Ahmed retorted by opening a fire on the town and citadel from 120 guns, some of which sped balls of fifty pounds as far as the bastion, but eighteen days elapsed before the enemy could summon up sufficient courage to try an assault. It proved ineffectual, the assailants being gallantly repulsed by the Hungarians. A few days later a great calamity befell the denizens of the citadel. The powder magazine, struck by a hostile ball, exploded, and a portion of the wall of the citadel was thrown down by the explosion. Taking advantage of the wild confusion the explosion had created amongst the garrison, the enemy directed another assault against their works, but quite as ineffectually as before. They were driven back; Dobó had the wall repaired, and in the cellar vaults he established a gunpowder factory, which proved sufficient to furnish the necessary supply.
After several unsuccessful minor attacks, the Turks prepared for the great final assault. They came against the fortress in overwhelming numbers on every side, and already the garrison began to show symptoms of exhaustion and wavering. At that moment of supreme danger, however, the gallant defenders of the citadel obtained help from quite an unlooked-for quarter. Wives, mothers, and daughters armed themselves, and rushed to the walls to fight by the side of their dear ones. Some of these amazons robbed the dead of their swords, and rushed, thus armed, where the enemy was thickest; others brought boiling water and oil, and poured it upon the heads of those who attempted to scale the walls; and, with the help of these brave women, the assault was beaten back at the most dangerous points. The women of Erlau had a large share in the saving of the city, and the fame of their heroic devotion still survives in Hungary. The Turks were quite panic-struck; in one day alone they lost 8,000 men: and the soldiers loudly declared that God was fighting on the side of the Hungarians, and who could struggle against God? After a siege of thirty-eight days, the Turkish army at length withdrew, and Dobó and his brave men were left in possession of the now ruinous citadel, thus preserving it for their country. The glory of their daring deeds has passed into a common saying. Of any one accomplishing a great deed, the people say: “He has won the fame of Erlau.” The place, nevertheless, passed under Turkish rule in 1596, its Hungarian commandant having been compelled by the foreign garrison to capitulate.
In 1566 Sultan Solyman, who, though old, was still full of vigor, placed himself at the head of a formidable army, and invaded Hungary for the sixth time, his object being to take Erlau and, eventually, to march against Vienna. On reaching, with his 200,000 men and 300 guns, Hungarian territory, he was met by the news that Mohammed Pasha, his favorite, together with his army, had been massacred by the Hungarians at Szigetvár. The aged sultan desired to avenge this affront at once. Szigetvár and its brave commander, Nicholas Zrinyi, had long since been troublesome to the Turks. Zrinyi, the scion of a most ancient family, had been engaged for years in constant fighting against the Moslem power, during those periods even when peace was officially established. His possessions and castles lay in the border territory, and the fearless man was ever at war with the Osmanlis, making them feel the weight of his irresistible sword. The storming of Szigetvár had been attempted once before, but the enemy had been beaten back with great slaughter. And now the great sultan determined himself to bring him to terms, and to invest in person the small fortress. Zrinyi was prepared for the worst, and calmly got ready to face the formidable foe. Szigetvár was not a fortress of the first rank, but only one of the minor strong places. The main feature of its strength was that it lay almost entirely surrounded by lake and marsh, the only road leading to the place being over the bridge communicating with the gate. In front of the citadel, on an island, was the old town, and south of it, on another island, the so-called new town. Szigetvár, therefore, consisted, in point of fact, of three places, each fortified, but differing from each other in the strength of their works of defence. The two towns were, in reality, advanced fortifications of the fortress itself. Without much aid from any quarter, Zrinyi undertook the defence of this small place. His own money purchased the necessary ammunition and military supplies; he filled the granaries with provisions, produced on his own estates, and from his cellar came the necessary wine. There was an abundance of provisions in the place, but there were not soldiers enough. When it became quite certain that the sultan was marching his whole army against Szigetvár, all Zrinyi could obtain from the king, after repeatedly urging his want of soldiers, was the permission to hire one thousand foot-soldiers. German soldiers, it is true, were offered to him, but those he did not want, preferring to select his troops from amongst the garrisons of his own castles, so as to have only tried men by his side. All the force he could muster to oppose to the hundreds of thousands of Solyman numbered, at the highest, 2,500 men. He had 54 guns and 800 hundredweights of gunpowder, and, what was worth more than all that, he and his men were inspired by the sublime resolve, rather to die on the field of honor than to submit to the cruel enemy, who had turned into a desert a large portion of their beautiful country. His soldiers worshipped their heroic leader, and enthusiastically pledged their devotion by oaths of fidelity and obedience.
On the 31st of July, 1566, the advance guard of the enemy showed itself. During the first few days several minor engagements took place, but the siege began in real earnest on the 7th of August. On that day the first assault was attempted; it was directed against the weakest point, the new town, but it met with no success. A few days later, however, Zrinyi himself deemed it expedient to give up the defence of this advanced position, and, after having set fire to the new town and reduced it to ashes, he abandoned it to the enemy. The besiegers immediately occupied it and erected their batteries, protected by bags and baskets filled with earth, and sacks of wool. The batteries were hardly ready when the Hungarians surprised them one night and destroyed them all. Chance, however, now favored the Turks. A drought had prevailed during two months, and the terrain surrounding the old town had become so dry, as considerably to facilitate the approach of the enemy. The besiegers attempted also to drain the lake surrounding the fortress, and planned to accomplish this by cutting through the great dam around it, so as to provide an outlet for the waters. The neighborhood of the dam became the scene of fierce struggles. The position was heroically defended by the Hungarians, while the Turks quite as heroically again and again returned to the attack. After a sanguinary contest lasting the whole day, the Turks finally took the old town on the 19th of August, and Zrinyi with his shrunken garrison entirely withdrew to the citadel, after having demolished the bridge leading to the old town.
Sultan Solyman, however, now thought that lives enough had been lost, and he therefore tried to get possession of the fortress by peaceable means. He tried Zrinyi with fair promises; he sent him messages that he would make him prince of Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia, and tempted him with treasures and estates. Then he tried him with threats. The enemy had captured one of the trumpeters of Zrinyi’s son, George. The trumpet found in the prisoner’s possession had the arms of the Zrinyi family painted on it, and Solyman sent this trumpet to Szigetvár as a token that Zrinyi’s son had been taken captive, and threatened that the prisoner would be cruelly executed unless the place was surrendered. Neither promises nor threats were of any avail. Zrinyi did not for a moment waver, but was steadfast in his determination to follow the dictates of duty and patriotism alone.
The wrath of Solyman at the wearisomeness of the siege knew no bounds. He had been patiently expecting day after day the reduction of the place, and finally, tired of further delay, gave the order for a general assault on the 29th of August. The superstitious sultan thought this a particularly lucky day, for it was the anniversary of the day on which he had taken Belgrade and of the battle at Mohács. The aged ruler, who now, but rarely showed himself to his soldiers, mounted his favorite charger and appeared amongst the Janissaries, in order to rouse and encourage them. His troops rushed enthusiastically into the fight, for which the artillery and the engineers conducting the siege had made every preparation many days before. But Zrinyi was ready and wide-awake, and drove the assailants back with great slaughter. Aliportug, a Portuguese renegade, who was the enemy’s most distinguished artillery officer and military engineer, and had conducted the siege of Sziget, lost his life during this engagement. The Hungarians, although they too had suffered severe losses, celebrated their triumph with bonfires and feasting. They now fondly hoped that their heroic resistance would at last induce the royal troops to come to the relief of Sziget, and to attack the exhausted troops of the sultan. Some negotiations to that effect had been carried on, but the result was as usual; the German commanders allowed the scanty garrison to perish.
The besiegers, after their last repulse, passed an entire week without renewing the attack. They employed this pause to lay unobserved a powerful mine under the walls of the bastion, which was fired by them on the 5th of September. The explosion shattered the walls, the bastion fell down, and a terrible gale carried the flames into the citadel in every direction. All the buildings were soon on fire, and the Turks too began a general assault. Hemmed in by the dreadful conflagration and the storming enemy, the Hungarians finally yielded. They retired from the outer fortification, and Zrinyi with his men—who had dwindled down to a few hundred—withdrew into the inner or smaller fort. Further resistance seemed now hopeless, yet Zrinyi did not think of capitulating. The cannon-balls of the enemy set on fire the smaller fort on the 7th of September. Zrinyi, in this extremity, had all his valuables, his thousands of gold and silver, his precious vessels and plate, brought into the public square of the citadel and cast into the flames. He then divested himself of his armor and helmet, donned a dolmány (a short jacket braided in front), and threw over it a dark-blue velvet cloak, placing in each of his pockets a hundred ducats as a reward to the man who should discover his dead body. He wound a costly chain of gold around his neck, in place of his helmet he put on his head a kalpag (a Hungarian fur cap), ornamented with a heron’s feather and diamond rosettes, and, arming himself with a curved sabre and a light shield, he took with him the keys of the citadel, to make sure that they should pass into the enemy’s hands only upon his death. In this attire he appeared before his men, who were assembled in the courtyard. He addressed them in a speech full of his generous spirit, “lauding them for their gallant conduct, which would earn for them the respect of the Christian world and of generations to come. The conclusion of their heroic career,” he added, “ought to be worthy of their brilliant feats of the past. There is but one road before us,” he continued, “that of honor; all the other courses are those of shame. You must either meet with death here amid the flames, or must sally forth, and, dearly selling your lives, die the deaths of heroes. Choose between the two.” The kindling words of their leader did not fail of their effect. At this supreme moment the people of Szigetvár, in their exalted enthusiasm, thought only of their honor. The very women wished to follow the men on this their last journey. Zrinyi had the bridge lowered and was the first to advance upon it. Lawrence Juranics was at his side carrying the large banner, and the other officers promptly followed. About six hundred people joined the sally of their heroic leader, who, after a fierce struggle, laid down his devoted life. Of his companions-in-arms but few escaped.*
Thus, after a glorious resistance of over six weeks, did Szigetvár fall into the hands of the Turks. Sultan Solyman did not see the victorious end of the siege; he had expired a few days before in his camp. The Turkish army returned home, and thus through Zrinyi’s noble self-sacrifice was the entire campaign of the enemy rendered barren of results. The formidable army which had menaced the whole country wasted its strength at Szigetvár, and the capture of this fortress alone cost the enemy 30,000 lives. Zrinyi’s heroic death roused the admiration and sympathy of the whole European world, and his name became famous as one of the martyrs of Christianity.
Nor were the muses silent, in the midst of the heroic combats which marked this sad period. With so many inspiring themes presenting themselves, the poet, the successor of the mediæval troubadour, soon appeared on the scene to perpetuate in song the memory of the glorious deeds. Among others was Sebastian Tinódy, who described in verse some of the most glorious of the episodes in the sad chronicle of the sixteenth century. He visited the scenes of the battles and engagements, sought out the survivors or those who had taken a conspicuous part, the captains and their brave followers, collecting the incidents presented in his ballads. Tinódy did not confine himself, however, to his lyre, but was also an adept in the use of arms, and often took part in the contests of his time, and had more than once been wounded. Another and even more interesting figure was that of Valentine Balassa, who was as gallant a soldier as he was eminent as a poet. His works, consisting in part of religious poems and partly of lyric songs, have been, for three centuries, the favorite reading of the Hungarian people. Some of his writings have, however, come down to us in manuscript only, and present a most valuable example of the poetic genius of the Hungarians of his time. Balassa lived a stirring, eventful and dangerous life, which came to a glorious end on the field of honor. At the storming of Gran, in 1597, he was among the Hungarian besiegers, and the gallant poet received a wound during the engagement, which soon proved fatal.
In the midst of these perpetual struggles and successive calamities closed the sixteenth century, and began the seventeenth quite as inauspiciously for the Hungarians. Until now they had cherished the hope that the Hapsburg kings would rescue them from the cruel rule of the Osmanlis. But after a lapse of seventy years they not only saw their hopes of liberation from the hated yoke destroyed, but had the mortification of witnessing the continual spread of the Turkish power. Besides, a sharp antagonism of another kind gradually arose between the nation and their king. The national spirit, in spite of the sad condition of the people, asserted itself more and more, and frequently came into collision with the foreign royal dynasty, whose seat of government was without the frontiers of the country. This antagonism was not only of a national, but also of a religious character, for, while the largest part of Hungary was overwhelmingly Protestant, the kings of this period were among the staunchest supporters of the Church of Rome. In addition to this, the kings, who were at the same time emperors of Germany, had brought themselves, by their autocratic actions, into direct opposition to the constitution of the country and to the rights and privileges guaranteed by law. As a consequence a fierce constitutional contest was raging, during the whole of the seventeenth century, between the nation and their kings, which quite overshadowed the struggle against the Turks. In these contests the Hungarian people leaned for support chiefly on the principality of Transylvania, whose rulers, Stephen Bocskay, Gabriel Bethlen, George Rákóczy I., not only made their comparatively small country the bulwark of Hungarian nationality and of the Protestant Church, but raised her to a position of exceptional influence in European politics.
Before continuing to sketch the period of the Turkish rule in Hungary, we will take a rapid glance at the rise of Protestantism amongst the Hungarians.
The fall of Luther’s hammer upon the door of the castle-church of Wittenberg, as he nailed to it his famous theses, reverberated even in Hungary, and produced an intense commotion in that distant country. The period of the renaissance, the revival of art and literature, had prepared all active and inquiring minds for changes in church and religion. The country had maintained an active intercourse, political, commercial, and cultural, with the western nations, and when Luther began the great work in Germany, which was to mark a new era in the history of the world, his ideas spread like wildfire all over Hungary, and, especially, found favor amongst the German inhabitants, who formed at that time an important element of her population. The cities of Buda, Oedenburg (Soprony), Presburg, the wealthy mining regions in the north, the Királyföld in Transylvania, were settled by Germans. Many of their clergy, attracted by ties of national kinship had finished their studies in Germany, and their merchants were closely connected in business with those of the old fatherland. Owing to the intimate relations thus established between the Germans of Hungary and their brethren abroad, the teachings of Luther gained almost as rapidly ground among them as among their countrymen in Germany, where the new doctrines had first been promulgated. In the course of a few years the new movement had assumed such formidable proportions that it attracted the attention of the whole nation.
The Catholic clergy, threatened in their supremacy, were the first to take the field in defence of the Church thus assailed. Round them very soon rallied that class of the nation which, alone, enjoyed political rights in the land, the entire nobility. In siding with the Catholic clergy, in this conflict against the Reformation and its followers, the Lutherans, the nobility were by no means actuated by religious motives only. Their hostile attitude was rather owing to important political considerations. The throne was then occupied by Louis II., who was of Polish extraction, the same youthful king who, noted for his frivolous character, expiated the errors of his reign upon the battle-field of Mohács. This unfortunate ruler was personally as indifferent to religion as to every thing else involving a serious turn of mind. But his wife, Queen Mary, the sister of the German emperor, Charles V., was all the more enthusiastic in the defence of Luther’s teachings. The queen and her German courtiers, by exerting a baneful influence over the affairs of Hungary, had incurred the ill-will of the nobility, which was identical with the national party. This party, with a view to striking a blow at the German and Lutheran sympathizers surrounding the king, enacted from the outset most rigorous laws against the Lutherans. Thus, as early as 1523, a law was promulgated declaring Lutherans and their protectors (clearly indicating by the latter term the German courtiers of the king) foes to the Holy Virgin Mary, the patroness of Hungary, and as such, punishable with death and confiscation of their property. The persecutions against the adherents of the new faith began immediately. Luther’s works and writings, which had been largely imported into Hungary, were seized and consigned to the flames. The Reformation, nevertheless, steadily gained ground.
In the diets which, owing to the attacks threatening the country from abroad and troubles at home, were then held three or four times annually, the national party, headed by John Szapolyai, one of the most powerful lords of the land, was constantly urging the cause of the Catholic Church. But there were other political reasons, besides their antipathy to the German courtiers, which determined the national party to persist in their antagonism to the new faith. The Osmanlis were continually harassing the southern frontiers, and the country was always on the brink of a war with them. The nobility, representing the nation, felt instinctively that a catastrophe was near at hand, which Hungary, by her unaided strength alone, would be unable to avert. They had to look for foreign aid, and effective help from abroad could be expected only from the two most powerful rulers in Christendom, the pope and the emperor of Germany, both of whom were Luther’s most determined opponents. They succeeded in securing the good-will of the pope, who, having no armies at his disposal to aid Hungary, assisted the country by abundant supplies of money. In return the nobility deemed it their sacred duty to keep a faithful watch and ward over the interests of the Catholic Church, and, in order to do so effectively, they inaugurated relentless measures against the Lutheran heretics. In 1525 another law was passed against the votaries of the new creed, ordering their extermination throughout the country, and declaring that Lutherans, wherever they were found, should suffer death by fire. This cruel law began its abominable work, and the funeral stakes soon sent forth their lurid flames. The religious persecutions thus inaugurated hastened the downfall of the Hungarian kingdom.
The dreadful catastrophe at Mohács, in 1526, forced Hungary into untrodden roads, not only politically, but also in the matter of religion. The death of her king, and the slaughter of so many prelates and of thousands of nobles, on the fated battle-field, gave a violent shock to the organization of both state and church, and rendered easy the further extension of the Reformation. Many of the great lords and nobles, who hitherto had been the most ardent supporters of the Catholic Church, speedily became, from political motives or private interest, zealous apostles of the new faith, so that the doctrines of Luther, before principally confined to the inhabitants of the cities, now found many adherents among the magnates. The bondmen, too, who, even in matters of religion, were compelled to obey the behests of their masters, embraced the religion of their lords. As a consequence, the victory of the Reformation became, a few decades only after the battle of Mohács, complete through the larger part of Hungary. The doctrines of Luther had paved the way for the teachings of Calvin. The latter, owing to their puritanic spirit and democratic tendencies, which suited the rooted predilection of the Magyar race for self-government, spread mostly over the Hungarian section of the country. The religion of Calvin, or the Helvetic confession, had such a hold upon the Hungarian-speaking population that it was soon designated by the special name of the Hungarian faith, while the Lutheran tenets were held chiefly by the German denizens of the cities and the Slavic inhabitants of the upper country. The ancient Roman Church was confined to a comparatively small territory, and during the seventeenth century hardly numbered one seventh of the population.
One of the most shining pages in the law records of Hungary—an enactment granting to the two Protestant churches equal rights with the Catholic Church—is connected with the name of Stephen Bocskay. Although the Catholic Church had, during the sixteenth century, lost most of its followers, yet legally, and owing to the circumstance that the Hapsburg kings were the most zealous propagators of the Roman faith, it continued to be the only recognized church, and to exercise an unduly preponderating influence in public life, which, at that time, bore an exclusively religious impress. The Hungarian magnates and noblemen, then almost all Protestants, under the leadership of Prince Stephen Bocskay, took up arms against this privileged position of the Catholic Church, as well as in defence of the laws of the land, and succeeded in obtaining, in 1606, at the peace of Vienna, a law whereby perfect equality between the Protestant churches and the Catholic Church was established. This great victory, achieved by the Protestants, had the effect of rousing the Catholic Church to energetic action. The anti-reformation movement began in Hungary, as it had already all over Europe, and produced, under the direction of Cardinal Peter Pázmány, the archbishop of Gran, in a comparatively short time, the most surprising results. In the course of a few decades, the most influential and leading families of the aristocracy returned to the fold of the Catholic Church.
The mass of the people, however, the nobility, the inhabitants of the cities, and the peasantry, still remained Protestants, and when the Transylvanian princes, Gabriel Bethlen and George Rákóczy I., were about to engage in war against the Hapsburgs, they readily rallied around these bearers of the standard of the national faith. The peace of Linz, a confirmation of the treaty of Vienna, was concluded under Rákóczy, again solemnly proclaiming the perfect equality of the Protestant churches with the Roman Catholic Church, an equality, however, which, in point of fact, was never put into practice. The written law and their good right was of no use to the Protestants, for the power was gradually slipping from their hands. Under the patronage of the royal court, the anti-reformation movement had made great conquests amongst the lower classes of the people, and sometimes by the use of violence, sometimes by other means, whole districts and large territories again became Catholic. Elated by these successes, the court of Vienna for a long time ignored its promise of freeing the Hungarian people from the Turkish yoke, and about sixty years elapsed without any hostilities against the sultans. The chief endeavor of the court was forcibly to deprive the Hungarian nation of her constitutional institutions which were based upon her nationality, and to subject to imperial absolutism the people, jealous of their liberties and accustomed to freedom. These unconstitutional proceedings on the part of the government produced popular risings and party strife, and were, in their sad consequences, fatal to thousands of fanatics, spreading misery and poverty even to those parts of the land which, from their geographical positions, had been exempt from the ravages of the Turks.
The cessation of hostilities did not interrupt the continued ravages and devastations. Officially, it is true, there was, for about sixty years, peace between the royal court and the sultans, but this did not prevent the latter from constantly indulging in minor military operations. In 1663, however, when Leopold I., who was of an eminently peaceful disposition, held the throne, the Turks officially declared war. Although it had already then become apparent that the Turkish empire was impaired in strength, and, more particularly, that her military organization had degenerated, yet the Turks were eager for new battles, and war was determined upon in Constantinople. Hostilities soon commenced, and at St. Gotthard, in 1664, the Turks got their first repulse, for Christian arms there dealt them a heavy blow. Not once during the two centuries that had gone by were the Turks so overwhelmingly defeated on the continent as on this occasion. Enslaved Hungary breathed more freely, and already thought that the long-hoped-for hour of shaking off Moslem thraldom had arrived. But she was doomed to disappointment. The brilliant triumph was not turned to Hungary’s advantage in Vienna. A hasty peace was concluded with the terrified Turks, and thus was prolonged for many decades the Turkish rule, which, though enfeebled, was still ruinous to Hungary.
It was at this period, too, that a man of great genius, and a true patriot, preached, with genuine apostolic zeal, a crusade against the Turks. His name was Nicholas Zrinyi. The namesake and great-grandson of the hero of Szigetvár, he was himself a gallant soldier and famous poet, and has immortalized, in a grand Hungarian epic, the martyrdom of his heroic ancestor. By his writings he fired the hearts of his countrymen, and his life was passed on bloody fields, in perpetual warfare against the Turks. From his youth he had been inspired by one thought only, to live and die for his country, and, although a devout Catholic, he nobly proclaimed religious toleration, at a time when the country was torn by religious dissensions. His educated mind led him to cultivate poetry, and to study the works of classical authors on history and philosophy, but his chief interest always remained the battle-field and the struggle against the Turks. On one of his estates he had a small fortress erected, called Zerinvár, from which the Hungarians were in the habit of sallying forth into the neighboring Turkish territory. This little place was a thorn in the side of the Turk, and the main cause of the declaration of war of 1663. Zrinyi, however, defended it gallantly, and beat back the assault of the enemy. In the course of the war he took several Turkish fortresses, and burned down and destroyed the bridge across the Drave, 4,000 paces in length, near Eszék, which had been built under Solyman, and which, being the main road leading into the western part of the country, was defended by trenches and other fortifications. The repute made by Zrinyi’s extraordinary feats of war resounded in all Europe, and he was loaded down with distinctions by the pope, Louis XIV. of France, and by the princes of Germany and Italy, as the hero of Christendom. In the zenith of his glory, he lost his life by a cruel accident. While engaged in the chase, a wild boar rushed upon him, and wounded him mortally. He was found by his servants, lying on the ground, bathed in his own blood, and expired shortly afterward. All Hungary and Christian Europe lamented the loss of the distinguished soldier and poet.
His devout wish, to see the Hungarian nation freed from the oppressive rule of the Turks, did not approach its fulfilment until twenty years after his death. But even then it was not the royal court which accomplished the work of liberation, for, instead of making preparations in that direction, the government initiated the most cruel persecutions against the Protestants, compelling them to resort to armed resistance. The struggle between the Kuruczes, or the armed Hungarians, and the imperial troops was at its height, when Kara Mustapha Pasha, the ambitious grand-vizier of Sultan Mohammed IV., saw in this intestine war a favorable opportunity to conquer the remaining territory of Hungary, and even to menace in his own residence, Vienna, the emperor of the Romans. Leopold I., the emperor of Germany and king of Hungary, did all in his power to conciliate the Turks and to delay the war. But Kara Mustapha remained inexorable, and boldly ventured on an enterprise which was destined to be fatal to him, and which, after a long and sanguinary contest, finally led to the overthrow of the Turkish power in Europe and the liberation of Hungary.
In the spring of 1683 the sultan and his grand-vizier commenced their march at the head of a force numbering 250,000 men, carrying with them 300 cannon. In Hungary they were joined by the so-called Kurucz king, Count Emeric Tökölyi, and his adherents. This tremendous army was already under the walls of Vienna in July, but two months of a severe siege had already elapsed and the city could not be taken. The Christian forces, led by John Sobieski, King of Poland, and Charles, Duke of Lorraine, were meanwhile hastening to the relief of the city, and on the 12th of September they succeeded in completely routing the Turkish army, which lost 60,000 men, the remainder scattering in wild flight in every direction. This was the last great campaign undertaken by the Osmanlis against the Western world. They could never recuperate from the effects of the defeat then suffered, and the great calamity which befell the Turkish power rendered it, at length, possible for Hungary, the bulwark of Christianity, which had been the scene of continual wars during a century and a half, to regain her liberty.
Leopold I., who had seen his capital menaced by the Turks, now took energetic measures to continue the war, and very soon his forces recaptured Gran, the ancient seat of the primate of Hungary, which for a long time had owned the Turkish rule. The whole line of the Danube fell into the hands of the Christians, and in 1684 an attempt was made to capture Buda, the once famous capital of Hungary. The siege, however, failed on this occasion, in spite of the heroic efforts made by the Hungarians. But they were more fortunate in the case of another powerful Turkish stronghold, Neuhäusel (Érsekujvár), the recapture of which, a brilliant military feat, was made the occasion for feasting and merriment in many European cities. At length, in 1686, Buda, too, was restored to Hungary. Volunteers flocked into Hungary, from every part of Europe, when the news spread that Duke Charles of Lorraine, the commander-in-chief, was making preparations for the recapture of the ancient and famous seat of the Hungarian kings. A powerful army gathered around his banners, and in the middle of June the duke arrived under the walls of Buda, which was defended by Abdi Pasha, then seventy years old, and a garrison of 16,000 determined soldiers. The siege lasted seventy-seven days, during which time the Turks made two sallies, and the grand-vizier made three attempts to come to the relief of the garrison, but the enemy was each time driven back by the Christian forces. The strongly fortified city, which had been heroically defended, fell, at length, after five unsuccessful assaults, on the 2d of September, 1686, into the hands of Duke Charles. On the afternoon of that day, at four o’clock, began the sixth assault; 9,000 Christian heroes resolutely stormed with fixed bayonets (an arm at that time still new and here employed for the first time) the walls which had been reduced to ruins by the guns of the besiegers. After a sanguinary contest lasting about one hour, a gallant Hungarian, David Petneházy, succeeded in penetrating, first, with his 800 hayduks, into Buda, whose garrison and inhabitants were almost entirely put to the sword. Thus after a lapse of 145 years was Buda freed from the Turkish yoke, and the whole Christian world was jubilant over the glorious news.
Many bloody battles, however, occupying a considerable period of time, had to be fought before the Moslem oppressors were entirely swept away from Hungarian territory. Duke Charles marched to the southern parts of Hungary and destroyed the Turkish army near Mohács, there, where 161 years before the Hungarian army had been annihilated by the Moslems. Soon after, Transylvania, too, passed under the supremacy of the king of Hungary. All the principal fortresses and towns were successively occupied by the royal troops, and when, in 1691, a Turkish army numbering 100,000 men was sent again to Hungary by the Sublime Porte, they were completely routed near Szalánkemén. It was one of the most sanguinary battles of that century; the grand-vizier himself, the aga of the Janissaries, seventeen pashas, and 20,000 Turkish soldiers lost their lives during the engagement. During a few years succeeding this great battle, lesser engagements only were fought, but hostilities never ceased. In 1697, however, Duke Eugene of Savoy, the “noble knight” and illustrious general, assumed the commandership of the royal forces. In the battle near Zenta he utterly annihilated, after a contest of two hours, a Turkish army led by Sultan Mustapha II., inflicting frightful losses upon the enemy; 10,000 Turks met their death in the waters of the Theiss, 20,000 were killed, and among the dead were the grand-vizier, 4 pashas, and 13 begler beys. These successive disasters and the frightful loss of men, amounting to many hundreds of thousands in the course of the fifteen years of warfare, finally prevailed upon the sultan to accept the terms of peace proposed by Leopold I. The treaty of peace was signed at Carlowitz in 1699, and under its terms Transylvania and the greater part of the Hungarian territory was restored to the king of Hungary by the sultan, but a smaller portion, lying between Transylvania and the Theiss, the ancient county of Temes, was still permitted to remain in Turkish hands. The court of Vienna, instead of attempting to regain the remaining territory, elated by the recent military successes, again renewed its attacks upon the nationality of the Hungarians and their ancient liberties, which it had always looked upon with decided dislike, and the complete subversion of which it now attempted. The nobility, weary of the absolutism of the court, combined at last with the peasantry, who had suffered severely under the lawlessness and illegal exactions of the soldiery, to raise the standard of rebellion, under the lead of Francis Rákóczy II. The great national struggle for liberty was initiated by electing Rákóczy king of Hungary and Transylvania, and, very soon, the Kurucz troops roamed as far as Austria. Later on, however, the fortunes of war changed, and Rákóczy retired to Poland hoping to obtain aid from the Russian Czar Peter the Great. During his absence he entrusted one of his generals, Alexander Károlyi, with the command of his army, who, however, instead of continuing the struggle, made his peace with the king. The peace of Szatmár, in 1711, finally put an end to the period of constitutional struggles between the nation and the king.
Now, at last, came the time for the still enslaved Hungarian territory to be freed from Turkish rule. The new war began in 1716. The imperial troops were again commanded by Prince Eugene, who, once more defeating the Turks near Peterwardein wrested, at last, Temesvár and the county of Temes from the Turks, in whose possession they had remained one hundred and sixty-four years. At the peace, concluded in 1718, the Sultan relinquished also his claim to that part of the country, and thus the entire territory belonging at the present day to the crown of Hungary was at last freed from Turkish thraldom.
There was now an end to the Islam rule in Hungary, as there had been to the same rule in Spain. But whilst the Moors had immortalized their name by memorials of a grand civilization, leaving behind them flourishing and wealthy cities, numerous works of art, and marvels of architecture, the Turks left Hungary ruined and devastated. Throughout the whole territory of the reconquered country, only a few miserable villages could be met with here and there, population had sunk to the lowest ebb, endless swamps covered the fertile soil of the once flourishing Alföld (Lowland), and the genius of the Hungarian nation had now to engage in the arduous labor of subduing, by the arts of peace and civilization, the sterile waste they had regained at last by their bravery and endurance. The work, hard as it was, was done. For a century and a half the severe task of colonizing and civilizing has been going on bravely, until finally that tract of land, which they recovered from the Turks an uninhabited desert, has grown to be populous, flourishing, and one of the richest granaries of Europe.
The preceding chapter gave an account of the varying fortunes of that part of Hungary which, although geographically appertaining to the domains of the crown of St. Stephen, was virtually occupied and ruled by the Turks, and this account was brought down to the time when the country succeeded in shaking off the foreign yoke. The thrilling episodes of that sad era deserved a place by themselves. Yet in describing these tragic events but little was said of the kings of the ruling dynasty and the destinies of that portion of the country which remained subject to their rule, or so much only was touched upon in a general way as was absolutely necessary for a proper understanding of the occurrences related there. This hiatus will now be supplied, by resuming, in a succinct form, the historical narrative of the events following the disastrous battle of Mohács.
We have already seen that at no time was the Turkish power so strong as during the first half of the sixteenth century, and that Hungary was never so weak as after the death of Matthias Hunyadi. The innovations of Matthias had broken down the ancient military organization, which recruited its armies from the ranks of the nobility and the armed bands in their train, and established in its place a standing army. But on the death of the genius which had called it into existence, the standing army also disappeared. We have described elsewhere the sad fate of his valiant “black guard.” The disastrous reverses at Belgrade and Mohács were the consequence, and it became evident that Hungary, single-handed, could not withstand the power of the Osmanlis.
Under these circumstances the nation was compelled to look for assistance from abroad, and, in searching for a powerful alliance, it was quite natural that public attention should be drawn to the house of Hapsburg, the great authority and influence of which gave the fairest promise of effectual support to the prostrate country. This dynasty occupied at that time a front rank amongst the reigning families; its rule extended over Austria, Germany, the wealthy Netherlands, Spain, with her American colonies and dependencies, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia—an immense domain, of which it might have been then truly said that “the sun never set in it.” No dynasty, since the Cæsars, had controlled the destinies of so many nations and of so vast a territory. Ferdinand, a scion of that influential dynasty, who at this time was also elected king of Bohemia, owed his elevation to the throne of Hungary to hopes and arguments of this kind. He gave the people assurances of support on the part of his family; he vowed to respect the rights and liberties of the nation, and promised to live in the country and to confide the conduct of her affairs to Hungarians only.
Every thing turned out quite differently from what the royal electors had hoped and expected. The Turks were decidedly averse to any augmentation of the power of the Hapsburgs by the acquisition of the Hungarian throne. They desired to see Hungary under a separate king of her own, and to accomplish this the Turks shrank from no sacrifices, and succeeded in embroiling the unfortunate country in continual wars. Unhappy Hungary was placed between the hammer and the anvil. The Turks were unwilling to yield, and the Hapsburgs, quite as reluctant to give up the country, were, nevertheless, unable to defend it. The result of the cruel war, waged for over thirty years, was, in the end, that Hungary was torn into three parts. The heart of the land, the Alföld, was seized by the Turks; the hilly plateau of Transylvania was ruled by native princes, acknowledging the suzerainty of the sultan; and the remaining portion only, the northern and western part, owned the supremacy of the Hapsburgs in their capacity of kings of Hungary. Thus the new dynasty, so far from proving a protection to the country, rather led to its dismemberment.
The condition of Transylvania was, comparatively speaking, more favorable than that of either of the two other sections of the country. She had to pay her tribute to the Turks, but beyond that she experienced no interference on the part of her paramount lord. She was allowed to elect her own rulers, to convene her national assemblies, to keep up an army of her own, and to live as before under the ancient laws of Hungary. The Alföld, in the hands of the Turks, was governed in Turkish fashion. The Turks never settled down in the country they conquered; they only garrisoned it, as it were. The government and the spahis were the new landlords, and their chief care was, not to watch over the welfare of the people, but to fleece them and to extort from them heavy taxes and all sorts of vexatious imposts. The effects of such an administration became soon visible. The ancient culture perished, the population gradually decreased, and the once fertile soil relapsed into barrenness.
Nor were the complaints fewer and less bitter in the western and northern parts, ruled by the Hapsburg kings of Hungary. The hope of obtaining, through these kings, aid from the West gradually vanished. The nation, besides, was quick to perceive that Hungary was looked upon by the Hapsburgs as an unimportant province, rather than an independent country. The king did not reside in Hungary, but in Vienna, which was the permanent seat of his government, and all the remonstrances coming from the various diets against this state of things led only to bare promises. There were numerous grievances besides. After the first vacancy in the dignity of a palatine no other palatine had been appointed, German advisers alone were listened to in affairs concerning Hungary, the country was flooded with German officials and soldiers, and distinguished Hungarian magnates were thrown into prison without due form of law. These evils were already felt under Ferdinand, the first Hapsburg king, but they still increased under his successor, King Maximilian (1564-1576). The latter proceeded quite openly in his anti-national policy. He promised Germany for himself and his successors, in return for her aid, to use every endeavor to bring about the annexation of Hungary to that country. The Diet of 1567, in enumerating the many abuses of the government, bitterly inveighed against the foreign soldiery, charging them with arbitrarily raising tolls, taking the thirtieth part, imposing unlawful taxes on the communes, wasting the substance of the peasantry and robbing them of their last penny, and, finally, selling their children into slavery to the Turks. The Diet declared that, “There is no salvation, no hope for us; we have no other alternative but to leave our native land and emigrate to foreign parts.”
These complaints remained unheeded by Maximilian, nor was his son and successor, Rudolph (1576-1608), more disposed to remedy the ills complained of. The office of the palatine still remained vacant; the affairs of Hungary were administered, without consulting the Hungarians, by a court cabinet and a military council. Rudolph’s reply to the remonstrances of the Estates of the realm, that “these things have been in practice long since,” was certainly a cynical apology for the continuance of abuses. Thus was the continual infringement of the law claimed to have become a law in itself, and independent Hungary became virtually subject to the authority of foreigners. The temper of the diets which met during the first years of Rudolph’s reign clearly indicated the state of irritation produced by the king’s presumptuous treatment of the liberties of the nation; the exasperated Estates spoke of refusing to vote subsidies, and some of them, although in the minority, threatened even to join either Poland or Turkey. Rudolph, wearied with these boisterous scenes, turned his back upon the country, and the nation did not see her king for twenty-five years.
The country was compelled patiently to suffer the encroachments on her ancient rights, for to no quarter could she look for help. Alone she was too weak to right herself, and the only alliances that offered themselves were either the German or Turkish. A sad alternative, indeed, for the Turks on the one hand never ceased to harass and devastate the country, threatening even to absorb the territory yet free, and the Germans on the other utterly ignored the constitution and liberties of Hungary, although the kings on their election and coronation always swore to respect and to defend both. The Turks were extirpating the nation, whilst the Germans were trying to rob her of her Hungarian nationality. The Germans, being considered the lesser evil, carried the day, and hopes were besides entertained that, after all, Germany would finally rid the country of the Turks. These hopes were further encouraged after the death of Solyman (1566), when it became apparent that the Turkish power was declining from day to day. But the country was doomed to disappointment, for the Viennese government, instead of arraying itself against Turkey, was on the eve of trying the patience of her people again with measures and acts hostile to their nationality.
The great obstacle to the Germanizing schemes had always been the Hungarian Diet and the stiffnecked independence of the nobles composing it. It was impossible for the government to do away with the diet as it had done away with the dignity of palatine and the other exalted Hungarian offices, as the grant of taxes and soldiers required in an emergency depended upon the good will of the diet. If there was no diet in session, no supplies of money and soldiers could be voted. The government therefore determined to resort to measures which would bend the majority of the diet to its will. The royal free cities had at that time the privilege of sending members to the diet of Hungary to represent them. But the influence at the diet of these municipalities, of whom there were but few, and most of these with German inhabitants, was very slight. A great number of private boroughs were made by the government royal free cities, and an attempt was made to use the new members sent by these constituencies as a counterpoise to the hostile nobles in the diet. But the nobility loudly protested against this innovation. Some of those who protested were charged with treason, but, unable to obtain their conviction before a Hungarian tribunal, the government had them brought to Vienna before a military council, which pronounced them guilty of the charge against them. One of the victims of these illegal proceedings, a certain Illesházy, a wealthy magnate, saved his life by flight only. His immense estates were confiscated, and an inquiry into his case fully proved that the cruel sentence passed upon him was not meant so much to punish his supposed crime, as it was intended to be a means of getting possession of his vast property. But the persecutions of the government did not stop there; the turn of the Protestants soon came. Thus was one of the captains ordered to take away by violence from the Protestants the cathedral at Kassa, and to hand it over to the Catholics. The city authorities of Kassa recaptured the church, but it was taken from them again by force, and the city was mulcted by the government in a heavy fine of money. This outrage might well excite indignation at a time when three fourths of the population of Hungary were Protestants. It became evident that the German influence was bent upon attacking the people in their liberties as well as their religion, and whilst the government was yet inclined to show some indulgence to the Catholics, it was determined to show no kind of mercy to the Protestants of the country.
The excitement and indignation of the people, throughout the whole land, at these lawless proceedings, were reflected in the temper of the Diet which met in 1604. They protested against the illegal persecutions, stood up for the freedom of worship, and warned the government not to stir up dissensions amongst the followers of the antagonistic churches. A fresh injury, however, was added to those complained of, by Rudolph’s arbitrarily supplementing the 21st article enacted by the Diet with a 22d article, in which the Diet was enjoined from discussing religious topics; intimations were thrown out at the same time that heresy was to be persecuted.
This 22d article was the spark which set ablaze all the inflammable material that had accumulated in the country since the time that the Hapsburgs had occupied the throne of Hungary. The North of Hungary, allied with Transylvania, rose in arms, and the entire Upper Country was soon gathering in the camp of Stephen Bocskay, the prince of Transylvania. The Turks favored the insurrection and proclaimed Bocskay king of Hungary, bestowing upon him, at the same time, a crown of gold. The insurgents aimed at the entire overthrow of the Hapsburgs, but the politic Bocskay opposed this, being disinclined to deliver up the whole of Hungary to the tender mercies of the Osmanlis. Bocskay saw in the Germans a counterpoise to the overweaning power of the Turks and counselled a policy of conciliation. The result of his counsels was the peace of Vienna, concluded in 1606, in which the abuses complained of were remedied, and constitutional government and freedom of worship were guaranteed for all time to come.
Remarkable as were the results of Bocskay’s rising, they were quite eclipsed by the effects of the astute policy inaugurated by him as the ruler of Transylvania, a policy which he bequeathed to his princely successors, enjoining upon them in his last will always to adhere to it. It consisted in maintaining, at all hazards, the independence of Transylvania, in order to enable her, according to the necessities of the moment, either to combine with the Turks in defence of the Hungarian nationality against the encroachments of Germanism, or joining the Germans to keep, with their aid, the Turks out of the remaining Hungarian territory. This course, marked by rare political acumen and inspired by the purest patriotism, was effectively aided by the mutual jealousies of the Turks and Germans, and enabled the Transylvanian princes ultimately to achieve their noble aim of saving the liberties of Hungary, their common country.
The terms of the peace of Vienna were soon forgotten by the Viennese government, and its proselyting Catholicism brought it again into collision with the Hungarian Protestants. The successor of Rudolph, Matthias (1608-1619), succeeded in restraining to some extent the outbreaks of hatred by which the various sectaries were animated, but hardly had the succession to the throne of Bohemia been secured to his cousin Ferdinand (II.), who had been brought up by the Jesuits, and was their zealous pupil, than the Czech Protestants took up arms, severed their connection with the Hapsburgs, and inaugurated the religious war which raged in Germany for thirty years, and which stands in history unexampled for its horrors (1618).
This movement could not leave Hungary indifferent. In Hungary, too, Romanizing was being strenuously carried on. The Jesuits gained a foothold in the country, and bringing with them their schools, books, and well-organized machinery they soon succeeded, under the patronage of the government of Vienna, in supplanting the Protestants. Peter Pázmány, who, from a simple Jesuit, had risen to the primacy of Hungary, was the life and soul of the proselyting movement. He brought to the work of Romanizing the country an irresistible eloquence, invincible arguments in his writings, and unsurpassed religious zeal. All the great powers of his mastermind, and the resources of his enormous wealth were employed by him to add to the Catholic fold. By his own personal influence alone, thirty of the most conspicuous Hungarian families returned to the Catholic faith of their ancestors, families among whom some owned domains larger than a dozen of the smaller principalities of Germany. Protestantism gradually lost ground, its followers became a minority in the Diet, and the Catholics became daily more arrogant. Under these circumstances the Protestants of Hungary (where in 1618 Ferdinand was elected king, to succeed on the death of Matthias) could not look on with unconcern when their Czech brethren rose in arms nor could they permit their defeat by the Catholic court, for such an event was sure to hasten the moment when they, in their turn, would have to resist the violent measures of coercion practiced now against the Czechs.
They therefore joined the Czechs and took up arms for the defence of their liberties, for freedom of worship was with the nation closely interwoven with the cause of constitutional liberty. Gabriel Bethlen, who had become prince of Transylvania in 1613, stood at the head of the movement. On his first appearance on the scene of action, Bethlen is thus spoken of by a Frenchman in a report to his own government: “Bethlen is a distinguished soldier who has taken part, in person, in forty-three engagements; he is a man of wise judgment and great eloquence * * * in short, the great Henry IV. excepted, there is no king like him in the world.” The high expectations entertained of his abilities were not disappointed. The whole Upper Country as far as Presburg passed into his hands during the first year of the rebellion, and in 1620 he obtained possession of the greatest part of the territory beyond the Danube. But while he was carrying on hostilities with such signal success, the Czechs were completely routed by Tilly near Prague, and this defeat cost Bohemia her independence. Bethlen, being left without allies, hastened to make terms with the Viennese government, and the result was the Treaty of Nikolsburg, concluded in the beginning of 1622, based upon the peace of Vienna.