The story of Hungary

by Ármin Vámbéry

This event disturbed the balance of power between the Turks and Germans, and alone was sufficient to bring about the great changes which soon took place in the affairs of Hungary. In order to account for the overthrow of the power of Transylvania, it must be remembered that both the Turks and Germans had for a long time back looked askance at the strength and influence of this little principality. They were filled with apprehensions of having their Hungarian territories gradually absorbed by Transylvania, and there was an agreement between these two powers, to the effect that she should not be allowed to add to her territory. It is impossible to suppose that the then ruler of Transylvania, George Rákóczy II., had no information of this secret treaty, but he apparently paid no heed to it, or entertained no fears as to its effects. He quietly continued to extend his power, and for that purpose entered into an alliance with the Swedish king for the partition of Poland. In vain did the Viennese court oppose this aggressive course, in vain did the Turks command him to desist from it; the Transylvanian prince crossed the Carpathians, with a gallant army, in 1657. The allied forces of Sweden and Transylvania were everywhere victorious, and the power of Transylvania stood higher than ever. It was at this conjuncture that Leopold I., who had succeeded Ferdinand III., inaugurated, at once, a warlike policy, parting with the peaceable traditions of his predecessors. Leopold divided the attention of Rákóczy’s Swedish ally by setting on him his ancient enemies, the Danes, and sent his own armies into those Hungarian domains belonging to Rákóczy, which the Transylvanian princes had extorted from the Hapsburgs, in the treaties of Vienna and Nikolsburg, and on other similar occasions. Nor were the Turks behindhand in co-operating with the Hapsburgs. A Tartar army was sent into Poland against Rákóczy, and he himself was deposed from his princely office as a punishment for his disobedience. Rákóczy, thus left to fight his own battles, without an ally, and hemmed in by Turks, Germans, and Tartars, suffered defeat on every side, the flower of his army fell into the hands of the Tartars, and it was only by paying a large sum that he obtained peace from Poland. When he returned to Transylvania in August, 1657, with the wreck of his army, the principality was involved in utter financial and military ruin.

The Turks, however, did not pause here; they wished to get the whole of Transylvania into their possession. Twice the unhappy country was devastated by Tartar hordes, and the inhabitants repeatedly carried away into slavery by thousands; a prince was given to her at the dictation of the Turks, and part of her territory actually passed under direct Turkish rule (1662). The hearts of the patriotic Hungarians bled at this cruel sight, and they appealed to and incessantly urged their king to interfere, and not to allow the principality to perish. Leopold I. turned a deaf ear to these appeals; he was not inclined to venture on a war with Turkey, on behalf of Transylvania, and was, at best, careful to get his share of the common plunder. It was a gloomy outlook for the Hungarian nation; the Turks, on the one hand, oppressing her with their formidable forces, and their own king languidly looking on.

The Turkish successes in Transylvania only served to whet the Moslem appetite for further conquests. In 1663 the Turks attacked Leopold without any warning, and obtained possession of the region of the Upper Danube, and of the lower valley of the Vág. This was a great blow to Hungary, for the conquered territory was thrust like a wedge into the semicircular national territory, dividing it again into two new parts. Although an imperial army was sent to meet the Turkish forces, no efforts were made to stay the continual advances of the latter as long as they were on Hungarian territory, but as soon as they neared the Austrian frontier they were opposed by the imperial forces. This imperial army achieved at St. Gotthard, near the Raab, a brilliant victory over the Turks.

This victory gave fresh courage to the despondent Hungarians. They now hoped that the war would be successfully pushed forward, and would end only with the liberation of their country, and the less sanguine expected at least a peace which would restore to the possession of the king of Hungary, Transylvania, and all the other territories obtained by the Turks since 1657. A sad disappointment, however, fell upon the country. The peace concluded by the victorious government left in the possession of the Turks all the territory they had previously taken, thus virtually leaving the country in her former maimed condition.

This disgraceful peace which had been concluded by the court of Vienna without consulting the Hungarians, at last shook even the faith of those Catholic Hungarians who, until now, had been the unconditional adherents of the Hapsburgs. They had, heretofore, acquiesced in the forlorn condition of their country, being persuaded that the Viennese government lacked the ability of rescuing her, but recent events showed them that it was lack of good will on the part of the government which was precipitating the ruin of the country. It became the universal conviction that the Hapsburgs would gladly see the country in the hands of the foreign invader, in order to enable them, by reconquering her anew, to do away with the uncomfortable trammels of the national constitution. Leopold did not heed the general discontent; he pursued the great aim he had proposed to himself, of uniting, after the illustrious example of Louis XIV., all the dependencies of his dynasty into one homogeneous empire. Things had come to such a pass in Hungary that the most inveterate enemies of Turkey openly counselled amity with the Turks, declaring that they preferred paying a tribute to the latter rather than to see the country go to ruin by the Germanizing machinations of the Viennese court.

The general discontent soon budded into a conspiracy in which, this time, not only the Protestants, but chiefly the Catholic population took part, who were now quite as eager to rid themselves of the Germans. The heads of the conspiracy were all Catholics. Their leader was Wesselényi, the palatine of the realm and the king’s representative, and affiliated with him in the leadership were the largest landlords in the country: Peter Zrinyi, Nádasdy, Francis Rákóczy, and Frangepán. Their aim was to rid the country of the Germans by the aid of the Turks, or, if possible, of the French. The conspiracy, however, failed. Wesselényi died, and the plot was betrayed to the government before it had ripened into the intended rising. Leopold, without loss of time, swooped down upon the principal conspirators. Zrinyi, Nádasdy, and Frangepán were seized, and without being given the benefit of the laws of their country, were decapitated. Their immense estates were confiscated, and Rákóczy himself could only save his life and obtain mercy by paying a ruinous ransom (1671). The government, however, was not satisfied with the cruel punishment of the ringleaders alone; it deemed this a propitious time for the introduction of various oppressive measures. Without convoking the Diet, a land and corn tax was imposed upon the country, excise duties were introduced, and a poll tax levied on every inhabitant, including the nobles. The land was swarming with a foreign soldiery brought there to restrain the rebellious Hungarians. The government added injury to insult; not satisfied with insulting the nation by entirely ignoring its constitution, and keeping down the national aspirations by quartering foreign garrisons in national territory, it raised illegal taxes wherewith to pay the armed oppressors. The government at Vienna threw off its mask at last; the Hungarian constitution was abolished, and Hungary reduced to the condition of a province of Austria (1673).

Whilst the government thus succeeded in subverting the constitution of the country, it showed no less activity and success in the prosecution of its other aim, the Romanizing of the people. There was no law to protect those professing the new faith; they could be oppressed with impunity; their churches were taken away from them; hundreds of their ministers and teachers were sentenced by the tribunal to slavery on the galleys, or were sent adrift by private persecutions. It was an open secret that the king himself was eager to exterminate the last heretic, and just as the oath of the king to protect the constitution had been forgotten, so were the various treaties of peace, guaranteeing the freedom of worship, doomed to oblivion, as soon as there was no Transylvanian prince to recall them to royal memory by force of arms.

And yet it was Transylvania, in her weakened condition, that now came to the assistance of Hungary, which had become a prey to Austrian rapacity. Many of those who were compelled to fly from the persecutions of the sanguinary policy of the government sought and found a refuge in Transylvania, and they were continually urging Apaffy, the prince of Transylvania, and the Turks to intercede with arms in behalf of the Hungarian cause. The Viennese government assailed Stambul with letters requesting the sultan not to allow Transylvania to be the place of refuge of certain “thieves,” but to no purpose. The Porte, indeed, so far from favorably receiving these epistles, secretly promised aid against the Austrians. A fresh insurrection broke out in 1672. The refugees flocked into the Upper Country and inaugurated a warfare which, for cruelty and mercilessness, stands alone in the history of Hungary. The era of this contest, commencing in 1672, and covering a period of nearly ten years, is called the Kurucz-Labancz era. This aimless and purposeless struggle was kept up between the Kuruczes (insurgents) and Labanczes (Austrians), within the limits of the territory lying between Komárom and Transylvania, and there was no end of the horrors the contestants were guilty of in the course of their hostilities against each other. To cut tobacco on the enemy’s bare back, or to cut strips from his quivering skin, to drive thorns or iron spikes under the finger-nails, to bury him in the ground up to his head and then fire at him, to skin him alive, to put a stake through him,—in a word, to perpetrate tortures at which humanity shudders, these were the every-day courtesies exchanged between the two belligerents. The combatants of that day respected neither God nor man; they acknowledged only one guide for their actions: a bitter and undying hatred of all that called itself Labancz. They were the misguided creatures of a period during which the insane policy of the government had robbed the people both of their religion and their teachers.

The ruling powers had thus conjured up days of terror, but were utterly inadequate to the task of terminating them. Indeed after several years of this schemeless struggle, the rebellion became at last organized and conscious of a fixed object. The rebels received aid from the French and from the Porte, and Transylvania, as a state, was ready to make common cause with her countrymen. Tökölyi, a magnate of the Upper Country, a youth only twenty-one years old, but of eminent abilities, placed himself at the head of the rebels, and, now in 1678, began the war in good earnest. The rebels soon became masters of the Upper Country, and the government which had been unable to cope with the headless Kuruczes, proved quite helpless against the organized rebellion, led by an able chief. Austria was, besides, continually harassed by Louis XIV. in the west, and, to add to her difficulties, it was rumored that the Turks were preparing to invade Hungary with an immense army, which, uniting with the forces of Tökölyi, should drive the Austrians from the country.

The government, thus driven to the wall, surrendered. Negotiations soon began, the Diet was convoked in 1681, and constitutional government and freedom of worship were restored with a show of great alacrity. The concessions came too late. The rebels had no faith in the government after the cruel deceptions of which it had been guilty, and placed no trust in promises wrung from its necessitous condition. They refused to submit, and Tökölyi was proclaimed by the Porte king of Hungary. The threatened Turkish invasion became also in 1683 a fact. At this moment Hungary seemed to be lost forever to the Hapsburgs; the whole country sided with the Turks, the territory beyond the Danube also acknowledging the authority of Tökölyi.