first representation of the " Olempia " of Spontini, on being asked 

 what he thought of it, replied " The march of an Austrian band is 

 worth the whole opera." In fact, the effect of these bands is perfectly 



M.M. New Series. Vol. XIII. No. 77. 2 O 



