Tecnici in uniforme? Élites militari e responsabilità di governo nell’Europa del XIX secolo

During the last twenty years of the XIX Century, a constitutional crisis took place in almost every European country. To resolve these crisis, or to manage them, European ruling classes relied heavily on the action of armies and military institutions. But what was the attitude of European military élites towards their political counterparts? Were they committed to defend the constitutional frame they were supposed to operate into, or were they willing to change it radically? Did they perceive themselves as technical élites, or political ones? In order to find some answer to these questions, the paper compares four European case studies: Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.