Austro-Turk Wars (1529–1739)

The siege of united Christian forces in Buda, 1686.

No fewer than eight wars fought between the Austrian and Ottoman Turkish Empires, 1529–1739. The Turks sought to expand into Europe proper and the Austrians stood in the way, while harboring expansionist dreams of their own.

The war of 1529–1533 was a direct result of the Ottoman defeat of Hungary in the Hungarian-Turk War of 1521– 1526. The Hungarian king John Zapolya, now a subject of the Turk sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, requested help against the Austrians. The sultan took more than four months to move his huge army from Constantinople to Vienna, allowing the Archduke Ferdinand time to build his defenses. The unsuccessful siege lasted from 27 September to 14 October 1529. The sultan tried again in 1532 but a month-long siege at the Austrian fortress of Guns failed. A truce was called because of the Turk-Persian Wars of 1526– 1555 but this agreement did not stop the Turkish army from pillaging and plundering.

The sultan Süleyman, reacting to the attack by 24,000 Austrian and Bohemian troops on the Turk fort at Essek in 1537, renewed the war of 1537–1547. In 1543, issues of succession for the Hungarian throne led to a well-planned Turkish expedition that left Belgrade and captured the large forts of Stuhlweissenberg and Grau, then occupied Croatia as well as Buda and Pest, the capitals of Hungary. In 1545 Ferdinand offered a truce and an annual tribute of 30,000 ducats for Austrian Hungary. Again, the Turk-Persian Wars of 1526– 1555 played a role in this 1547 truce being signed at Adrianople.

The war of 1551–1553 involved Austrian and Turk disputes over Transylvania. Ferdinand besieged its capital, Lippa, in 1551 while an Ottoman army captured three fortresses in the nearby Temsvar region, soon made into a new Turkish province. However, the Turks failed to take the fortress at Erlau (Eger), and the army was recalled for the Turk-Persian war, yet again! An armistice restarted the 1547 truce of Adrianople.

The war of 1566 saw Süleyman repulsed at Malta in 1565 by the Knights Hospitallers. The sultan, near the end of his life, sought one vindicating victory over the Austrians and their new emperor, Maximillian II.A Turkish army of several hundred thousand crushed the Croatian fortress town of Szigetvar but the sultan died of natural causes during the battle. And some 3,000 Turks were blown up when timed powder bombs exploded as they breached the last defenses. The Turkish army returned with the body of Süleyman to Constantinople, effectively ending the war.

The “Long War” of 1591–1606 began with the defeat of the Bosnian Ottomans by Croatians at Sissek in 1593. The Porte (Ottoman government) suffered its worst losses against Vienna in the longest war between the two. The Porte lost much of Hungary, Romania, Moldavia, Walachia, and Transylvania both on the field and through defection to Vienna. Attacks by Dnieper Cossacks and losses of Esztergom and Giurgiu forced the sultan Muhammed III to take the field with the Prophet’s standard and rally his retreating infantry for an unlikely victory at Mezokersztes. Here 30,000 Germans and Hungarians died. Fortress and siege warfare became the norm, with the Austrians taking Raab but not Buda in 1598 and the Turks failing to take Varazdin and Pest in 1599 and 1603. The Turks regained lost territory in alliance with the Transylvanian prince Stephen Bocksay, and the fluctuating Long War ended in the Treaty of Zsitva- Torok of 1606, with the Austrians as clear winners over the Porte, now busy with yet another Turk-Persian war, 1603– 1612.

The war of 1663–1664 stemmed from the success of the Turks in the Transylvanian-Turk War of 1657–1662. The Turks, led by Grand Vizier Fazil Pasha, were now seen as liberators by Wallachian and Romanian Christians against the Habsburg Austrian reformation and the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. Buda was captured in 1663, as was Neuhasel, a great victory for the Turks. After winter in Belgrade, the Turkish-led forces captured forts on the road to Vienna, forcing the Austrian Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I to start peace talks. Unfortunately for the Turks, during the final battle at the Raab River on 1 August 1664, flooding allowed only half of their army to cross the river, and that half was defeated by the Austrian cavalry under Montecuccoli. The Treaty of Vasvar, a 20-year truce, was signed afterwards.

The war of 1683–1699 began with renewed hopes by the Turks that the tide had turned against the Austrians. Some 70,000 Austrian and Polish troops under King Jan III Sobieski repulsed 138,000 Turks led by Kara Mustapha Pasha. This last invasion of Austria and siege of Vienna was a disaster for the Turks. Pope Innocent XI started a crusading Holy League in 1686, composed of the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Poland, and Moscow, to combat the Turks. Buda was taken from the Turks in 1686, as was Transylvania in 1687. The sultan Süleyman II sent a Turk army that captured Serbia and Belgrade in 1690. Turk forces invaded Transylvania in 1691, but were decisively defeated. Austria became involved with France in the War of the Grand Alliance, and a fixed border between the Turks and Austrians remained stable for five years. In 1697, a large Ottoman Turk army left Belgrade to invade Hungary and was met by the imperial army under Prince Eugene of Savoy. The Turks suffered a crushing defeat on 11 September 1697, at the Battle of Zenta. The war ended with the Treaty of Karlowits in 1699, as the Turks were now occupied with the Russo-Turk War of 1695–1700 and the Venetian-Turkish War of 1685–1699.

The war of 1716–1718 began with 60,000 troops under Eugene Savoy decisively defeating the Turks at the Battle of Peterwardein on the Danube River, on 5 August 1716. The Turks lost 6,000 men, 100 artillery pieces, and their grand vizier. Eugene then besieged Belgrade, the strongest city of the Turks in the Balkans. A large Turkish relief force was initially victorious, but was finally routed by Eugene’s cavalry charge, forcing the surrender of Belgrade. The Austrian forces then marched on Constantinople, and with most of the Balkans lost, the Sublime Porte sued for peace in 1718.

References and further reading: Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Rothenburg, Gunther. The Austrian Military Border in Croatia, 1522–1747. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1960.

Westphalia

Westphalia was one of a number of kingdoms created by Napoleon from the residue of the Holy Roman Empire to support the hegemony of France in Europe. These kingdoms were of two categories: satellite kingdoms ruled by Napoleon and his family, and independent kingdoms allied with the French Empire. Westphalia was in the first category. A good example of a kingdom in the second category was Bavaria.

Westphalia has traditionally been a geographic term referring to the particular region of Germany east of the Rhine but west of the river Elbe, encompassing Brunswick, Hesse, and parts of Hanover. Napoleon created the Kingdom of Westphalia as a political entity as a result of the Peace of Tilsit (July 1807), mostly from the former domains of the Duke of Brunswick and the Elector of Hesse- Cassel. These individuals had supported Prussia in its losing effort against Napoleon during the War of the Fourth Coalition, and to some degree the kingdom’s creation also served as punishment. The Emperor named his youngest brother Jérôme (who was only twenty-three at the time) as king, and Cassel was designated as the capital. To further legitimize his brother, Napoleon had Jérôme marry a princess from the royal family of Württemberg.

Napoleon’s intention was to create a kingdom ruled by the Bonaparte family that could also serve to dominate a larger political entity, also Napoleon’s creation, known as the Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbund). Alongside Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, and other German principalities, Westphalia would serve as a model of French ideas in law and governance. It would also serve as a military and political counterweight in the western part of Germany.

According to specific instructions provided by Napoleon, the country was structured as a constitutional monarchy. The Napoleonic Code served as its law, with an independent judiciary (appointed by the king, however). Jérôme Bonaparte was to rule as king through a council of state overseen by a parliament. Administratively the new country was organized, as in France, into departments (eight in all). All the feudal vestiges and taxes of the Holy Roman Empire were effectively eliminated. Had there not been continued war and strife in Europe, the chances would have been good for a long and stable government on a liberal model. However, Westphalia was almost immediately subjected to Napoleon’s “blood tax” by being required to raise an army of 25,000 men to add to the overall contributions of the Confederation of the Rhine to Napoleon’s military adventures.

The Westphalian Army was constructed almost exactly on the French model, relying, like its French counterpart, on conscription. The army was composed of both line and guard units. The Royal Guard closely resembled Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, although it was smaller in number, and it was meant to provide a solid core of loyal troops. The Westphalian Guard included cavalry, infantry, and artillery as well as specialists and some of the finest light troops at that time in Europe, due to the abundance of Jäger (literally, “hunters”; riflemen) who had served the Holy Roman princes in the Hessian, Hanoverian, and Brunswick forest preserves. The Guard also included a regiment styled the Hussars Jérôme Napoléon, paid for by Jérôme’s father-in-law, the king of Württemberg. The line units included the same basic three branches. The cavalry was well mounted and included both heavy and light regiments. The artillery was organized according to the Gribeauval system, with standardized and excellent guns. Napoleon’s hope was that the natural martial ability of the Hessians and Brunswickers who made up the majority of the population would permeate the army (Westphalia’s population was almost 2 million).

Almost immediately, though, Jérôme had problems filling out the regiments of his army. Napoleon’s involvement in Spain soon resulted in Westphalia’s “fair share” being sent south—including the line chevauléger (light horse) regiment, which remained for almost the entire war. During the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809, Jérôme and his army were charged with defending parts of the Confederation of the Rhine against incursions by the Austrians and British and were forced to deal with attempts to cause a popular uprising in Westphalia itself. It is a measure of some success of French proxy rule that only a few Westphalian officers and troops supported the revolts of 1809 led by the former Duke of Brunswick (most of whose troops were Bohemian), the turncoat General Wilhelm von Dornberg (a colonel in the Guard), and the hot-headed Prussian major Ferdinand von Schill. Schill was killed in fighting in Stralsund, and both Dornberg and Brunswick were driven from the Continent. Jérôme’s kingdom had survived its first major crisis, but not without a cost.

The real problem for Westphalia turned out to be not so much the men but the finances to pay for them. Additionally Jérôme had to pay for the upkeep of fortresses and their provisioning for French troops. Until the dissolution of the kingdom in late 1813, Jérôme and his subjects constantly struggled to meet his older brother’s force requirements and always came up short in manpower and money. Nevertheless, Westphalia managed to produce a prodigious number of troops for the campaigns in Spain, Russia, and Germany—eventually over 100,000 Westphalians served in Napoleon’s armies between 1808 and 1813. The real disaster occurred, as for most of the German kingdoms and for Napoleon himself, in Russia in 1812; out of over 22,000 Westphalian troops with the Grande Armée (nearly all in Jérôme’s VIII Corps), only 1,500 returned. Yet in spite of all this, the kingdom remained relatively loyal until late into 1813. The most notable instance of disloyalty was the defection of the two line hussar regiments at the start of the fall 1813 campaign. Nevertheless, the Guard Hussars followed Jérôme out of Germany to fight on in 1814 as the 13th (French) Hussars.

As for Jérôme, his skill at military command was probably limited to no higher than corps command. As a wing commander he did poorly, and he abandoned the army early during the Russian campaign. As a ruler he did better; both traditional and more recent scholarship give him high marks for just the sort of enlightened liberal governance that Napoleon had originally intended. There is no other way to explain the remarkable performance of this satellite kingdom than to give Jérôme his fair credit as a ruler.

References and further reading Chandler, David G. 1995. The Campaigns of Napoleon. London:Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Connelly, Owen. 1965. Napoleon’s Satellite Kingdoms. New York: Free Press. Funcken, Fred, and Liliane Funcken. 1973. Arms and Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars, Part II. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Gill, John H. 1992.With Eagles to Glory: Napoleon and His German Allies in the 1809 Campaign. London: Greenhill. Lamar, Glenn J. 2000. Jerome Bonaparte: The War Years, 1800–1815.Westport, CT: Greenwood. Partridge, Richard, and Michael Oliver. 2002. Napoleonic Army Handbook: The French Army and Her Allies. Vol. 2. London: Constable and Robinson. Pivka, Otto von. 1979. Armies of the Napoleonic Era. New York: Taplinger. ———.1992. Napoleon’s German Allies. Vol. 1,Westfalia and Kleve-Berg. London: Osprey.

Holy Roman Empire - the Fourteenth Century

The various states that made up the Holy Roman Empire entered the fourteenth century in chaos. There had been little continuity in Imperial government, and the electoral process of choosing an emperor produced confusion and turmoil. Since the end of the reign of Frederick II in 1250, there was rarely a smooth transfer of power from one ruler to the next. Nor did military success guarantee hereditary succession, as it had earlier in the Middle Ages. Ego and jealousy determined far more than did competence. So, although Rudolf of Habsburg, in his wars in Bohemia, had done much to add to the Empire and to increase the security of its borders—which earlier would have ensured patrilineal succession—when he died in 1291, the electors did not choose his son, Rudolf, but crowned Adolf of Nassau in his stead. Civil war ensued until 1298 when Albert I of Habsburg, one of Rudolf’s sons, defeated and killed Adolf at the battle of Göllheim. But as many of the Imperial electors and nobles continued to reject his rule, Albert’s reign was anything but peaceful, and at his death in 1308 the electors passed over his son, also named Albert, to choose Henry of Luxembourg, who reigned until 1313. Thus, the two most important families for the later history of the Holy Roman Empire gained power and although it transferred back and forth between them, they did not lose it until 1918.

But it was an insecure beginning. Once again, in 1313, there was no smooth election. John of Bohemia, Henry of Luxembourg’s son, was challenged by Frederick of Habsburg and Louis of Bavaria. As had been done so many times before in these situations, armies were mustered and a civil war was fought. Louis, who had too little power to be elected emperor in his own right, quickly supported John of Bohemia’s claim, and when the two sides finally met in battle, at Mühldorf in 1322, it was they who won, capturing Frederick in the encounter. A shaky agreement for co-emperorship between the three claimants was bought with the victory, but after Louis declared himself sole emperor in 1328, being crowned as such in Rome, and the death of Frederick in 1330, the Holy Roman Empire was once more embroiled in civil war. This was given even more significance when Pope John XXII excommunicated Louis for his presumptive actions, and John of Bohemia responded by declaring that this war had become a crusade.

By 1346 nothing had been decided by military means, so when John died, the German princes, refusing to recognize the excommunicated Louis, chose John’s son, Charles of Bohemia, a man who had Pope Clement VI’s blessing and who they hoped would be able to restore peace to the Empire. After Louis died the following year there was no further opposition to Emperor Charles IV’s rule and, until 1378, there was peace for the most part in the Holy Roman Empire. Charles even had the confidence to regulate the process of electing new rulers by proclaiming the Golden Bull in 1356. From then on there would be a college of no more than seven electors who would elect a new emperor, hopefully instilling peace to a process that had seen little since its initiation.

This might have worked, too, if Charles’s successors had been anything like him. His son, Wenceslas II of Bohemia, spent his reign (1378–1400) for the most part in a drunken and incompetent stupor. Rupert III of the Palatinate (also known as Rupert of Wittelsbach) deposed Wenceslas in 1400, and, when he died in 1410, another of Charles’ sons, Sigismund of Luxembourg, king of Hungary, was elected, For the rest of the fifteenth century—in 1438 Sigismund was succeeded for a year by his son-in-law, Albert of Austria, and then by Frederick III of Habsburg until 1493—Germany remained free from civil war, but had little peace on its borders, as her neighbors preyed on what they perceived as weak government and disunity among the various princes to gain land and sovereignty.