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# European Interests and the Risk of Isolation

From a European perspective, the offensive launched by Transylvania and the exiles in fall 1678 came too late. By the time Thököly occupied the mining district in Lower Hungary, France had concluded a peace treaty with Holland and Sweden, and was {2-351.} negotiating an armistice with the Habsburgs. The imperial high command rallied its forces on the western battlefront and drove back Thököly to eastern Hungary. Coincidentally, Louis XIV thought it better to suspend the diversionary operations in eastern Europe against the Habsburgs, and ordered the Marquis de Béthune to withdraw to Poland the French and Polish troops previously committed to the Transylvanian venture.

Apafi did achieve his major objective: France ensured that Transylvania had a place in the accord concluded on 4 February 1679 at Nijmegen. The peace treaty's thirty-first clause referred to the principality and the exiles in only general terms, but even this was a significant gain for Transylvania. Thanks to the alliance with France, the principality had managed to break out of a stalemated situation in which it was limited to choosing between the Habsburgs and the Turks. Europe's great powers once again took Transylvania into consideration and gave the principality a modest place at the negotiation tables. That modest but palpable achievement was confirmed when Louis XIV assured Apafi, in a letter dated 8 June 1679, that he had included the prince among the allies listed in clause 33 of the peace treaty. Further acknowledgment came from Poland's king, Jan Sobieski, who dispatched an ambassador to negotiate with Apafi.

Apafi persisted in seeking concessions that would preserve Transylvanian statehood and restore the Hungarian kingdom's independence, and, as before, he favoured diplomacy over war. He dispatched to Vienna an ambassador, László Vajda, with an offer to mediate between the Habsburg court and the exiles. He also sent a full-fledged ambassador to Paris, in the person of Dávid Absolon, who was instructed to obtain more effective support from France and assess the evolution of great power policies. Transylvania's foreign policy was the complex outcome of constraining circumstances, but there lay, at its core, a conviction that the Habsburg empire had gained strength, that the Hungarian kingdom itself was {2-352.} weak, and that the European powers eventually would unite against the Turks. However, in the course of 1679-80, Apafi realized that the strategy of relying on diplomatic means was becoming less and less productive. The cause lay in one of Transylvania's sons, Imre Thököly. The imperial court negotiated directly with Thököly; he enjoyed the support of the Porte; and France began to focus its east European strategy not on Transylvania but on Thököly.

The young leader of the exiles was not only a talented soldier but also a politician whose orientation diverged fundamentally from the traditional Transylvanian line. Thököly was bolder, braver, and more agile than Apafi and his councillors. He did not have to fret about preserving the country's tenuous peace and tranquillity; he was free of the responsibility, which had weighed down Bethlen and Rákóczi, to safeguard Transylvania's statehood and other assets. Thus he had little to lose, and much to win. Ambition burned in Thököly. At 12, he had played the king of Hungary in a dramatic production at Eperjes College. He started from an advantageous position, with assets provided by others: the French alliance, and an exile army that had been sheltered through difficult times at a considerable cost to Transylvania. Even the programme of the movement, to fight for 'spiritual and physical freedom', had been drafted by older exile politicians and Transylvanian statesmen. And it was Apafi who handed to Thököly the banner emblazoned Pro Deo et pro Patria.

Given such assets, even a lesser man might have risen to success and fame, and Thököly was a gifted organizer and military leader. His troops were tried and true. He drew the support of hopeful Hungarians — nobles and frontier guards, villeins and Protestant burghers — who were encouraged by his military successes to believe in the possibility of change. All social strata were affected by the Habsburg government's measures, which included taxes disproportionate to the country's resources, expropriation, commercial monopolies, and religious discrimination. Under the rule of Emperor {2-353.} Leopold, such attributes of independent statehood as use of the mother tongue, freedom of religion, and cultural autonomy had come under threat; the monarch failed to guarantee the country's security and the tranquillity necessary for economic development.

Both Habsburgs and Turks recognized the threat posed by Thököly's enterprise. To avert that threat, both tried to sever his links with Transylvania and to turn him against Apafi. Young Thököly was a talented politician, and his failure to fully understand his enemies' tactic was a rare lapse in judgment. This failure initially worked to his advantage, but he would eventually pay a heavy price for his unrealistic expectations.

In the early stages of his enterprise, Thököly had no intention of breaking with Transylvania. However, he strove for freedom of action and, trusting in his army's abilities, heedlessly took whatever was on offer from the Habsburgs and Turks. He concluded separate cease-fires with Vienna and accepted the emperor's offer of safe zones for his troops in north-eastern Hungary as well as the offer, made in 1679, of the hand of Ilona Zrínyi. With the same equanimity, Thököly welcomed offers from the pashas of Várad and Buda to help him overtly against the Austrians and, covertly, against Transylvania's prince, and routinely broke his agreements with Apafi.

Vienna and Constantinople thus competed to win over Thököly. On 25 February 1680, Mehmed, the pasha of Eger, and Abdurrahman, the pasha of Buda, secretly advised Thököly that the Porte would acknowledge him as commander-in-chief of the exiles and assist him to fight Apafi. Much impressed by the Porte's recognition, the young leader addressed a letter on 2 March to Bishop András Sebestyén, who had been delegated by Chancellor Szelepcsényi, acting on behalf of the Viennese court, to discuss peace terms. He and his noble supporters, wrote Thököly, were ready to accommodate the emperor; he himself was 'eager to serve his Christian king and master' and prepared to settle in three hours {2-354.} the matters that had been under negotiation over the previous year.[92]92. Thököly utasítása Sebestyén András békebiztosnak, 2 March 1680, HHStA, Hungarica Specialia, Fasc. 327. Although Thököly's diplomatic twists and turns are not always easy to fathom, they testify to his political skills. He played the imperial court against Strassoldo, Strassoldo against Bishop Sebestyén, the Turks against Vienna, and proposed the modalities of a modus vivendi between the two great powers; the Porte should guarantee his anticipated accord with the Habsburg government, and Emperor Leopold was expected to agree that the Hungarian kingdom should pay tribute to Constantinople.

The military success of the uprising, Thököly's irresistible drive for independence after the Szoboszló meeting, his spreading renown abroad all impelled Transylvanian politicians to rally around the prince and his policies. Some became alarmed at the fact that with the departure of the exiles, Transylvania was left without an army. Apafi soon realized that because of Thököly, Transylvania was losing its diplomatic clout. The political environment was in a state of flux, and one more opportunity presented itself to save the principality.

The year 1681 brought several actual or potential challenges to the Habsburgs' power and interests. The Porte and Russia concluded a peace treaty; meanwhile, France occupied Alsace, and commissions were dispatched to administer the province's reannexation. Meanwhile, the word from Constantinople was that the Vasvár Treaty, soon to expire, would not be renewed by Mustapha Kara. In order to counteract Thököly's diplomatic and military successes, the Habsburg regime convoked Hungary's diet to enact a number of conciliatory measures: the office of palatine, vacant for fifteen years, was filled, taxes were cut, and the constraints on the Protestants' freedom to worship were eased.

Apafi resorted to well-honed tactics to ward off punitive action by the Turks. As for Thököly, his confidence remained unshaken. Apprised of the Russo–Turkish peace accord, he wrote to the grand vizier offering to put the Hungarian kingdom under Ottoman {2-355.} suzerainty; his conditions, essentially based on those drafted earlier by Palatine Wesselényi, included free election of a new king. On 30 May 1681, Thököly was informed of the sultan's favourable response by Ibrahim, the pasha of Buda. Curiously, the athname, dated 18 April 1681, and containing Sultan Mehmed's terms of submission was addressed to Apafi. In return for a reasonable tribute, the sultan undertook to protect Hungary and sanctioned free election of a king as well as freedom of religion; he also promised not to conclude with the Habsburg emperor any treaty that would be harmful to Hungary. Apafi was favoured with the grant of the fortresses that were to be recaptured from the Habsburgs, but only on stiff conditions: he would have to join the Turkish campaign, 'requested by the Hungarian nation, to liberate their country from the German yoke', and to 'muster all Transylvanians to come to the assistance of the aforementioned Hungarian nation'.[93]93. EOE 17, p. 181.

Apafi had never been particularly favourable to the subjection of Hungary to the Turks, and his long experience as ruler made him sceptical of promises coming from the Porte. Sizing up the balance of power, Apafi avoided confronting Kara, who was known to react violently to any dissent from his views. The prince concentrated on consolidating his domestic base. He obtained that the three 'nations' reconfirm their confederation 'for the greater security of our homeland'; negotiated a separate accord with the Saxons; had his five-year-old son elected prince-successor by the diet; and resorted to persuasion as well as to threat of confiscation in an attempt to win Thököly's acknowledgement of his authority.

Representatives of the prince and of Thököly met on 11 May 1681 at Kapos, but they failed to find common ground. Thököly, who was aspiring to sovereign power, refused to be subordinated to the prince. This split between Transylvania and the exiles materialized just as the Porte was trying to mount a common military effort. However, there were more deeply-rooted reasons for the failure of the 1681 campaign. Apafi believed that only the fortresses proximate {2-356.} to Transylvania ought to be captured, and he wanted to guarantee freedom of worship not only for Protestants, but for Catholics as well. He criticized the unruliness of Thököly's forces, noted that the pasha of Várad was secretly helping Thököly against Transylvania, and considered that submission of Hungary to Turkish suzerainty was neither a realistic nor a timely solution for Hungary's problems.

An army of some 20,000–30,000 men was mustered, but Apafi and his commander-in-chief, Teleki, tried to keep their participation purely nominal, and the sultan's letter was not forwarded to Thököly. Mustapha Kara would brook no opposition. He demanded that Apafi return the sultan's decree and refused to endorse the election of the ruler's son as Prince Mihály Apafi II. In spring 1682, the sultan ordered Apafi to move with his full army in support of the pasha of Buda. Apafi tried to win sympathy at the Porte with ever more munificent gifts, but no amount of Transylvanian gold could induce the grand vizier to change his mind. On the other hand, there was a public outcry at the increased taxation, which reached unprecedented levels; the government threatened to execute those who rebuffed its tax-collectors. Fearing that Apafi's rule would erode their liberties, the feudal orders took a step they had not resorted to for many a year, and openly challenged their prince. At a meeting of the diet, convened at Fogaras on 25 April 1682, they demanded that Apafi give a full account of his actions.

After repeated postponements, Apafi gave in to the Turks' blandishments. On August 5, he left his restless country for Hungary at the head of an army much reduced by desertion and shirking. In the event, he managed to avoid being drawn into battle. Having joined up with Pasha Ibrahim and Thököly at Fülek, he observed passively from their camp as town and castle were besieged and burned to the ground. On 6 September, after the defenders had capitulated, he was to witness a ceremony in which Pasha Ibrahim handed the sultan's decree to Thököly and proclaimed the latter king of Hungary.

{2-357.} At the beginning of 1682, Thököly had sent emissaries to the Porte with a request that he be appointed Hungary's ruler, and he subsequently gave ample proof of his prowess. He captured an imperial general, Herberstein, together with the latter's general staff, then occupied Kassa, the principal town in Upper-Hungary. Thököly traced his ancestry, through his mother, to Prince Gabriel Bethlen; by marrying Ilona Zrínyi, he became stepfather to Ferenc Rákóczi II; and, now, he was the master of Upper-Hungary. These circumstances presumably fed Thököly's ambition to extend his rule to Transylvania.

Transylvania found itself in a much-altered situation, one that brought the danger of isolation. The fruits of twenty-five years of purposeful diplomatic effort turned to ashes. As Prince Apafi repaired back to Transylvania, he must have pondered the ominous reference in Ibrahim's speech to Thököly being the heir to John Szapolyai and Gabriel Bethlen. There was a good chance that if, the following year, the grand vizier managed to capture Vienna, he would appoint Thököly prince of Transylvania. The incursion into Hungary had been an ordeal for the aging prince, but his government persisted in the effort to ensure the survival of Transylvania's hundred and fifty year-old statehood.