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)

This was pretty slow and dry in places but still an interesting story. I came to know and like Otto, the main character, and though some of his escapades and narrow escapes were rather hard to believe, it was still interesting to read about a relatively unknown part of Austria’s history.I have to say I learned a lot about the Austria/Hungary dynasty that I’d never heard before. I recommend it for that, if nothing else. Just know that it is a little dry and dull in places, but they’re easy enough to skim over. The descriptions of submarine actions were well written and made me feel what submarine warfare was really like. It makes me think of the old German language movie, “Das Boot.” Definitely not the life for me!By the way, I didn’t notice any formatting errors in my Kindle version like some have mentioned in the past so evidently they’ve got all those bugs worked out now.

I am half way through 'A Sailor of Austria' and have been pleased with the author's style..it flows very well and the description of the atmosphere of the time is fascinating...much like a Patrick O'Brian book. It happens that I have just finished a very heavy, academic history of the naval war in the Mediterranean in WWI and have found the author to be very well versed in the war in the Adriatic and the Med and of submarine warfare at that time in general. Who, these days, have ever heard of the Otranto Barrage??? The view of the Austro-Hungarian empire at this time is very rare...I have encountered few books of fiction that even touch this area of history.....a very enjoyable read and I have already ordered the second book in the series.

My grandfather was a man who--though I was in his company a number of times when I was a boy--never spoke of his experiences in France where he had fought as a doughboy in the trenches of WWI. I thought of him as I read this book, wishing he were still alive so I could ask him about it. This book, to me, is a story of multiculturalism run amok. It's protagonist spoke seven of the eleven official languages of the Hapsburg empire. How it ever hung together as well as it did baffles me. Why anyone was willing to fight, let alone die for this chimera of a country remains the chief mystery of the book to me. Anyway, I enjoyed it. The final pages were moving and sad, as the narrator approaches his one hundred and first birthday, and the scenes and ghosts of his soon to be all but forgotten life revisit him.

As a student I had no interest in history, staying awake through the class was success. 40-some years later a very good friend of mine, who, as long as I had known him WAS a history buff, spent several days touring Civil War battle fields with me brought a whole new view if history to me.Today I find history an interesting topic and must admit to being ALMOST an addict, certainly a "buff".I rank this well told story second only to the presentation that opened my eyes those years ago and LOUDLY proclaim it to be a MUST READ to history buffs AND to those who have not yet discovered history to be something more than merely a class.Thank you for a most enjoyable trip through a period of history with a well told story and a view of its impact on the lives of those who experienced it.

Wait, landlocked Austria had a navy? Why, yes it did, back when it was an Empire. This historical novel details the adventures of World War I submarine captain Otto Prohaska as he witnesses the birth of submarine warfare and the death of that Empire. Like Thomas Berger in the classic Little Big Man, John Biggins has Prohaska turning the sardonic eye of age on that period as he tells his story to an interested caregiver in the present-day nursing home where he's spending his last days. It's amusing and filled with interesting historical detail. For example, Prohaska tells us, the earliest subs ran on the surface on petrol engines, which leaked so badly that sailors had to watch each other for signs of madness caused by inhaling the fumes. If the book has one weakness, it's a lack of a single strong plot. Instead the book is a series of anecdotes, taking Prohaska to the end of the war and the rapid disintegration of his country. (I don't think this is a spoiler, since we all kind of know there's no Austro-Hungarian Empire any more). Needless to say, the ending is a bit depressing, but the journey's a lot of fun. Recommended.

I have just finished re-reading* the four book series on Otto Prohaska by John Biggins:* A Sailor of Austria (1991)* The Emperor's Coloured Coat* The Two-Headed Eagle* Tomorrow The WorldThis is an excellent historical fiction series laid in the last years of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The hero is a naval officer (surface, submarines, air) who was a contemporary of the real Georg von Trapp (an actual naval officer who won Austria-Hungary’s highest honor in addition to becoming the head of the “Sound of Music” story.This series strongly echos a similar, perhaps even better series, the George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman books.Both series are strongly recommended!* this time in chronological order rather than publication order

A fictional memoir of the captain of an Austro-Hungarian Navy submarine during World War I, as he and his crew ply the Adriatic, battling bureaucracy, boredom, leaky hulls, and the occasional enemy ship. It's extraordinarily well-written with great humor and suspense, without ever being farcical, and so detailed in its account of every aspect of life and war above and below the surface that it's hard to believe the author didn't live through it himself (he's too young to have done so). It was hard to put this one down, while at the same time I learned a lot about an unknown (to me) aspect of the Great War and its fighting men.

This is a fantastic book. The story is inspired by the handful of Austro-Hungarian submariners who patrolled the Adriatic and the Meditterranean in World War I, but covers much more, providing a window into the world of the Austro-Hungarian Empire just before its end, a world that is lost forever.'A sailor of Austria' is truly a gem: it is original in the extreme, mighty interesting and written with an enthusiasm rarely equaled. Cannot recommend this book strongly enough. On to the Two-headed Eagle (in which Otto Prohaska takes a break as the Habsburg's Empire leading U-boat Ace and does something even more thanklessly dangerous)!

I am half way through this book and finding it one of the best I have ever read. The detail of the Austrian-Hungarian imperial period is amazing and the author has also done his home work on its navy and submarine operations. The story is light hearted, entertaining and very well-written. Why has it not become a best seller? I thoroughly recommend it.

Otto Prohaska, now aged over a hundred, sits in his Stateless Old Persons' home in Wales and recounts his life as an officer in the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian navy during World War 1.John Biggins writes well with a gentle and ironic humour, that casts a light on the last years on the shakiest of the European 'Great Powers' - Austria-Hungary -an empire that was already visibly creaking under the strains of increasing nationalism as the 19th turned into the 20th century - and then fell apart as the Central Powers lost the war.The nearest equivalent in terms of historical fiction would be the Flashman series, but whereas the Flashman books are a highly-charged romp through Britain's 19th century empire, Biggins has created a much gentler feel here.Prohaska is not a fully developed character, the books (and there are 4 in all - and all worth reading) are more episodic. But what Biggins does deftly and well, is to show how the mid-20th century European disaster of World War 2 sprang not just from the consequences of WW1, but also from the pre-existing late 19th c national tensions in central Europe.It is truely a joy to read, and I can't understand how such wonderful historical fiction has been so unjustly overlooked. I only wish there was more than 4 Otto Prohaska novels. Luckily they are now back in print.If you want to know what it was really like to be a U-Boat commander in the Adriatic in World War 1 -- or didn't realise that there even WAS an Austro-Hungarian navy between 1867-1918 - then this is a very good place to start.

This is a great book, funny and (especially towards the end) sad. It's the story of Otto Prohaska, U-Boat captain of the Habsburg empire during World War 1. He and his crew undergo various adventures, which are told with wit and humour.The book is well researched, the only historical inaccuracy that I could find was that Prohaska is given command of U-13, but superstition meant that no Austro-Hungarian submarine was given the number 13.The only issue I had with it is that I read the Kindle edition, which has some OCR-introduced errors. They weren't enough to seriously impinge on my enjoyment of the story, though. The story itself is easily worthy of five stars, and without the errors, I'd have given it five stars.

I love historic fiction. This one has everything. It tells you everything you'd ever need to know about WW1 Austrian submarines, their exploding toilets, their dreadful food and the wonderful characters that sailed in them. It tells of a war theatre, which quite honestly, very few of us new about but conjures up such wonderful imagery that you felt that you actually were there. It really did have everything for me.....even a character from Cardiff, my home town.