Radetzky, JOHANN JOSEPH, COUNT, an Austrian field-marshal, was born at Tzrebnitz Castle near Tabor in Bohemia, on 2d November 1766. Entering the Austrian army in 1784, he made his first campaign against the Turks in 1788–89, and afterwards fought in nearly all the wars waged between the Austrians and the French, especially distinguishing himself at the battles of the Trebbia, Novi, Hohenlinden, Wagram, and as Schwarzenberg's chief of the staff at Leipzig. In 1831 he was sent to take command of the Austrian forces in the Lombardo-Venetian territories, and five years later was made field-marshal. When the people of Lombardy rose in revolt against Austrian rule in 1848 Radetzky, an old man of eighty-two, after five days' street fighting, was driven out of Milan. Concentrating in Verona and Mantua, he proved the chief mainstay of the House of Hapsburg during the 'year of revolutions.' Nevertheless he was defeated by the king of Sardinia at Goito on the Mincio, when marching to the relief of Peschiera, in May. Peschiera capitulated immediately afterwards. Having received heavy reinforcements, Radetzky towards the end of July broke out of Verona, routed the Sardinian-Piedmontese army at Custozza, and on 6th August re-entered Milan. Three days later an armistice was concluded, the king of Sardinia abandoning all places east of the Ticino. On the resumption of hostilities in March 1849 the Austrian general in a campaign of less than a fortnight crossed the Ticino and almost destroyed the Piedmontese army at Novara (23d March). In the following August he compelled Venice to surrender, it having been in revolt since 1848. After this Radetzky was appointed governor of the Lombardo-Venetian territories, and ruled them with an iron hand until the beginning of 1857. He died at Milan on 5th January 1858, and was buried at Metzdorf near Vienna.
See his own Denkwürdigkeiten (1887) and his Briefe an Seine Tochter (1892), and lives or books about him by Strack (1849), Schneidawind (1851), Schönhals (1858), Trubetzkoi (1860), Kunz (1890), K. von Duncker (1891), Smolle, Kronos, Grasser, Bancelari (1892), and Hübner, Une Année de ma Vie (1891).