The Making of In/valids in the Habsburg Monarchy

Wars have lasting effects on human bodies. However, dealing with war disabilities was not always seen as a social and political problem. This changed from the end of the 17th century: more and more European monarchies introduced special institutions for disabled soldiers, such as invalid homes, pensions or battalions. Men who had fought in the army and became unable to serve due to old age, illness or injury were now called invalids. They were considered particularly worthy of support. The idea arose that these soldiers had earned honour and deserved state assistance. The men were categorised as full or half invalids based on their ability to work. From a historical perspective, this change is significant because it represents the first case in which impairment served as a starting point for categorising people systematically and on a broad scale as a specific group and for gradually measuring their ability to work. In contrast, the early modern period neither knew an umbrella term such as disability nor the idea that people with disabilities were a separate social group. Warriors who became unfit for service usually had to leave the armies and find other ways to survive. The project examines this historical shift in the Habsburg Monarchy between the 1670s and 1780s and asks what invalids were and how the figure of the invalid was made. It brings to light the negotiations of invalidity at various levels, how care was organised and who was considered worthy of support. Various actors are addressed: the soldiers themselves and their families, guilds, local, federal and imperial authorities, military leaders, military surgeons and writers. The project thus shows the making of invalids as a process in which concepts of body and gender, labour and the ability to work, war and the state were negotiated, and how this process was shaped by political interests, societal expectations and social inequalities. Categorization practices and the gradual classification of people on the basis of their physical state and their ability to work are extremely effective today. Investigating the making of invalids in the Habsburg Monarchy can show how these practices became self-evident and which notions of usefulness and worthiness of people were associated with it. Thus, the project questions the idea that impairment and the ability to work can be categorized and measured objectively: The case of the invalids instead reveals that not every disabled soldier was recognised as an invalid.