Change of Military Virtues in the 19th Century in Europe and Hungary

Abstract

Virtues of members of army – the military virtues – depend on the social and political environment of the army. Europe and as its part Hungary underwent huge changes in the 19^th century, which resulted in great changes in the content of the military virtues, like courage, honor, loyalty, charisma (virtue of military leadership), and discipline. There were similarities between the European and the Hungarian virtues, however the differences are more significant. 19th century European military virtues included courage based on love of the country, and honor, loyalty, charisma and discipline based ont he values of national society. In contrary to this, Hungarian virtues contained courage based fear from God (and from military leaders), and honor, loyalty, charisma and discipline based on values of the society ruled by the Catholic king.