“When one thinks of World War One at sea, one does not usually think of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but that is precisely the topic of A Sailor of Austria by John Biggins. This is the first of his four Otto Prohaska novels that deal with adventures and misadventures Linienshiffsleutnant Otto Prohaska, an submarine commander during WW1.
One of the back cover quotes compares it to a low tech version of Tom Clancy which is terribly unfair because unlike Clancy, Biggins can actually write. That said Biggins is also very good at giving the reader an idea what it was like sailing on one of the small, primitive coastal subs that turned out to be the backbone of Austria's war at sea. And in the process manages to tell a compelling story with both pathos and humor.
Since the book deals with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, one of the recurring themes is that of nationalities, nationalism and languages. Prohaska himself is a Moravian Czech with a Polish mother. His first officer is Hungarian as is his wife. Most of the crew are Croats, Montenegrins and Italians. For the most part the crew gets along well together, they have to as their lives depend upon it, until the very end of the war. Prohaska himself is not without prejudices namely a general dislike of Magyars (wife and first officer excepted) and a particular loathing for his in-laws, whom he considers to be the worst examples of a decadent Hungarian nobility.
Biggins manages to capture both the boredom and terror of regular combat patrols without making the book too longwinded and he punctuates these with some more interesting sea stories, like just how does one carry a baby camel (a gift from the Master of the Senussi Brethren to the Emperor Franz Joseph) aboard a submarine at war.
Also any novel about Austro-Hungarian submarines has to mention their most famous submariner, Georg von Trapp. He never actually appears as a character in the first book, but he is a constant presence regularly referred to by the other characters. I actually found this to be a good way of handling Trapp within the context of the novel. Him actually appearing would be just too tempting to create ahistorical Sound of Music comments.
The first few pages of the book are devoted to some excellent diagrams of the types of submarines mentioned, maps of the areas of the story and a useful chart translating Austro-Hungarian placenames to modern ones. What was not included and would have been very useful is a table translating Austro-Hungarian naval ranks to their American/British equivalents. I still have no idea what a Linienshiffsleutnant is, though I suspect it would be the equivalent of a USN Lieutenant (0-3).
Overall I thought this was an excellent book and would recommend it to others. I have already ordered the other three in the series.”
aisb23 wrote this review Wednesday, May 21 2008.
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