A Sailor of Austria: In Which, Without Really Intending to, Otto Prohaska Becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Habsburg Empire (The Otto Prohaska Novels)
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Manufacturer: McBooks Press
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781590131077
ISBN: 159013107X
Label: McBooks Press
Manufacturer: McBooks Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 376
Publication Date: 2005-09-01
Publisher: McBooks Press
Studio: McBooks Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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In the waning days of the Habsburg Empire a little initiative can have unintended repercussions . . . For Lieutenant Otto Prohaska of the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy, life can be awkward to say the least. As a submarine captain of the largest land-locked empire in history, Otto faces a host of unlikely circumstances from petrol poisoning to exploding lavatories and an angry dromedary. Things scarcely improve on land where he finds himself the target of trigger-happy Turks and angry relatives with Medieval mindsets. All signs point to total collapse of the bloated empire he serves, but Otto refuses to abandoned the Habsburgs in their hour of need. With clever writing and a wry sense of irony, John Biggins shows us an unlikely empire on the wane and a well-meaning man caught on the brink of World War and the end of an era. Otto Prohaska speaks seven of the empire's eleven languages, but in a Navy hampered by nationalist sentiments and undermined by the very bureaucracy it defends, communication is an unlikely occurrence.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Fighting for a lost cause - great historical fiction
Comment: Otto Prohaska was a Czech serving in the Austrian navy at the outbreak of World War I. He is given command of a U-boat in the Adriatic at the beginning of the war, and we follow his ups and downs, some harrowing escapes, romantic interludes, and humorous incidents through four years of hard fighting. The story starts as an aged Prohaska, living in a retirement home in Wales, recounts the story of his life as an Austro-Hungarian naval officer. Prohaska briefly recounts his early life in a small Czech village and some of the silliness as to whether it should have a German, Czech, or Polish name. From there he briefly discusses his early training then his first U-boat command at the outbreak of WWI. Most of the novel examines Prohaska's voyages up and down the Adriatic in the small submarines, with a few excursions into the Mediterranean. He attacks (and is hunted by) Italian and French warships in the Adriatic, gets saddle with a camel from a Bedouin tribesman in Libya that is a gift for the Emperor, and is stranded in Haifa frantically trying to repair his U-boat before the approaching British take the city from the Turks.
There is a lot to like about this novel. As in the best of historical fiction, this is a history lesson of first order. As you read through this book you'll learn a great deal about life in the Austro-Hungarian empire before its end. The conglomeration of languages and cultures, the complex political dynamics between the Austrian and Hungarian leaderships, and Prohaska's view as somewhat of an outsider (he's a Czech) make for an interesting backdrop. You'll also learn a great deal about naval operations in general, and U-boat operations in particular, in the Adriatic during the Great War. Every student of the Great War knows about Jutland and the Battle of the Dogger Bank, but there was certainly no lack of action to the south. You'll also learn a bit about the technical details of the early submarines. It took a brave man to get into one of those cans. Biggins' main character has a strong sense of duty that is applicable to military service today as it was in the Great War. One may think that a given war is stupid, but that doesn't change one's duty. The ending is particularly well done as it is clear that the Austro-Hungarian empire is doomed and Prohaska's world and the monarchy that he was sworn to defend are collapsing.
The reason that I give this novel only four stars is simply that in my opinion it isn't as interesting or as well developed as the best in this genre, the Flashman series, by George MacDonald Fraser. Prohaska isn't all that well developed as a character and is somewhat of a cliche of a naval officer. Additionally, Biggins attempts at humor pale in comparison to some of the ridiculous antics of Harry Paget. Finally, there is a level of historical detail in Fraser's books that is absent in this novel. Even though this falls short of the best of the genre, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this story to anyone with an interest in historical fiction, particularly with a military bent.
Customer Rating:
Summary: What a Delightful Find!!!
Comment: I wish to say "Thank You!" to reviewer Douglas Woods who brought this book to my attention. This is an absolutely delightful story about Austro-Hungarian Naval Officer Ottokar Prohaska who captained submarines for the Hapsburg Empire during the first World War. I really enjoyed this book and found it fascinating in many ways. I've always been interested in the Austro-Hungarian Empire but there is remarkably little fiction on the empire and I must say I learned a lot reading this book. Yes, the empire had a submarine service and our protagonist captains several submarines, but like most things in the Empire the service was a shambles and our friend Prohaska has many challenges ahead of him.
The novel was not as light-hearted as the title might give you reason to think, and it certainly had its sad parts too, but it was a delightful story told with heart, whimsy, and an engaging sense of self-deprecation at times. Told as a series of recollections by the 100 year old Prohaska while in a nursing home in Wales, the book is a wonderful story of how a rural, landlocked Czech boy rises to become a submariner in the first World War and about the trials the service, his ship, and his crew faced during that conflict.
The book also did a wonderful job of showing how the Empire worked, why it worked, and why it ultimately fell apart. The Empire had eleven different nationalities, all speaking different languages, and ethnicities that are still slaughtering each other today. The story of the Empire and how it bound those groups together cohesively for as long as it did was simply fascinating. I whole-heartedly recommend this book, and am eagerly waiting for the second book to arrive in the mail. The good news is that there are four books in this series, but that bad news is that it doesn't look like Mr. Biggins wrote anything else. He certainly deserves recognition for this series and a wider readership.
Customer Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Comment: Biggins has done a fantastic job capturing the complexities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during its twilights years. Years ago, I read a memoir of a WWI Austrian officer who fought in the trenches and his memoir presented many challenges that strikingly paralleled the same challenges of leadership that Prohaska faces in this work. In addition, Biggins depiction of the Hungarian nobility in Transylvania was brilliant--though I found it to be a striking odds with the description of what Patrick Leigh Fermor encountered when passing through the region a decade later. Which makes me wonder if Fermor's memories are romanticized or Biggins was trying too hard to bring out their differences (Romanian and Hungarian)? But that aside, this book was fantastic. For any student of Eastern European history, I recommend this gem.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Sailor of Austria
Comment: Both John Biggins and Ottokar Prohaska are to be treasured!! Biggins style is to educate the reader and keep him laughing at the same time - only George MacDonald Fraser and Flashman are rivals in this genre'. Biggins has made history memorable and taught me things that I did not think even existed. Good job, John....Good job!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: What a pleasant discovery
Comment: I've always been confused by the Sound of Music. Why would a land-locked country like Austria need a naval captain? This, and many other little-known aspects of the first world war are explored in this extraordinary novel.
Set primarily in the Adriatic sea during world war I, the story follows the career of naval officer Otto Prohaska. The Balkan coast at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Prohaska, a native of Czechoslovakia, also a part of the empire at that time, experiences a series of adventures which are in turn, poignantly tragic and laugh out loud hilarious. Biggins weaves a story full of pastiches and events which are fascinating if only because the setting is relatively unknown here in the west.
However, what makes this novel succeed is not simply a well-researched, skillfully written story about an interesting subject. That would simply be a Tom Clancy-style book. What elevates this to the Patrick O'Brian level is the depth of the protagonist's character. Dismayed by the decay of the Hapsburg dynasty, he clings to the structure provided by the military life. That contributes greatly to the richness that makes this book such a rewarding read.
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