Das Verbot der fremden Dienste. Herrschaftsvermittlung und Kontrolle von lokalen Eliten in den Österreichischen Niederlanden

Abstract

The Prohibition of Foreign Military Service. The Mediation of Power and the Control of Local Elites in the Austrian Netherlands

Using the example of the military, the article examines the question of the mediation of power in the Austrian Netherlands during the 18th century. Referring to the requests of subjects to join foreign armies, the article shows, on the one hand, how the prohibition to join and the therefore compulsory duty to obtain dispensation helped the Habsburg monarchy to consolidate its supremacy and to control local elites in the southern Netherlands. On the other hand, the analysis reveals clearly how a systematic inclusion of the elites from the southern Netherlands into the Habsburg domain failed despite the attempts to underpin their claim to power through a prohibition to join foreign armies. The latter turned out to be a general norm which was flexibly treated in practice and which enabled the elites from the southern Netherlands to carry on choosing between different armies.