A PAGE FROM HISTORY.
The year 1683 was full of significance for Austria. It was a period
of victory and defeat, of triumph and humiliation. Austria's wounds
were many and dangerous, but her cure was rapid. In the spring of
this momentous year she was threatened simultaneously from the East
and the West, and she had every reason to fear that she would be
similarly assailed from her northern and southern frontiers.
Her troubles originated, as they had often done before, with
Hungary--that land of haughty Magyars and enthusiastic patriots.
Leopold I. ascended the throne in 1658, and from that time forward
every year of his reign had been marked by intestine wars.
Sometimes, by force of numbers, the rebellious Hungarians were, for
a time, held in subjection; but the fire of patriotism, though
smothered, was never extinguished in their hearts. Deep buried under
the ashes of many a deluded hope, it lived on, until some friendly
breath of encouragement fanned it to activity, and its flames leaped
upward, and defied the emperor anew.
Hungary would not submit to be considered as a provincial dependency
on Austria. She claimed the constitutional rights guaranteed to her
from time immemorial, and recorded in the golden bull of King
Andreas. In 1654 the Emperor Ferdinand had promised, both for
himself and his successors, that this constitution should be held
inviolate; that all foreign troops should be withdrawn from Hungary,
while no Hungarians should be called upon to fight elsewhere than on
their native soil; that the crown lands were to be inalienable; all
offices bestowed upon native-born Hungarians; Protestants secured in
the exercise of their religion; and no war undertaken, nor treaty
concluded, with any foreign power, without the consent of the
Hungarian Diet.
The Emperor Leopold had promised to ratify the constitution. But, in
1664, Austria declared war against Turkey, and called for money and
troops from Hungary. The Magyars, not having been consulted as to
the expediency of the war, refused to have any thing to do with it.
With the help of France, peace was made with the Porte; and, as soon
as his foreign difficulties were settled, Leopold bethought himself
of his turbulent Hungarians at home. Austrian troops were marched
into Hungary, and the Protestant Magyars, in the enjoyment of high
offices, were superseded by Catholics.
The indignation of the Hungarians knew no bounds. They took up arms,
and swore never to lay them down until they had freed their native
land. The revolution broke out in 1670; and such was the fanaticism
of the patriots, that their banners bore the cross as their emblem,
and every soldier wore a cross upon his shoulder. By this sign they
swore eternal enmity to the detested Austrian lancers; and, however
they might be outnumbered, they hoped in God, and rushed by
thousands to fill up the ranks whence thousands had fallen.
Undaunted by reverses, undismayed by danger, new armies of warriors
seemed to spring from the blood of the slain. Nor were the brave
Hungarians without sympathy in their struggle for freedom; they had
allies both powerful and efficient.
Two of their ablest generals. Zriny and Frangipany, had fallen into
the hands of the Austrians, and had perished ignominiously on the
scaffold; and another hero, Count Tokoly, had fallen at the siege of
Arva. But his son survived, a boy who had been rescued from the
enemy and conveyed to Transylvania. There he was taught to hate the
oppressors of his country; and no sooner was he of an age to serve,
than he entered the army. He brought with him succor from Prince
Apafy, of Transylvania, and the promise of aid from the Porte. Fired
by the enthusiasm of young Emerich Tokoly, the Hungarians renewed
the contest with Leopold, and fortune so favored their youthful
leader, that he conquered Upper Hungary, marched to Presburg, drove
out the Austrians, and called an imperial Diet to consult as to the
propriety of deposing the Emperor Leopold from the throne of
Hungary.
But Emerich did not tarry at Presburg to attend the Diet. He marched
on to Buda to confer with Kara Mustapha, the grand-vizier of
Mohammed IV., on the affairs of Hungary. The victories of the young
hero had more effect upon Mustapha than any amount of pleading could
have done; he was therefore prepared to receive him favorably.
Mustapha was ambitious, covetous, and vindictive; he had latterly
felt some uneasiness as to the security of his own influence with
the Sultan, and he burned to reinstate himself by gaining a victory
or two over the Austrians. Moreover, he thought of the booty which
would follow each victory; and, in the hope of retrieving his defeat
at St. Gotthard's, he concluded a treaty with Count Emerich, which
was specially directed against Austria. He promised, in the Sultan's
name, arms, money, and men; and, as an earnest of the friendship of
his new ally, Emerich was declared King of Hungary.
Under the ruined walls of the fortress of Fulek, which Emerich had
taken from the enemy, Mustapha handed him the diploma of royalty
which had been drawn up in Constantinople; at the same time
bestowing upon him the rank of a Turkish general, and presenting him
with a standard and a horsetail.
The newly-appointed king pledged himself, in return, to consider the
Sultan as his lord-paramount, and to pay him a yearly tribute of
forty thousand florins. He was so elated with his title, and so
desirous of humiliating Austria, that, to free himself from the
emperor, he consented to become a vassal of the Porte. He signed the
treaty, whereupon Kara Mustapha rejected the proposals of alliance
which Leopold was making, and began to dream of extending the
dominion of the Crescent, and of founding a Moslem empire in the
West, whose capital should be Vienna. He dismissed the Austrian
ambassadors with cold indifference, and promised the Sultan that the
green banner of the Prophet should carry terror and devastation into
the very heart of Austria. This was the danger which threatened the
emperor from the East. He had equally powerful enemies in the West.
Hungary had sent ambassadors to the court of Louis XIV. These
ambassadors had been received in Paris as the accredited envoys of
an independent and recognized kingdom; and King Louis, a son of the
Catholic Church, had carried his hatred to Austria so far, that he
entered into a secret alliance with the unbelieving Porte, and
promised assistance to the Protestant rebels of Hungary. This
assistance he sent at once in the form of money and arms. French
officers were dispatched to Hungary, to join the insurgents and
discipline their soldiers. And, while Louis was secretly upholding
Turkey and Hungary, he was calling councils at home to establish
claims to a portion of the imperial dominions of Austria.
These juridical councils were established at Metz and Brisach, and
they had instructions from Louis to reannex to his crown all the
domains which had ever been held in fief by any of his predecessors,
however remote. They began by summoning the lords of the Trois-
Eveches to acknowledge their vassalage to France; and they went on
to cite before their tribunal the Elector Palatine, the King of
Spain, and the King of Sweden; all and each of whom were called upon
to do homage to the king, or have their possessions sequestrated.
All Europe was aghast at these monstrous pretensions, but nobody
ventured to put them down, for Louis had a standing army of one
hundred and forty thousand men, while the German empire, still
suffering from its losses in the Thirty Years' War, could scarcely
put into the field one-third of this number.
So that, without the drawing of a sword, Louis was suffered to
possess himself of the important city of Strasburg, and subsequently
of all Alsatia. Finally he claimed the cloister of Wasserburg and
the province of Germersheim, and pushed his greed and arrogance to
such a height, that Germany at last awakened from her lethargy, and
found resolution enough to protest against the aggressions of this
royal robber. Louis, in return, proposed to call a universal council
at Frankfort, and have his claims investigated. This was agreed to,
and each sovereign sent his plenipotentiaries. Meanwhile the King of
France kept possession of all the lands in dispute, and stationed
his troops at Strasburg, and at every other town in Alsatia.
Here was danger enough for the Emperor Leopold, from the west;
while, north and south, his horizon darkened also. The ambitious
Victor Amadeus, seeing that Austria was encompassed by enemies, now
bethought himself of annexing Lombardy to his dominions, while there
was every reason to fear that the bold and enterprising Peter the
Great would extend his frontiers to the Baltic Sea, and, with quite
as much right as Louis ever had to Strasburg, declare Dantzic to be
a part of his Russian territories.