Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 / With a short summary of later events

by C. Edmund Maurice

As soon as Bruno of Olmütz heard of this loss, he advised Ottakar to yield. Ottakar was most reluctant that the struggle should end without a pitched battle; but another enemy now threatened to appear on the scene. Ladislaus, the new king of Hungary, was smarting under the recollection of the defeats which his predecessor had sustained; and he prepared to invade Bohemia. This new danger seems to have decided Ottakar to yield. He therefore publicly surrendered to Rudolf all his claims on Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and did homage to him as Emperor for his kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia. Such a settlement could not possibly be lasting. Ottakar had not yet been defeated in any pitched battle; his wife Kunigunda is said to have reproached him for his weakness in yielding so soon; and, in the carrying out of the treaty which followed, numerous questions, of doubtful interpretation, quickly came to the front. In this case, one of Rudolf’s otherwise successful daughters proved a source of contention rather than of unity. Guta, the daughter whom Rudolf had offered as a bride to Ottakar’s son, had been promised large lands as her dowry; and Ottakar maintained that, as these lands must necessarily lie in Austria, he was not bound to evacuate those territories, but should rather claim them as his due. Rudolf, on the other hand, insisted that the terms of the treaty involved the evacuation of the whole of Austria.

A question which must have touched Ottakar far more nearly was the interpretation of the clause about the extension to the supporters of each King of all the securities gained by the peace. The discontent of the nobles with Ottakar’s rule had extended even to Bohemia and Moravia; and many of the king’s native subjects had entered into intrigues with Rudolf. Rudolf maintained that, as these men must be considered his supporters, they were entitled to the same concessions as the other champions of his cause. It was obvious that such grounds of division as these, by whatever compromise they might be settled at the moment, must leave a lasting sting behind them; and there is no sign in the letters of either King of even such a pretence of friendship, as the ordinary exigencies of diplomacy might seem to require. Both Rudolf and Ottakar were, in fact, preparing for a new struggle, and looking about for allies.

At this stage the chances seemed to be in favour of Ottakar. In the first struggle he could rely on nothing but the military forces of his own kingdom, and the sympathies of those citizens whom he had favoured; while Rudolf was backed by the approval and encouragement of the great princes of the Empire, by the sanction of the Pope, by the assistance of the King of Hungary, and by the eager sympathy and co-operation of the discontented subjects of Ottakar.

Now, these supporters seemed to be gradually dropping off from the Emperor. Rudolf had by no means abandoned that championship of the towns for which he had been so distinguished before his election to the Imperial throne; and of all the enemies of the town life of Germany the prince-bishops were looked upon as the most determined and dangerous. Rudolf had therefore to choose between adherence to his old policy and the favour of his archiepiscopal supporters. With a courage which was doubtless united to far-sighted wisdom, he boldly defended the municipal rights of Köln against the encroachments of its Archbishop. That powerful Elector was thus completely alienated from Rudolf’s cause; and he speedily succeeded in persuading his brother Archbishops of Trier and Mainz to desert their nominee. The defection of Werner of Mainz so alarmed Rudolf that he seemed disposed to make some sacrifice of principle in order to conciliate him. But the concessions which the Emperor offered were not sufficient to appease the jealousies and suspicions of the Archbishop; and Werner now began to listen only too readily to the advances of Ottakar.

The Margrave of Brandenburg can never have been a warm supporter of Rudolf. He had married Ottakar’s sister; and he was united to him also by the still closer link of military comradeship; for Ottakar and he had fought side by side in one of those invasions of Prussia, which were supposed to be so advantageous to the souls of the heathen population, and which undoubtedly tended to increase the power and territory of the Margrave of Brandenburg. Nor does the Duke of Saxony seem to have been finally secured to the interest of Rudolf by the marriage with his daughter. Even the Dukes of Bavaria did not feel that they had profited as much as they had hoped to do by their support of the Emperor; and they were not a little alarmed at his evident intention to turn the provinces, which he had won for the Empire, into a private possession of the House of Hapsburg. Nor was Rudolf more fortunate when he tried to find allies abroad whose support might compensate him for the loss of his friends at home. In vain he made advances to our Edward I.; and an attempt to strengthen his hands by alliances with the princes of Italy, had the sole result of exciting the suspicions and enmity of Pope Nicholas III.

Ottakar was, of course, greatly encouraged by these secessions from his rival; and he hoped still further to strengthen his own position by detaching the King of Hungary from his alliance with Rudolf, and by stirring up an insurrection in Austria. In both these efforts, however, he was unsuccessful. The conspiracy formed by some of the Austrian nobles, in concert with the still discontented Burgomaster of Vienna, was detected by Rudolf before it had come to a head; and while Paltram was forced to save himself by flight, one of the leading nobles was seized and condemned to death.

The discovery of this conspiracy seems to have been the signal for the new outbreak of war; and it was now apparent that Rudolf had not been wholly weakened by the desertion of his powerful supporters. The forces on which he could still rely were more ready to act under his command than the great princes of the Empire would have been; and his one independent ally probably gave him more efficient help than he could have derived from any distant general. This was Ladislaus of Hungary, who had been firmly secured to Rudolf’s side, partly by the gift of one of his inexhaustible tribe of daughters, and partly by a vague promise of extension of territory. Ottakar was apparently unaware of the firmness of this alliance; and he entered Austria with a somewhat small force, expecting an easy victory. One or two fortresses fell quickly into his hands; but the sudden appearance of the King of Hungary at the head of a large army took him completely by surprise; and, after suffering a slight defeat, he found it convenient to retreat to some distance.

Rudolf in the meantime had rallied round him his most determined supporters. Chief among these was Frederick of Hohenzollern; and the Emperor also received ready help from Count Meinhard of the Tyrol, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and the Bishop of Basel. Besides these supporters, he had under his command a strong force of South Germans; while fiercest and keenest of all the soldiers in his ranks were those who fought under the banners of the discontented Styrian nobles.

The rival armies met on the banks of the river Morava on the plain called the Marchfeld. The battle was a fierce one. The Bishop of Basel and Frederick of Hohenzollern broke the left wing of the Bohemian army; while, on the other side, Ottakar, at the head of a chosen band of knights, drove back the right wing of the Imperialists, and even struck down the Emperor himself. But the Styrian nobles so fiercely resisted the advance of the Bohemians, that they gave time to Rudolf to reform his troops; while Frederick of Hohenzollern followed up his success by attacking the reserve guard, which ought to have advanced to Ottakar’s rescue. These reserves were headed by Milota, Ottakar’s Governor of Styria. It is said that Milota himself had a bitter grievance against the king, on account of an injury inflicted on his brother. Whether this is true or not, it seems certain that, just when these troops ought to have hastened to the support of the main army, they were suddenly seized with a panic, and fled in confusion. The panic quickly spread to the troops posted next to them; and the battle was hopelessly lost. Ottakar fought with desperate courage to the last; and, whether he died sword in hand, or whether, as others say, he was killed by the Styrian nobles after he had surrendered, it is certain that his body was found on the battlefield.

With him, for a time, fell the liberty and independence of Bohemia; and, though his son bore the name of king, and even recovered for a short period an appearance of independence, yet, politically considered, the male line of those Bohemian native rulers, who traced their descent to Libus̆a and Pr̆emysl, came to an end on the plain of Marchfeld in August, 1278. Bohemian independence was, indeed, to revive under a different form; and, nearly two centuries later, a native Bohemian king was once more to rule at Prague; but never again was a purely Bohemian dynasty to be established on the throne.