The Country Divided into Three (1526–1686)

After the disaster of Mohács the victorious Turkish army pushed ahead, occupying and plundering Buda, but the military campaign came to an end in the autumn, and the Turks left the country without stationing an occupying force. The kingdom was given some breathing space. Who would take the crown? Each of the rival parties’ candidates for the throne represented a different concept in foreign policy. The party of the gentry elected János Szapolyai as King John (1526–1540); he was the biggest landlord in the country, his family only emerging from the gentry two generations earlier. Even with the combined force of his own power and the resources of Hungary, the ‘national’ king was unable to resist the Ottoman conquest, and, as a consequence, his policies followed an inevitably pro-Turkish direction. Naturally even King John and his followers did not deliberately facilitate the opening of the door to Islamic powers. A little later a smaller group of barons – citing the treaties of succession between the Jagiello and the Habsburg dynasties – invited the Austrian archduke, Ferdinand of Habsburg, to ascend the throne, whose elder brother was Holy Roman Emperor and Spanish King Charles V, the most powerful person in Europe at the time. Ferdinand I’s reign (1526–1564) should have brought support from his wealthy brother as well as from the neighbouring countries and provinces, as he also inherited the throne of Bohemia, in the struggle against the Turks. However, the election of a Habsburg king also meant that Ferdinand’s fight against the Turks was overshadowed by the Habsburgs’ struggle against France for European dominance, and later by Charles’ campaign to suppress Protestantism in Germany. Ferdinand I’s mercenary troops occupied the kingdom in 1527, after which King John entered into an alliance with the Turks in order to reconquer his country. In 1529 the sultan sent out a huge army: he wanted to occupy Vienna, under the pretext of helping John, but his attempt failed. When the army withdrew to the Balkans, internal strife flared up anew. The territories of the two kings were consistently changing, with forts, counties and towns swapping hands. In 1532 a Turkish army bigger than ever before marched through western Hungary, with the aim of occupying the Austrian provinces. However, the advance of the invaders was halted at the tiny fortress of Kőszeg in western Hungary, and by the time the siege was completed, snow had begun to fall in the Alps and the time wasted could not be recuperated, thus forcing the Turkish army homeward. Both kings realised that the rivalry plays into the hands of the Turks, and signed a peace treaty at Várad in 1538. Hostilities ceased and it was agreed that the entire country would come under Ferdinand’s control after the death of King John. However, neither side kept the peace, and when King John married a young Polish princess and fathered a son, his followers swore an oath to put the new-born child on the throne. Following the death of John, his widow, Queen Isabella moved into Buda castle with the already-crowned infant, John Sigismund, and Ferdinand laid siege to the castle. In 1541 an Ottoman army came to the aid of Buda, and after the Austrian army fled, Süleyman invited the Queen and the infant king to his camp. While they paid a visit to the Sultan, the Turks occupied the castle by disarming the guards, on August 29, 1541, the 15th anniversary of the Battle of Mohács. The capital of Hungary and the middle area of the country on both sides of the Danube therefore fell under Turkish control. Istambul, having realised that the Austrian provinces could not be occupied, did not want to allow Hungary to fall into the hands of Ferdinand, as they wanted the 2 country to serve as a base for their own operations. The main objective of Turkish policy over the following decades was to broaden the initially narrow wedge, cutting into the country in an east-west direction. To the east of the Turkish zone John Sigismund settled in the region beyond the Tisza River and in Transylvania, under the patronage of Bishop György Martinuzzi (“Friar George”), and here the Transylvanian principality eventually developed. The western and northern regions, all that remained of the Hungarian Kingdom and the successor of the medieval realm – Royal Hungary – stayed under the control of Ferdinand. Thus the country was divided into three, and remained so for a century and a half, though significant territorial changes did take place in the meanwhile. In order to consolidate his power, Ferdinand was forced to rely upon the estates, and so, carefully and gradually, he began to develop a centralised administration. He was powerless to expel the Turks, and could halt their expansion only by surrounding his territory with a network of frontier forts. The system of fortifications along the borders was built around the middle of the 16th century, stretching northwards from Croatia, then eastwards in a semi-circle and down to the Transylvanian borders, defending the Hungarian Kingdom. The building of the forts, the maintenance of the mercenaries defending them and the military campaigns undertaken every few years required a considerable sum of money (between three and eight hundred thousand forints). Even under these conditions, the treasury received about half a million forints from Hungary and the country was able to maintain the defence system more or less from its own resources. As the soldiers also defended the hereditary Austrian provinces and Bohemia, these countries also contributed to their upkeep – at least in theory, though in reality, the defenders of the forts were frequently left without pay. The line of frontier fortifications came under enormous pressure during the major Turkish campaigns. The defenders stood their ground: in 1552 Temesvár and Drégely were occupied by the Turks only after heroic resistance, and the fortress of Eger in the northeast held out for over a month, and the Turks eventually gave up their siege.1 The defensive line of the frontier forts was damaged, but dit not crumble. In 1566 Süleyman himself led an army of one hundred thousand soldiers against Szigetvár in southwestern Hungary, the key fortress to Transdanubia, where Miklós Zrínyi (Nikola Zrinski in Croatian), the governor (bán) of Croatia, withstood the siege for a month. Help did not arrive, as the imperial army, prepared to defend Vienna and fearing that the supply lines would be cut, did not move from Győr. When the fort, totally devastated by the bombardment of cannonfire, could be held no longer, the defenders, under the leadership of Zrínyi, rushed out among the sieging Turkish army to meet their certain death. Although the fort fell, the Turkish campaign failed and could not continue due to the excessive loss of the time and also to the fact that the elderly Süleyman died in his camp during the siege.2 Turkish expansion reached saturation point in Hungary. The deployment of troops recruited from the territories of Asia Minor was slow as it took three months to cross the Balkans. The Turks could not undertake winter campaigns because of supply difficulties, and the major part of the army had to return before winter set in. The resistance of each and every fort, therefore, was of tremendous significance, even if it meant only a few days at a time. The Turkish advance was slowed down, Vienna could never be occupied, and the Ottoman plan of penetrating into the heart of Europe through the Danube valley was not realised. Süleyman’s successor was also eager to make peace so the Treaty of Edirne (Adrianople)

1 The successful defence of the castle of Eger is the central story of the late 19th century Romantic Hungarian novel by Géza Gárdonyi entitled The Stars of Eger (1899), which is enormously popular (required reading for every Hungarian schoolkid) and therefore city of Eger is a popular tourist destination among Hungarians. In 1596, the city ultimately came under Turkish occupation, and an original Turkish minaret (the tower of a former mosque) still stands. 2 In 1994, on the 500th anniversary of the birth of Süleyman, two large statues of Zrínyi and Süleyman were erected, placed next to each other, in the Park of Hungarian-Turkish Friendship in Szigetvár. 3 between Austria and the Ottoman Empire in 1568 put an end to the great Turkish conquests of the mid-16th century. Queen Isabella Jagiello, the widow of King John, and his son, John Sigismund, settled in the eastern part of the country after 1541. The main thrust of Turkish expansion was directed northwest, towards Vienna, and Transylvania was regarded as peripheral by the Turks; they were willing to allow its development as an autonomous principality in alliance with them and paying feudal dues. After attempts to unify the Transylvania with Royal Hungary failed as Ferdinand did not have the military resources to provide adequate defence for Transylvania against the Turks, the principality of John Sigismund (1556–1571) had gained independence under Turkish patronage, a situation which even acknowledged by the Habsburgs in the Treaty of Speyer (1570). It was obvious that the distant territories, joined to Royal Hungary only by a narrow strip of land to the north, could not be held together. Therefore, it was also in the interest of Habsburg policy to support the Transylvanian principality as an autonomous entity rather than its subordination to the Turks. István Báthori (1571–1586) was able to obtain acknowledgement of his principality by diplomacy in Europe, and can, therefore, be regarded as the actual founder of that state. The central regions of the country became part of the Turkish Empire. The Buda vilayet became the centre of Turkish administration, and subsequently additional vilayets were organised as the occupation extended westward and eastward to cover more territories. Turkish law made a distinction between Muslims and the rayahs, the conquered Christian subjects, who were in a subordinate position and had to pay poll tax. This, to some extent, explains why the Turks did not make efforts to spread Islam in Hungary. The Hungarian taxation system was partly adopted in the occupied territories, therefore the peasants had to bear approximately the same burden as before. Royal Hungary never relinquished these territories in the legal sense of the term. The independent statehood of five centuries was so deep-rooted that it continued to act as unifier for Hungary, in contrast to the countries of the Balkans, which were not able to draw on centuries of continuity, and, as a result, totally subjected themselves to the conqueror. The county administrations fled to unoccupied Royal Hungary, and continued to function there; the landlords attempted to collect an often symbolic amount of rent, the old order of ownership was maintained, and the judiciary functioned. ‘Turkishness,’ any accommodation of the Turkish public administration and law was punishable by death. Thus, the Turks could never quite succeed in transforming the social structure of the occupied territories. War and destruction also resulted in the depopulation of the central region of Hungary. The remaining population moved to the agricultural market towns as they offered greater security. The dense medieval network of villages was totally destroyed and much cultivated land became marshy and barren. The people in the agricultural towns were engaged in extensive animal husbandry on the vast areas of pastoral land, and cattle and horses were herded west and north to Venice, Vienna and Central Europe on foot. A significant class of peasant merchants grew up in the agricultural towns of the Plain, and, as the increasingly vigorous and conscious population took the affairs of local government into their own hand, the peasant county emerged. The towns occupied by the Turks were decaying. Their merchants emigrated, and those who did remain in the towns were not allowed to build anything. Long-distance trade became uncertain, and Turkish soldiers and people from the Balkans settled in the towns; the Turks only built minarets and public baths, so the towns did not gain a strongly Oriental character. The spiritual life of society underwent fundamental changes during the first part of the 16th century; Reformation soon became popular in Hungary and the overwhelming majority of the population converted to Protestantism. The rapid spread of the Reformation was promoted by the fact that the German citizens of the royal free boroughs had had cultural 4 ties with the German territories, therefore Lutheranism spread in the towns. The ecclesiastic organisation of the Catholic church was in turmoil in the regions under Turkish rule, and the Turks were indifferent towards the religious disputes of Christians. The consciousness of the nobility as an estate was strengthened by the Calvinist branch of the Reformation, stressing the calling and responsibility of the individual, and considering even resistance to a tyrannical ruler as just. Tenants, and those in subordinate positions, changed religion along with their landlords, the majority of the Hungarian population adopting the Calvinist religion. In Transylvania even a sect that denied the Holy Trinity (later to be called Unitarian), persecuted all over Europe, took root under the protection of Prince John Sigismund. It was here that – for the first time in Europe – the freedom of the four religions (Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran and Unitarian – but the Orthodox Vlach peasants were excluded) was declared in 1568. In 1571 the Transylvanian nobility elected István Báthori as prince, a decision also approved by the Turks. However, he had to assert his autonomy against the emperor and king Maximilian. He attempted to expel the Turks in a novel way: in 1576 he acquired the Polish throne in order to realise his great ambition with the combined forces of the two countries. He moved to his new kingdom and started to build a strong state authority. (The Poles still respect him as one of their greatest kings.) His military campaigns to acquire Russian and Ukrainian territories were designed to satisfy the demands of the Polish nobility, and Transylvanian resources were marshalled for this purpose. He was not able to realise his great objective, but he did leave a well organised state machinery and reliable allies to his successors. The right to freely elect the king survived in Royal Hungary. The diets successively elected as king those Habsburg archdukes who had been elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by the German electors, thus establishing a personal union between Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire. There was closer contact with the territories directly under Habsburg rule (as the imperial title did not mean actual power), especially with the Austrian provinces and Bohemia. During the reigns of Maximilian I (1564–1576) and Rudolph I (1576– 1608) the development of a central state administration was impossible due to a number of factors: the estates continued to resist, the House of Fugger – creditors to the Habsburgs – went bankrupt, and the finances of the state collapsed. Soldiers in the outposts were left without pay and the forts were not supplied with arms, so the Turks were able to gradually extend their territory by raids and forays and by occupying smaller fortifications, despite the previous peace. A system of dual taxation evolved in the uncertain belt between the fortified outposts. The local population paid their taxes to their Turkish, as well as Hungarian landlords: in principle half to each, but in practice they suffered the forays and plundering raids of the troops from the outposts too. During the years of peace, the soldiers of these border fortifications themselves engaged in cultivation, so as to safeguard their supplies. During the last third of the century, the intellectual and political movement of Counter-Reformation was launched. The Habsburgs were strong supporters of Catholicism, and they rejected the demands of the estates for the freedom of the Protestant religions, thus the conflicts between the Hungarian estates and the court of Prague intensified. The absolutist efforts of the Habsburgs proved weak and detrimental to the country. Therefore, the big landlords – though they had acquired land in the hereditary provinces and married into the Bohemian and Austrian aristocracies – tried to find a means of asserting their interests by strengthening the resistance of the estates. Similar movements were also evident in the Austrian estates and in Bohemia, and the authority of the Habsburgs was shaken. In the meantime the internal weakness of the Turkish Empire did not go unnoticed: the empire was divided by claims from pretenders and by feudal anarchy. Wars in Persia distracted their forces from the European territories. The conquest of Hungary, on the periphery of a global empire, was proving a costly diversion; more money had to be spent on maintaining the occupation, on the forts and on the payment of the soldiers than was collected in taxes. 5

The military skirmishes between the beys and the captains of the outposts led, almost unnoticed, to the so-called Fifteen Years’ War (1591–1606) between the sultan and the emperor. Initially, luck seemed to have totally abandoned the Turks. Several forts were recaptured and many people, particularly the Haiduks,3 who had originally been wild herdsmen, volunteered to join the Christian troops in great numbers. Encouraged by their success, the countries ruled by the Habsburgs offered significant sums in military aid, and a talented commander was appointed to lead the army. The Turks sued for peace, while the court, which had advocated peace for decades, now decided to continue the war. The war went on but neither party could achieve further successes or a decisive victory. Hungary became a theatre of war for many years. Mercenary armies wandered aimlessly about the country; most of them were mercenaries only in name, as they supplemented their pay, which was always in arrears, by plunder and robbery. Towns were burnt down and the Turkish- occupied territories were devastated by Tatar troops. The mercenaries plundered churches, and dug up and robbed the dead; peasants who were caught were tortured to discover their hiding- places and then killed. The military leaders of Vienna and the court seemingly tolerated all of this. The Turkish conquerors had oppressed the country for decades, but it was only during the Fifteen Years’ War that a massive fall in the population occurred. The decimated population fled to the forests and mountains, and, according to the chroniclers of the time, the practice of cannibalism was not uncommon. The gentry and the aristocracy, who had hoped for the return of their lands confiscated under Turkish occupation, were bitterly disappointed. The total breakdown in security created little cliques with common interests among the estate of the gentry, the townmerchants, the outpost soldiers and even the serfs, who all tried to change the prevailing conditions. Even the security of the major landlords, who had suffered considerable losses, was endangered; the court tried to acquire both authority and money by prosecuting them for alleged “high treason,” thus threatening their property and even their lives. Dissatisfaction first broke out in the insurrection of the Haiduks, headed by a threatened eastern landlord, István Bocskai, a gifted commander and politician. With the help of his Haiduks, he occupied several counties in Northeastern Hungary, and systematically conquered the towns and forts of the region. The nobility of the counties also joined his insurrection, though with some reluctance as they had certain reservations about the Haiduks. The imperial forces were not strong enough to win a decisive victory over the insurgents, and only western Transdanubia remained loyal to the monarch. The insurgent estates held a diet at Szerencs in 1605, where Bocskai was elected ruling prince. They voiced the grievances which had made them rebel against the king, referring to the resistance clause in the Hungarian Golden Bull of 1222. They appealed to the peoples of Europe in a manifesto attributing the king with intending to “make Hungary a province and subordinate it to the Austrian house by hereditary right” – a not entirely groundless allegation. Failing to find support in Christian Europe, the insurgents, as they themselves stressed, were left with no alternative but to accept an alliance with Turkey. The Turks continued their own war and were not willing to make peace until Bocskai’s conditions were satisfied. The sultan sent a crown to Bocskai, who, after much political consideration, refused to accept the role of vassal king. The majority of the nobles would not have accepted the dethroning of the Habsburgs, and Bocskai also saw that the Turks could not

3 Haiduks (Hungarian hajdú): originally cattle herders, who drove the herd from the Eastern Hungarian plains to Austria or to the north. Since they had to protect the herd from robbers, they were armed and skilful soldiers, both on foot and on horseback. During the Turkish wars, they increasingly became mercenary soldiers, who had a bad reputation among civilians, as they mercilessly plundered towns and villages. They gave the bulk of Bocskai’s army who settled them in Hajdúság, an area east of the Tisza river near Debrecen, after 1605. They were free from all feudal taxes in return for regular military service. 6 be expelled under the prevailing conditions. He therefore kept peace in mind, wishing the rights of the warring Haiduks to be safeguarded. He granted collective nobility to the Haiduks, and settled them on his own estates as free soldier peasants. Hence he succeeded in integrating this military stratum into feudal society, and also in reassuring the gentry. In addition, he did not have to dismiss the Haiduks, whose military power could be counted upon later if necessary. In 1606 an agreement was reached between the estates and the crown and the Treaty of Vienna was signed. All the significant demands of the insurgents were met, the freedom of religion of the Protestants was granted and the independence of Transylvania, which for Bocskai was the major issue at stake, was repeatedly acknowledged, while the conquests of Bocskai were added to Transylvania. As he explained in his political testament, “while the Hungarian Crown is lodged with the Germans, a nationality stronger than we are, and the Hungarian Kingdom is dependent on them, it is both necessary and useful to maintain a Hungarian prince in Transylvania.” In the same year peace was also reached with the Turks and, with Bocskai as mediator, a peace was signed at Zsitvatorok. Thus, the insurrection had been a success: the settlement of the Haiduks showed a new form of peasant mobility, the privileges of the estates and freedom of religion were safeguarded, the independence of the country was guaranteed, and finally the long war, which had devastated the country, was brought to an end. Not long after the signing of the peace treaty, Prince Bocskai died. A compromise between the estates and the court was enacted when the new ruler, Matthias II (1608–1619), ascended the throne. The apparatus of the estates was revived in place of the centralised organs of state authority. The king could only appoint noblemen to Hungarian state offices, and grants of land could only be made to Hungarian nobles. The ruler had no right to interfere in the relationship between serfs and landlords either, and the granting or banning of the right of free movement was in the control of the counties. The limitation of the rights of towns also served the interests of the nobility: at the diet, all the towns collectively could only cast one single ballot. The reinforced system of estates slowed down social mobility and thwarted the upward rise of the serfs through the agricultural market towns. The king, having acquired the Bohemian throne and subsequently the imperial crown in 1612, gradually asserted the interests of the centralising state. He even tried to assert his authority over Transylvania, which provided external support for the estates striving for independence. This opportunity was offered by the unfortunate foreign policy of the talented but over-ambitious prince, Gábor Báthori (1608–1613), who opened the gates of Transylvania to the imperial armies. However, the Turks reacted faster and invaded the principality. Báthori was assassinated by his own Haiduks, and was succeeded by Gábor Bethlen (1613–1629), the nominee of the sultan. Faced with an extremely difficult situation the new prince “talked the Turks out” of the country with unrivalled skills of diplomacy, and soon consolidated his power against the estates of Transylvania too. He revised the land-grants of his predecessors, and thus strengthening the princely estates, became the only major landlord of Transylvania, in the true sense of the term. His ascent to power was backed by the Turks, which meant that his rule was not acknowledged by the Habsburgs. Bethlen averted the plot hatched against him, and ultimately forced Vienna to acknowledge his principality. Anarchy came to an end during his forceful administration. The affairs of state were held firmly in the prince’s hands. He centralised the revenues of the country and initiated building work. He controlled and supported foreign trade, with links beginning to develop with Scandinavia and even the Low Countries. He invited craftsmen, scholars and artists to come to his country and to his princely court, and he sent young Transylvanians to the Protestant universities of Europe. The nobility of flourishing Transylvania was resigned to his absolutist policy. Bethlen seemed to observe the political forms of the system of estates, annually calling 7 the diet and making them vote for the taxes. The strengthened principality, which had acquired European status, became an autonomous factor in international politics. After the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, the prince allied himself with the Bohemian estates and sent troops to their aid. His objectives were the overthrow of Habsburg authority, the unification of Hungary, and, ultimately the expulsion of the Turks. The Bohemian and Hungarian armies surrounded Vienna following a successful military campaign, and Bethlen was elected prince, and subsequently king, in 1620. However, he postponed the coronation, thus leaving the door open for an agreement with the Habsburgs. The catastrophic defeat of the Bohemian estates at the Battle of White Mountain (1620), which sunk Bohemia to the level of the hereditary provinces, divested Bethlen of his most important ally. He signed the Treaty of Nikolsburg in 1622, confirming the privileges of the estates and the freedom of religion of the Protestants, and annexing seven northeast Hungarian counties to his principality. All this resulted in a significant strengthening of his country and a growth in state incomes. In 1623 Gábor Bethlen again went to war, and won a great victory over Wallenstein’s troops at the Morva River. However, with no external help forthcoming, he was again forced to make peace, reconfirming and strengthening previous treaties. In 1626 he again fought against Wallenstein. Although his premature death put paid to his ambitions, he is remembered as one of the greatest Transylvanians. He created an autonomous, flourishing principality, which gained recognition in Europe, defending it from both Turkish and German mercenary armies. The centre of gravity of Hungarian power shifted to the eastern part of the country. His successor was György Rákóczi I (1630–1648), the most powerful landlord in eastern Hungary. Having consolidated his authority, he continued the policy of his predecessor and joined the Thirty Years’ War. He entered into an alliance with the Swedes and launched military campaigns, but was forced to recall his troops at the critical moment, as the Porte threatened Transylvania with invasion. Returning from the interrupted campaign, he signed a favourable peace treaty in Linz in 1645, which essentially guaranteed the conditions of the previous peace treaties, and again granted the seven counties of the Highlands to Transylvania. He did not succeed in incorporating Transylvania into the Peace of Westphalia, which terminated the Thirty Years’ War, as Transylvania had no status of its own, and hence was isolated in terms of foreign policy. The economy, authority, military power, Protestantism and reputation of Transylvania, however, remained untarnished. György Rákóczi II (1648–1660) squandered this heritage during his reign in Transylvania. He called himself the ‘absolute prince,’ and truly acted freely in regards to domestic policy. He embarked on daring plans of foreign policy, paying equal disregard to the strength of his own country the significance of international political conditions. He thought that England could become the leading force of a new international alliance against the Habsburgs, and sent envoys to Cromwell, to the Dutch, and to the Danish and Swedish courts. He targeted the Polish throne as his immediate goal, and launched a military campaign against Poland in alliance with the Swedish in 1657. The Turks put a stop to this venture and in revenge flooded Transylvania with the Tatars. The country was unable to recover from the devastation they wrought for many decades. Flourishing towns were reduced to ashes, and tens of thousands of people were fettered and dragged to the slave markets along the Black Sea. On its return Rákóczi’s army fell captive to the Tatars. The prince, defending himself against a renewed punitive Turkish attack, died from wounds inflicted in battle. The Transylvanians attempted once more to elect a firm prince who represented an autonomous policy, but to no avail. Vienna watched the fate of Transylvania unmoved, and the Turks chose their minion, the puppet Mihály Apafi (1661–1690) as prince. The flourishing province, like Moldavia and Wallachia centuries earlier, fell under Turkish vassalage. 8

The political concept born in Transylvania and elaborated by Bocskai’s heritage, which considered the expulsion of the Turks to be the fundamental political objective of the age, survived in Royal Hungary. Miklós Zrínyi, the ban of Croatia and great-grandson of the martyr of Szigetvár, advocated the creation of a national army in his pamphlets, having come to the conclusion, even as a supporter of the Habsburgs, that they would not expel the Turks. In the meantime the aristocrat, whose estates bordered on Turkish territory, and who knew the Turkish forces well from their forays into his lands, observed and learnt from news leaked from within the empire that the Turks had weakened. As palatine, he would have liked to direct domestic policy himself, but this was opposed by the court, and his efforts were unsuccessful. In addition to the programme of building a strong national kingdom, a political movement of the gentry was also organised, and its leader contacted Zrínyi. The political developments of the middle of the century did not favour their ambitions; Zrínyi had also counted on a strong Transylvania, or even on György Rákóczi II’s possible kingdom, but this hope vanished with the fall of Transylvania. The Turks emerged even stronger from their internal strife, and launched a new campaign against the line of frontier fortresses in 1663. Érsekújvár and a series of forts in the Highlands fell. Zrínyi, in charge of national defence, launched a counter-attack in the spring of the following year, recapturing forts. Montecuccoli, commander-in-chief of the imperial army, also led a successful campaign, the culmination of which was the crushing defeat suffered by the Turks at Szentgotthárd. Yet after the victories, Emperor and King Leopold I (1657–1705) signed a humiliating peace treaty. The shameful Peace of Vasvár of 1664 not only guaranteed Turkish conquests hitherto acquired, but even handed over further castles, including Érsekújvár and Várad to the Turks in exchange for peace. The peace shocked Europe and provoked enormous despair. Dissatisfaction nurtured conspiracy even among the aristocracy. It was in the middle of this plot that Zrínyi was killed by a wounded boar during a hunt, at the age of 44. The baronial conspiracy was left without a real leader, and it was taken over by Palatine Ferenc Wesselényi. They tried to establish international relations, and also sought out the gentry, though nothing concrete came of these abstract anti-Habsburg feelings. The palatine had died by the time Péter Zrínyi, the Miklós’s younger brother, and Ferenc Rákóczi I launched an insurrection in 1670. However, Vienna was well informed of these developments from reports from the Porte, and from repentant confessions of those seeking clemency. Although Péter Zrínyi, Ferenc Frangepán and Ferenc Nádasdy abandoned the insurgents, they were captured, imprisoned in Wiener Neustadt, and executed for treason. Several hundred of the gentry were captured, and many more fled to the frontiers of Transylvania. According to Leopold I’s councillors, plotting Hungarian aristocrats has ‘squandered away’ the constitution of the estates, in other words they did not deserve to be governed according to their own laws. The country was occupied by the army and the fortresses were garrisoned with Germans. The constitution of the estates was eliminated and outright absolutism was introduced. The estates of the conspirators and insurgents were confiscated. The Counter-Reformation, which had hitherto operated peacefully reconverting chiefly the aristocrats, now began to eliminate Protestantism by force. Churches were confiscated, believers dispersed, and pastors sold as galley slaves. The gentry, whose lives and property were threatened, gathered in the region of the Upper Tisza and along the Transylvanian borders, along with the soldiers dismissed from the frontier fortresses, the merchants and peasants prosecuted because of their faith, and the Haiduks deprived of their occupation by the new commercial policy of the court. Prince Mihály Apafi did not dare to support them openly, as this camp of several thousand outlaws provoked constant political tension between both the Turks and Germans, and between Transylvania and Royal Hungary. The group seeing itself as the ‘knightly estate,’ but not fitting into the categories of the estates proper, took their name from Dózsa’s old army, and called themselves 9

‘kuruc.’ They attacked the ‘labanc,’ or pro-Habsburg Hungarians, from 1672 onwards. Their unexpected campaigns were successful, but unified leadership and foreign support were missing until 1678, when a young nobleman, Imre Thököly, the scion of a Lutheran family of wholesale traders, who had emerged as powerful landlords, took the leadership into his hands. Thököly was an excellent commander, and mobilised the ‘kuruc’ armies with success. Although his soldiers were defeated by mercenaries in major battles, he was able to hold fast in Upper Hungary for many years. He called himself a prince, and the Turks even offered him the title of king which he declined. The court was forced to make concessions. In 1681 a diet was called in Sopron after an interval of almost two decades. The king restored the constitution of the estates, and freedom of trade was declared (as foreign trade had been seized by the companies monopolised by the court). The withdrawal of the German troops stationed in the country was also ordered, though with certain limitations; the freedom of religion for the Protestants was again granted, and the office of the palatine was again filled. The majority of the counties resigned themselves to these developments, but Thököly and his followers decided to continue the struggle. This time they also had to fight against the counties of the Highlands, which had joined the king’s side. Thököly could essentially only rely on the ‘knightly estate,’ therefore he developed a kind of military rule. He could not do without external support and was forced to enter into alliance with the Turks. But the ‘kuruc king’ had drifted towards a dangerous alliance just as the wars of reconquest were beginning. As a result, by the end of the century not only the counties, but even his own soldiers abandoned him, as the expulsion of the Turks became a very real possibility. Thököly had no carefully elaborated political concept but even if he had formulated far-reaching plans, his failure, given the conditions and his lack of internal support and financial resources, would have been inevitable. He was forced to flee to Turkish territory without his army, and when his fortunes reversed and he returned at the head of Turkish troops, he had himself elected as the last autonomous prince of Transylvania, but was unable to consolidate his rule. His wife, Ilona Zrínyi, defended the fortress at Munkács, the last stronghold of resistance, for years afterwards. The war, ultimately leading to reconquest, was started by the Turks this time as well. The grand vizier, who had overcome internal problems, set out to occupy Vienna with a record army of two hundred thousand soldiers in 1683. The besiegers hoped to occupy the valiant imperial city by starving the Viennese into submission, but the magnitude of the danger had mobilised half of Europe in a few weeks. The armies sent to relieve the city, consisting mainly of German and Polish soldiers, swept away the grand vizier’s army. In the first flush of victory the ‘Holy League’ was born, with the objective of expelling the Turks. The greatest part of the burden was shouldered by the Habsburg Empire, Venice and Poland. The well-equipped allied forces set out in 1685 and occupied Érsekújvár and Esztergom, and the following year a huge army encircled the castle of Buda. It took three months for the army of almost eighty thousand men to break the resistance of its seven thousand Turkish defenders. On September 2, 1686 Buda Castle was stormed and taken. A few hours later even the houses hitherto spared were in flames, and the castle fell prey to plunderers. With the recapture of Buda the central part of the country was liberated from the Turks; this was followed by the territories of Slavonia and the Lower Danube, and the troops even penetrated into the Balkans. In 1689 the Turks launched a major counterattack, and although the main objective of reoccupying Hungary was not accomplished, hostilities continued for a further decade until a new and talented commander-in-chief of the imperial armies, Prince Eugene of Savoy, won a decisive victory over the Turks at Zenta in 1697. In 1699 a treaty was signed at Karlowitz, and Hungary, with the exception of the Temesköz, was permanently liberated from Ottoman rule. (After further wars the Temesköz region was returned by the Treaty of Pozarovac signed in 1718.) 10

Transylvania was also taken by the imperial forces. A royal decree (Diploma Leopoldium) safeguarded the rights and the autonomy of the principality; however, the office of the prince was filled by the monarch himself, thus bringing the real autonomy of the principality to an end. The division of the country into three parts, which had lasted for one and a half centuries, was thus ended, and Hungary – with the exception of Transylvania and some of the southern military border districts – became a unified country once again. The destiny of the country was to be influenced further by major political and military struggles. Would the country be able to become autonomous, and independent of the Habsburg Empire, or would it be merged into it as Bohemia had been? These were the historical alternatives now facing Hungary.