Part 35

Ladislaus, elected to the throne of Bohemia on the death of George Podiebrad, was supported by all the forces of his father, the king of Poland, and Matthias of Hungary was now involved in war with both. Meanwhile, "his whole kingdom was agitated by intestine commotions, and a strong party of nobles breaking out into insurrection, had offered the crown to Casimir, prince of Poland. At the same time, the Turks having subdued Transylvania, and ravaged Dalmatia and Croatia, built the fortress of Szabatch on the Save, and from thence harassed Hungary with perpetual inroads. From these impending dangers, Matthias extricated himself by his courage, activity, and prudence. While he carried the war into Bohemia and Silesia, he awed, by his presence, his rebellious subjects, conciliated by degrees the disaffected nobles, expelled the Poles, and, by an important victory in the vicinity of Breslau, over the united armies of Poles and Bohemians, forced the two sovereigns, in 1474, to conclude an armistice for three years and a half. He availed himself of the suspension of arms to repel the Turks. He supported Stephen Bathori, hospodar of Wallachia, who had shaken off the Ottoman yoke, by a reinforcement of troops, enabled him to defeat Mahomet himself [on the plain of Kenyer-Mesö, October, 1479], at the head of 100,000 men, and soon afterwards secured his frontiers on the side of the Danube by the capture of Szabatch. {1673} Having in consequence of these successes delivered his dominions from the aggressions of the Turks, he hastened to gratify his vengeance against the emperor, whose conduct had afforded so many causes of complaint. After instigating Matthias to make war on George Podiebrad, Frederic had abandoned him in the midst of the contest, had refused to fulfil his promise of investing him with the kingdom of Bohemia, had concluded an alliance with the kings of Poland and Bohemia, and, on the 10th of June, 1477, formally conferred on Ladislaus the investiture of the crown." Matthias, as soon as he had freed himself from the Turks (1479), declared war against the emperor and invaded Austria. "Frederic, left without a single ally, was unable to make the smallest resistance, and in less than a month Matthias overran the greater part of Lower Austria, invested the capital, and either besieged or captured all the fortresses of the Danube, as far as Krems and Stein. Frederic fled in dismay to Lintz, and, to save his capital, was reduced to accept the conditions imposed by the conqueror," which included a promised payment of 100,000 ducats. This payment the shifty emperor evaded, when Matthias became involved anew, as he presently did, in hostilities with Bohemia and Poland. "Matthias, irritated by his conduct, concluded a peace with Ladislaus, by which he acknowledged him as king of Bohemia, and agreed that Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia [which had been surrendered to him in 1475] should revert to the crown of Bohemia, in ease of his death without issue. He then again invaded Austria; but his arms were not attended with the same rapid success as on the former invasion. … It was not till after a contest of four years, which called forth all the skill and perseverance of the warlike monarch and his most experienced generals, that they obtained possession of the capital [1485] and the neighbouring fortresses, and completed the subjugation of Lower Austria, by the capture of Newstadt, the favourite residence of the emperor. Frederic, driven from his hereditary dominions, at first took refuge at Gratz; and, on the approach of danger, wandered from city to city, and from convent to convent." After many appeals, he persuaded Albert, duke of Saxony, to take the field in his behalf; but Albert, with the small force at his command, could only retard the progress of the invader, and he soon concluded an armistice with him. "In consequence of this agreement, he [Albert of Saxony], in November, 1487, abandoned Austria, and Matthias was permitted to retain possession of the conquered territories, until Frederic had discharged his former engagement, and reimbursed the expenses of the war; should Matthias die before that period, these states were to revert to their sovereign."

_W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 18 (volume 1)._

HUNGARY: A. D. 1487-1526. Death of Matthias. Election of Wladislaw, or Ladislaus, of the Polish house of Jagellon. Union of the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia. Loss of the Austrian provinces. Treaty of Succession with Maximilian. Insurrection of the Kurucs. Loss of Belgrade. Great Turkish invasion and ruinous battle of Mohacs. The end of Hungarian independence.

"When once the archduchy of Austria was conquered, Mathias, who was already master of Moravia and Silesia, had in his power a state almost as large as the Austria of the present time, if we except from it Galicia and Bohemia. But his power had no solid foundation. While the influence of the house of Austria had been increased by marriage, Mathias Corvinus had no legitimate heir. He made several attempts to have his natural son, John Corvinus, born in Silesia, recognized as his successor; but he died suddenly (1490) at the age of 50, without having arranged anything definitely for the future of his kingdom. … Hungary reached her highest point in the reign of Mathias Corvinus, and from this time we shall have to watch her hopeless decay. The diet, divided by the ambition of rival barons, could decide on no national king, and so turned to a foreigner. Wladyslaw II., of the [Polish] house of Jagellon, was elected, and thus a king of Bohemia, and an old rival of Mathias, united the two crowns of St. Vacslav and St. Stephen—a union which had been so ardently hoped for by Mathias, and for which he had waged the miserable war against Bohemia. … The beginning of the new reign was not fortunate. Maximilian [son of the Emperor Frederic] recovered the Austrian provinces, and John of Poland declared war against his brother, Wladyslaw, and obliged him to cede part of Silesia to him. Maximilian invaded the west of Hungary, … whence he only consented to retire after Wladyslaw had agreed to a treaty, which secured Hungary to the house of Austria, in case of Wladyslaw dying without children. This treaty, in which the king disposed of the country without consulting the diet, roused universal indignation. … Meanwhile, the Turks thronged round the southern frontier of the kingdom. Bajazet II. had failed to capture Belgrade in 1492, but he could not be prevented from forcing his way into the valley of the Save, and beating the Hungarian army, which was badly paid and badly disciplined. … Wladyslaw had one son, Louis. Surrounded by the net of Austrian diplomacy, he had affianced this son in his cradle to Mary of Austria, the sister of Charles V., and later on he undertook, in defiance of public opinion, to leave the crown to his daughter Anne, who was, betrothed to Ferdinand of Austria, if Louis should die without heirs. … To add to the miseries of his reign, a peasant rising, a terrible Jacquerie, took place. … In 1513, Cardinal Bacracz came from Rome, bringing with him the papal bull for a crusade against the infidels; whereupon the peasants armed themselves, as if they were about to march against the Turks, and then turned their arms against the nobles. This terrible insurrection is called in Hungarian history the insurrection of the Kurucs (Kouroutses, cruciati) crusaders. … The chief leader of the insurrection, the peasant Dosza, was one of the Szeklers of Transylvania. … Dosza was beaten in a battle near Temesvar, and fell into the hands of his enemies. Their vengeance was terrible. The king of the peasants was seated on a throne of fire, and crowned by the executioner with a red-hot crown. He bore his frightful sufferings with a courage that astonished his adversaries. … The feeble Wladyslaw died in 1515, and the reign of the child-king, Louis II., may be summed up in two catastrophes, the loss of Belgrade and the defeat at Mohacs. The young king, married in his cradle, was corrupt and dissolute, and quite incapable of governing, and his guardians could not rise to the height of the occasion. {1674} The finances of the kingdom were in great disorder, and the leading barons quarrelled continually over the shreds of sovereignty still left. … This state of things was of the greatest use to the Turks, for while Hungary was sinking ever deeper into anarchy, Turkey was ruled by the great sovereign who was called Soliman the Magnificent. It was not long before he found a pretext for war in the arrest of one of his subjects as a spy, and assembled his troops at Sophia, captured Shabats [Szabatch], laid siege to Belgrade and took it, making it thenceforward a Mussulman fortress (1521). The key of the Danube was now in the hands of the Turks. … King Louis begged for help on every side. … The Austrian princes were ready to help him from interested motives; but even when joined with Hungary they were too feeble to conquer the armies of 'the Magnificent.' On the 25th of April, 1526, Soliman quitted Constantinople, bringing with him 100,000 men and 300 cannon, taking up arms not only against Hungary, but against the empire. One of the pretexts for his expedition was the captivity of Francis I.; he wished, he said, to save 'the bey of France' from the hands of the Germans and their allies the Hungarians. He crossed the Save near Osiek (Essek), captured Petervardin, and came up with the Hungarians at Mohacs, on the right bank of the Danube (August 26, 1526). The Magyar army was commanded by the king in person, assisted by Paul Tomory, archbishop of Kalocsa, one of the warlike bishops of whom Hungary gives us so many examples; by George Szapolyai, and by Peter Perenyi, bishop of Nagy-Varad (Great Varadin). Perenyi wished to treat with the Turks, in order to gain time for help to reach them from Croatia and Transylvania, but the impetuosity of Tomory decided on immediate battle. … At first, it seemed as if the battle was in favour of the Magyars; but Soliman had commanded that the front ranks of his army should give way before the Hungarian cavalry, and that then the main body of his troops should close around them. When the Magyars were thus easily within reach, they were overwhelmed by the Turkish artillery and forced to retreat. They took refuge in some marshy land, in which many of them lost their lives. The king had disappeared; Tomory was slain; seven bishops, 22 barons, and 22,000 men were left upon the field. The road to Buda lay open before the invaders, and after having laid waste the whole country on their way, they reached the capital, where the treasures which Mathias Corvinus had collected in his palace and his library were either carried off or committed to the flames. … Then the tide of invasion gradually retired, leaving behind it a land covered with ruins. The independent existence of Hungary ended with Louis II."

_L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 15._

ALSO IN: _L. Felbermann, Hungary and its People, chapter 3._

HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567. Election of John Zapolya to the throne. Rival candidacy and election of Ferdinand of Austria. Zapolya's appeal to the Turks. Great invasion by Soliman. Siege of Vienna. The sultan master of the greater part of the country. Progress of the Reformation. Soliman's last invasion.

"No sooner was the corpse of Louis II. found lying in a marsh, under his mangled steed, than the necessity of speedily electing a new monarch was powerfully felt. Louis left no heir to the throne, while his wife Mary, archduchess of Austria, far from trying to possess herself of the helm of the state, was already on her way to Vienna, even before the results of the battle of Mohacs had become fully known. The vacant throne found thus an aspirant in John Zapolya, waivod of Transylvania and count of the Zips, who lay encamped with a mighty army at Szegedin, on his march to the plain of Mohacs. … The Diet, which met on the plain of Rakos (1526), proclaimed Zapolya king. … The day of coronation was soon fixed, the waivod receiving his royal unction at Weisenburg. Stephen Batory, the palatine, however, actuated by envy rather than ambition, first attempted to oppose to the new king the interests of the widow of Louis II. But the Austrian archduchess, unwilling to enter the field as a competitor for the crown, handed over her role to her brother Ferdinand I. of Austria, who was married to Anne, sister of the late Hungarian king. Ferdinand soon repaired to Presburg, a town beyond the reach of Zapolya's arms, where he was elected king of Hungary by an aristocratic party, headed by the palatine Batory, Francis Batthany, Ban of Croatia, and Nadasdy." After a fruitless conference between representatives of the rival kings, they proceeded to war. Zapolya was "master of the whole country, except some parts beyond the Danube," but he remained inactive at Buda until the Austrians surprised him there and forced him to evacuate the capital. "Not able to make head against the foreign mercenaries of Ferdinand, Zapolya was soon obliged to confine himself to the northern frontiers, till he left the kingdom for Poland, there to solicit help and concert measures for the renewal of the war (1528)." Receiving no encouragement from the king of Poland, Zapolya at length addressed himself to the great enemy of Hungary, the sultan Soliman, and there he met no rebuff. The Ottoman conqueror made instant preparations to enter Hungary as the champion of its native king. Thereupon "Zapolya organized a small army, and crossed the frontiers. His army was soon swelled to thousands, and he had possessed himself of the greatest part of Upper, before Soliman began to pour down on Lower Hungary. … Proclaiming to the people that his army was not come to conquer, but to assist their elected native king, Soliman marched onwards, took Buda, Gran, and Raab, all of them shamelessly given up by Ferdinand's mercenaries, and moved on unopposed to the walls of Vienna [1529]. Ferdinand, in his distress, Invoked the assistance of Germany; but his brother [the] emperor, as well as the Diet of Spires, engrossed with Luther and his followers, … were not forward to render their assistance. Vienna, however, though neglected by the German emperor, was momentarily saved by the advanced state of the season; for winter being at hand, the Turks, according to their usage at that season, took their way home. [The besieging army of Turks is said to have numbered 250,000 men; while the river swarmed with 400 Turkish boats. Twenty fierce assaults were made upon the defenses of the city, in as many days. The suburbs were destroyed and the surrounding country terribly ravaged. {1675} Before raising the siege, the baffled Turk massacred thousands of captives, under the walls, only carrying away into slavery the young and fair of both sexes. The repulse of Soliman is "an epoch in the history of the world."]

_Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 9. _

… Zapolya, having taken up his position in Buda, ruled over the greatest part of Hungary; while Croatia submitted to Ferdinand. … A useless war was thus for a while carried on between the two rival sovereigns, in the midst of which Buda had to sustain a heavy siege conducted by General Roggendorf; but the garrison, though reduced so far as to be obliged to eat horseflesh, succeeded in repelling and routing the Austrian besiegers (1530)." Ferdinand now humbled himself to the sultan, beseeching his friendship and support, but in vain. The war of the rival kings went on until 1538, when it was suspended by what is known as the Treaty of Grosswardein, which conceded to each party possession of the parts of the country which he then occupied; which gave the whole to Zapolya if Ferdinand died without male issue, and the whole to Ferdinand if Zapolya died before him, even though Zapolya should leave an heir—but the heir, in this latter case, was to marry Ferdinand's daughter. This treaty produced immense indignation in the country. "That the never-despairing and ambitious Zapolya meant that step rather as a means of momentary repose, may safely be assumed; but the development of his schemes was arrested by the hand of death (1540), which removed the weary warrior from these scenes of blood, at the very moment when his ears were gladdened by the news that he had become the father of a son." Ferdinand now claimed the undivided sovereignty, according to the terms of the Treaty of Grosswardein; but the queen-dowager Isabella, wife of John Zapolya, maintained the rights of her infant son. She was supported by a strong party, animated and led by one George Martinussius, a priest of extraordinary powers. Both Ferdinand and Isabella appealed to the sultan, as to an acknowledged suzerain. He declared for young Zapolya, and sent an army to Buda to establish his authority, while another Turkish army occupied Transylvania. "Soliman soon followed in person, made his entry into Buda [1541], which he determined to keep permanently occupied during the minority of Sigismund; and assuring Isabella of his affection to the son of John, bade her retire with the child to Transylvania; a piece of advice which she followed not without some reluctance and distrust. Buda was thus henceforward governed by a pasha; the army of Ferdinand was ruined, and Soliman, under the title of an ally, became absolute lord of the country." After a few years "new complications and difficulties arose in Transylvania, when Martinussius, who was confirmed by Soliman in his capacity of guardian to the young Sigismund and regent of that country, began to excite the suspicion of queen Isabella. Ferdinand, aware of these circumstances, marched an army into Transylvania, headed by Costaldo, who was instructed to gain over the monk-tutor." Martinussius was won by the promise of a cardinal's hat; with his help the queen-dowager was coerced into abdicating in behalf of her son. Having brought this about, Ferdinand basely procured the assassination of the monk Martinussius. "'Far from gaining by an act that stamped his own name with eternal shame, Ferdinand was soon driven by the Turks from Transylvania, and lost even the places occupied by his troops in Hungary.' … Transylvania owned the sway of Sigismund Zapolya, while Ferdinand, in spite of the crown of the German empire, recently conferred upon him, … was fain to preserve in Hungary some small districts, contiguous to his Austrian dominions. … In the year 1563, Ferdinand convoked his party at Presburg," and prevailed upon them to go through the form of electing his son Maximilian to the Hungarian throne. "Ferdinand soon after died (1564), leaving three sons. Of these, Maximilian succeeded his father in Austria; Ferdinand inherited the Tyrol; and Charles, the youngest son, got possession of Styria. Maximilian, who, in addition to his Austrian dominions, succeeded to the throne of Bohemia and to that of the German empire, proved as impotent in Hungary as his father had been. The Pasha of Buda ruled the greater part of Hungary proper; Sigismund Zapolya continued to maintain his authority in Transylvania. … His [Maximilian's] reign left Hungary much the same as it was under his predecessor, although much credit is due to the neutral line of conduct he observed in regard to religious affairs. Unlike the rise and progress of the Reformation in the rest of Europe, religious reform in Hungary was rather an additional element in the political conflict than its originator. … By the battle of Mohacs, the Reformation was freed from a bigoted king and many persecuting prelates; while Ferdinand, conniving at the Protestant party in Germany, was withheld from persecuting it in Hungary, the more so from the dread that his rival might win the Protestant party to his interest. The Protestants thus increased in number amid the din of arms. … The sectarian spirit, though somewhat later than elsewhere, found also its way into this land of blood, and Hungary was soon possessed of considerable bodies of Lutherans and Calvinists, besides a smaller number of Anabaptists and Socinians. … Calvin's followers were mostly Magyars, while Lutheranism found its centre point in the German population of Transylvania." In 1566, Maximilian, encouraged by some subsidies obtained from his German subjects, began hostilities against the Turks and against Sigismund in Transylvania. This provoked another formidable invasion by the great sultan Soliman. The progress of the Turk was stopped, however, at the fortress of Szigeth, by a small garrison of 3,000 men, commanded by Nicholas Zriny. These devoted men resisted the whole army of the Moslems for nearly an entire month, and perished, everyone, without surrendering their trust. Soliman, furious at the loss of 20,000 men, and the long delay which their obstinate valor caused him, died of apoplexy while the siege went on. This brought the expedition to an end, and Maximilian "bought a new peace at the hands of Selim II., son of Soliman, for a tribute of 30,000 ducats (1567). Shortly after, Maximilian was also relieved of his rival, John Sigismund Zapolya, who died a sudden death."

_E. Szabad, Hungary, Past and Present, part 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN: _R. W. Fraser, Turkey, Ancient and Modern, chapters 12-13._

{1676}

HUNGARY: A. D. 1567-1604. Successive disturbances in Transylvania. Cession of the principality to the House of Austria, and consequent revolt. Religious persecutions of Rodolph. Successful rebellion of Botskai. Continued war with the Turks.