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1690-7]

Revival of Turkish power

369

recognition of his son as Prince of Transylvania. But the Turks, in exercise of the suzerainty which they had never relinquished, nominated Tökölyi and sent him into Transylvania to revive the old spirit of hostility to the House of Habsburg. Taking advantage of the diversion thus caused, the Vezir attacked the Austrian garrisons in Servia, recaptured Widdin and Nizza, and by supreme good fortune succeeded in reducing Belgrade (October 8, 1690). The loss of this great fortress endangered all the Austrian gains in Hungary, but fortunately Essek still blocked the passage over the Drave. In 1691 Kiuprili led his army from Belgrade against Peterwardein. Lewis of Baden, who had in the meantime driven Tökölyi from Transylvania and compelled that province to renew its submission to the Emperor, now hurried southwards to the defence of southern Hungary. At Szalankemen (August 19) he won the greatest of his victories and the Vezir, who had held office for barely two years, was among the slain. But the Austrian army was too exhausted to attempt to cross the Save or to attack Belgrade.

The battle of Szalankemen marks a turning-point in the history of the war. Both sides relaxed their efforts. The intrigues of France in Constantinople succeeded in preventing the conclusion of peace. On the other hand the influence of the Emperor's western allies, and especially of William III, induced him to abandon all ideas of further conquest and to stand on the defensive in Hungary. Lewis of Baden succeeded in taking Grosswardein in 1692, but in the following year he was dispatched to the Rhine. For four years the Imperialists, under the successive commands of Croy, Caprara and the young Frederick Augustus of Saxony, achieved practically nothing, and more than once narrowly escaped disastrous defeat. Meanwhile changes of rulers occurred in Constantinople. On the death of Solyman II in 1691, his brother Ahmad had ascended the throne. The latter's death in 1695 was followed by the accession of his nephew Mustafa II, the son of the deposed Mohammad IV. The new Sultan was a young man in the prime of life and eager for military fame. Instead of entrusting all responsibility to a Vezir he undertook the command of his army in person. The Turks, always responsive to the call of an energetic leader, displayed their old warlike spirit. In 1695 and 1696 they defeated the Imperial forces in Hungary and recovered some of their lost predominance in the Egean. It seemed as if events would justify the solemn warning of Montecuculi that his master should never wage a long war against the Turks, as their power remained unshaken by defeat. In 1697 the Sultan at the head of a formidable army marched from Belgrade up the valley of the Theiss in the direction of Szegedin, whence he could throw himself by way of the Maros into Transylvania. Frederick Augustus of Saxony, with all his physical strength and courage, possessed neither the character nor the capacity needed for a great general, yet it was impossible for the Emperor to dismiss an ally who had brought an independent force to hi

C. M. H. V.

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370

The battle of Zenta

[1696-7 service. From this dilemma Leopold was saved by events in Poland. In 1696 John Sobieski died after thirteen years of disappointment and chagrin. For the third time within thirty years there was a scramble for the still coveted Crown. The most prominent candidates were at first the young James Sobieski, who had married the sister of the Empress, and the Prince of Conti, who was backed by all the influence of France. Neither could prevail against the other; and the choice of the Diet fell in 1697 upon the Elector of Saxony, who changed his religion to gain a kingdom which remained in his House for two generations. Augustus II (as he was now called) quitted the army to repair to Poland. The vacant command was at once conferred upon Prince Eugene, who had been set free by the termination of the war in Italy on the defection of the Duke of Savoy in 1696 from the Grand Alliance. Eugene had expected an attack upon Peterwardein, and was at first disconcerted by the Sultan's northward march. With great promptness, however, he set out in pursuit up the Theiss and overtook the Turks as they were crossing the river at Zenta (September 11, 1697). Only two hours of daylight remained when Eugene's main army joined the cavalry which had ridden on in advance. Arranging his troops in a semi-circle, he ordered a simultaneous attack upon the imperfect entrenchments which covered the Turkish position. The vigour of the onslaught carried all before it, and the defenders were driven back in headlong flight to the temporary bridge. As the river was low, the right wing, by taking advantage of sand-banks in the channel, succeeded in closing the access to the bridge. This converted the rout into a massacre. The Turkish soldiers who escaped the sword of the enemy were forced over the steep bank to find a watery grave in the Theiss. Twilight was setting in as the great victory was completed, and Eugene declared in his report that "the sun refused to set, until its last rays had witnessed the complete triumph of your Imperial Majesty's glorious arms." The Sultan, who had witnessed from the further bank the annihilation of his army, fled in despair to Temesvar, and thence to Belgrade. Eugene, after a brief raid into Bosnia, proceeded to Vienna, to receive the thanks of his grateful employer.

Events now tended rapidly in the direction of peace. In November, 1697, the allies concluded the Treaty of Ryswyk with Louis XIV; and this, added to the recent defeat at Zenta, put an end to the obstinate determination of the Turks to continue the war. They were once more exposed to attack from the undivided forces of Austria, and they had another formidable enemy in Peter the Great, who had conquered Azoff in 1696, and eagerly desired to make Russia a maritime Power by extending his rule to the Black Sea. On the other hand, Leopold had long abandoned the ambitious designs which had been entertained at the time of the capture of Belgrade; and any inclination to renew them was removed by the pressing interest of the approaching succession in

1698-9]

The Peace of Carlowitz

371

Spain and by the strenuous appeals of the Maritime Powers that he would put an end to the distracting troubles of the eastern war. The youthful rulers of Poland and Russia were less peacefully inclined; but both had begun to form plans against Sweden which required that they should have their hands free. In October, 1698, the Turks, for the first time, sent envoys to a general European congress at Carlowitz between Peterwardein and Belgrade. Under the mediating influence of Lord Paget, the English representative, actual possession at the time was taken as the basis of negotiations, and it only remained to determine what exceptions to the general rule should be admitted. As between Austria and the Porte the difficulties were not considerable. The Austrians desired the surrender of Tökölyi, who since his expulsion from Transylvania had served in the Turkish ranks. The Sultan was eager to retain at any rate some shadow of his long-established authority over Transylvania. Both demands were ultimately withdrawn, and the Emperor allowed the Turks to retain the banat of Temesvar, enclosed between the waters of the Theiss and the Maros. With that exception, the whole of Hungary was left to the House of Habsburg. To Poland, whose chief service had been the bringing of Russia into the Christian alliance, Podolia and Kameniec were restored; and Venice was confirmed in its conquests in Dalmatia and the Morea. The three treaties in which these stipulations were embodied were signed on January 26, 1699. Russia, though represented at the congress, only concluded a truce for two years by which she remained in occupation of Azoff. special agreement between Austria and the Turks stipulated that Tökölyi should be interned in Asia Minor; and there, far from the scene of their former exploits, he and his wife spent the remaining years of their lives.

A

CHAPTER XIII

THE TREATIES OF PARTITION AND THE
SPANISH SUCCESSION

DURING the long reign of Philip IV a great change took place in the European position of Spain. This King renewed the warlike policy of Philip II, and Spanish troops again fought on the battlefields of the Continent. More than once during the Thirty Years' War, the ambassador of the Catholic King exerted a decisive influence on the actions of the Court of Vienna. Thus, the whole career of Wallenstein can only be realised by keeping in remembrance his relations to the King of Spain, who supported him in the epoch of his greatest power and was one of the chief authors of his fall. The actual turning-point in the development of Spain was the war in which she contended against the combined strength of England and France. The French Marshal Turenne and the English Admirals Blake and Stayner put an end to the predominance of the Spanish Power by land and sea. monarchy under Louis XIV wrested from Spain her military ascendancy, while her maritime power, already weakened in her eighty years' war against the United Provinces, was dealt still heavier blows by the navy of the Protector Oliver Cromwell.

The French

About the same time Philip IV lost the sway over the neighbouring kingdom of Portugal acquired by his grandfather Philip II. The union of the two countries had always been highly unpopular with the Portuguese the more so, since it had drawn on them the enmity of the Dutch. In the East and in the West, the Portuguese colonies had to sustain the attacks of their Dutch rivals, who succeeded in despoiling Portugal of the most valuable of her possessions in India and South America. It was thus only natural that the support of the people of Portugal was easily gained for the rights of John IV, of the House of Braganza, who in 1610 took possession of the Portuguese throne. From this time onward, Portugal never again submitted to the Spanish yoke. Philip, indeed, tried to maintain his inherited rule; but the defeat of his armies obliged him to renounce his claims. If to this is

1665-1700]

Spain under Charles II

373

added the lowering of Spain's prestige by the definite separation from her of the northern Netherlands, whose independence she had to acknowledge shortly before the Peace of Westphalia, as well as by the losses she suffered in the Treaty of the Pyrenees, it will be clear how much less formidable the power of Spain was when the melancholic King Philip IV shut his eyes, than it had been at his accession.

The new King was Charles II, the only son of Philip IV. At the time of his father's death he was a weakly child of four years; and no one believed that he would grow up and one day take into his own hands the government of his vast dominions. The question of the Spanish Succession became urgent since the very day of Charles II's accession, and remained so through the whole of his reign, which extended over not less than thirty-five years.

Spain was a great monarchy without a monarch, says Ranke, referring to the condition of Spain in 1665. This saying admirably characterises the entire epoch of Charles II. In his name the government of the country was conducted in turn by the favourites of the QueenMother, who by the will of Philip IV was called to the regency, and by several Prime Ministers nominated by the monarch himself. Nothing that might be called a personal policy of Charles II ever became manifest. Even when the great question of the Succession, which was of immediate interest to himself, had to be decided, he failed to act with any energy. The result was a continuous increase of the influence of the Grandees of Spain, who may be said to have, for the time of Charles' reign, acquired a decisive voice in the conduct of the domestic as well as of the foreign policy of the kingdom.

"Every Grandee is a sort of Prince," says a foreign observer. The government of Spain seemed to have changed from a monarchy into an aristocracy. The contrary might have been asserted of France. The superiority of the absolute monarchy established by Richelieu over the declining power of Spain had shown itself already in the long struggle terminated by the Treaty of the Pyrenees. However, the enmity between the two neighbours did not end with the conclusion of the Peace. Two years after Charles' accession war broke out anew between them. Wholly unexpected by the Spanish Government, whom Louis XIV's quite recent show of friendship had deceived, French troops in May, 1667, invaded the Spanish Netherlands; several fortresses were easily taken; and the whole country would have been subjected to a French conquest, if the help which Spain was unable to lend had not come from another quarter. The famous Triple Alliance between England, Holland, and Sweden obliged Louis to conclude the Treaty of Aachen, by which he had to give up his claims on the Netherlands and to restore Franche Comté, which had been already conquered by Condé. However, he was allowed to keep possession of twelve places in Flanders; and the position of Spain as towards France had after all

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