The destinies of Hungary, nay of all Eastern Europe, hung upon the fate of besieged Vienna. The siege of Vienna was raised through the victory of Sobieski the Polish king; and the rapidly succeeding victories of the Christian armies, already referred to in the preceding chapter, awakened the hopes of the Hungarian nation, and showed that, at last, the emperor-king concerned himself in the liberation from Turkish rule of Hungarian territory. The decisive victories of Prince Eugene of Savoy finally accomplished this, and the Turks henceforth gave up all hopes of reconquering Hungary.
The liberation of the Hungarian soil, however important in itself, proved no immediate panacea for the ills of which the country had to complain. Even while the struggle was going on, many things happened which pointed to troubles in the future. The Hungarian inhabitants along the course of the Danube were rudely interrogated by the soldiers of the imperial army of liberation as to what faith they professed, and if they were found to adhere to the new tenets they were mercilessly set adrift. In the Upper Country a certain Caraffa, the military commandant of that district, committed acts of the most cruel atrocity. This bloody monster pretended to have discovered a conspiracy, and obtained from the government, which was disposed to suspect the loyalty of the Hungarians, full powers to deal with it and to put it down. Caraffa made a terrible use of his commission. He made wholesale arrests of the suspected and loyal alike, threw into prison men of high standing against whom he had a personal grudge, and rich people whose property he coveted, and extorted from them by dreadful tortures the confession of crimes they had never committed. These unfortunates were then executed upon the strength of their confessions. This bloody tribunal of Eperjes, of ill-fame, which inspired horror all over the land, continued its malevolent functions until the first months of 1687, when it was abolished, through the intercession of the Diet which had just been convoked. This Diet, however, was in most of its work not at all anxious to hamper the government. On the contrary, it displayed a pliability which made it forget the true interests of the country. Thus it substituted for the ancient right of the nation to elect their kings, the hereditary right of succession in the male branch of the Hapsburg dynasty, and it was this Diet that relinquished the time-honored right of the people, guaranteed by the Golden Bull, to resist with arms any illegal acts of the king, without incurring the penalty of treason for so doing. There were some malicious critics who pretended that this unpatriotic legislation was due to the pressure of imperial guns pointed at the place in which the Diet met. At all events the servile spirit exhibited by the Diet gave color to the apprehensions of those Hungarians who were of one mind with Tökölyi, that Hungary must be irretrievably ruined if she passed under the authority of the Austrians.
As the Turkish wars were drawing to an end, more melancholy portents began to darken the horizon. Hungary was reorganized by the government at Vienna without the Hungarians being consulted. Transylvania remained a separate “grand duchy,” and the district beyond the Drave was formed into a separate province, and all this was done from the fear lest united Hungary might become too strong to suit Austria’s schemes. A large portion of the recovered territory was distributed amongst German landowners, the southern portion of the Alföld was colonized by Servians, and in other parts of the land, especially in the cities, the settlement of German-speaking people was encouraged, for the purpose of tempering the hot blood of the rebellious Hungarians. The fortified castles scattered throughout the whole country, the property of private owners, were blown up by the hundred, without the consent of their proprietors, lest in case of a fresh rising these strongholds should be used as centres of a factious spirit.
The Protestants were not allowed to settle in the reconquered districts. In other places the freedom of their worship was interfered with, the churches were taken from them, their ministers driven away, and if any one, appealing to his constitutional rights, had the courage to resist these illegalities, he was thrown into prison. In a word, regular dragonnades, as they flourished in France under Louis XIV., now became the order of the day.
The government imposed upon the people such oppressive and burdensome taxes that it almost seemed as if it dreaded the prosperity of the country. If the people complained of the heavy burdens, they were instigated against the nobles, whose exemption from taxation was pointed out as the only cause of the heavy burdens. The country was again flooded by a foreign soldiery, whose chief business consisted in robbing and plundering, the common soldiers oppressing the common people, and the officers the nobility. The honor and the property of the people were at the mercy of these brutal troops, and those who complained of such outrages found themselves always in the wrong. This forlorn condition is reflected in many of the plaintive popular songs of that period, but there was no means of remedying these evils crying throughout the land, for no Diet had been convoked since 1687. The aim of the Viennese government became daily more evident, to put the Austrian rule in the place of the Turkish, and to ignore altogether the Hungarian national aspirations. The nation herself seemed to the government too much enfeebled and trodden down to give any ground for apprehending any resistance in defence of her rights, but to make assurance doubly sure every effort was made to crush the national spirit.
Yet the nation could not brook oppression, she could not be kept quiet, deprived of constitutional government, and as soon as she had found again a leader in Francis Rákóczy II., she rose in arms. The new leader was the bearer of a great name. His ancestors had been princes of Transylvania. He himself was the grandson of that George Rákóczy II., who in 1657 invaded Poland, and subsequently lost his life fighting against the Turks in defence of his country and his throne. His father Francis had taken part in the Wesselényi conspiracy, and escaped the scaffold only at the cost of an immense ransom. His maternal grandfather, Peter Zrinyi, met with his death on the scaffold, and his only great-uncle perished in prison in spite of his innocence. His stepfather, Tökölyi, together with his own mother, Ilona Zrinyi, ate the bitter bread of exile in Turkey. He and his sister were, in their early youth, torn from their parents, and their education entrusted to Germans. In Vienna he was subjected to many humiliations, and as he grew up he left that city and retired to one of his estates, intending to pass his life peacefully near his wife. He was averse to action, and the bloody shades of his family seemed vainly to beckon to him, who alone bore yet the famous name and was the master of immense possessions, to follow in their footsteps.
But all this was changed as soon as he came to Hungary. He could not bear to witness the wrongs perpetrated about him, and he could not move a step without becoming aware that the nation expected from him, the descendant of a line of heroes, their salvation. Meanwhile the Spanish war of succession had broken out in 1701, and very soon all Europe was involved in it. This appeared to Rákóczy to be a propitious time for the reconquering of the liberties of the people, and, aided by the French king, he hoisted in 1703 the flag of the rebellion, bearing the inscription “pro patria et libertate,” for the fatherland and liberty.
The sages at Vienna would not at first credit the news of the rising of the people; they had long ago made up their minds that such an event was impossible. But when the movement spread like wildfire throughout the Upper Country, Transylvania, and ultimately all Hungary, and the great majority of the nation unsheathed the sword, they became frightened, and resorted to—negotiations and fresh promises. The rebels were inclined to cease hostilities provided their liberties were secured. But mere words did not satisfy them now, having been taught by sad experience the futility of royal words, oaths, and solemn treaties of peace, and they therefore endeavored to obtain more substantial guaranties from the government. They exacted the independence of Transylvania, under a Hungarian prince and the guaranty of the European powers. To these propositions the government neither would nor could accede, while the rebels insisted upon their first proposals, declaring that it was impossible for them to have any faith in Austrian or—as it was popularly termed—in German promises. This universal sentiment of distrust, pervading the nation, is admirably reflected in a popular song, to which that period gave birth, and of which we subjoin a translation:
“Magyar, trust not the Germans,