| 2. GABRIEL BETHLEN'S REIGN | 2. GABRIEL BETHLEN'S REIGN | Gabriel Bethlen Stops the War |
Báthori's involuntary withdrawal signalled a change in the status of the two Romanian voivodeships. The ex-voivode Şerban requested help from Matthias II and the Poles, and sent lavish gifts to Constantinople, but it was all in vain. The Porte's man, Mihnea, stood his ground; Şerban managed to drive him away only temporarily, from June to September 1611. Moldavia's rulers, the Movilă family, enjoyed the support of the Poles, but the Turks drove them out and installed Ştefan Tomşa as voivode. It had been a long time since the Porte exercised such firm control over voivodeships.
Momentarily, Transylvania was unaffected by these changes, but it became vulnerable to the contest between the two great powers. Conflict between the opposition, which was outraged by the cancellation of the treaties with the Romanian voivodeships, and the politically incompetent prince opened the way for foreign intervention. Hardly had Báthori returned that the principality once again became a battlefield.
While Báthori was conquering Wallachia, two Ottoman potentates from Hungary, the pashas of Buda and Temesvár, broke into Transylvania to attack the prince from the rear. Almost immediately, they were ordered by the Porte to withdraw, but the operation had a severe consequence. The pashas' forces had advanced through the settlement area of the hajdús, and when the latter got wind of this, they all headed home. Having devastated the Romanian lands, they spread over Transylvania and the neighbouring regions of Hungary. The difficult task of settling them down {2-26.} would have to be started anew. The prince, returning home in a state of disappointment, could neither pay them nor hold out the lure of another plundering campaign. Instead, he sent them into the prosperous Barcaság, to launch another attack on the Saxons and capture Brassó.
Báthori's initiative had unforeseeable consequences. Fearing the same fate as Szeben, the citizens of Brassó girded for military defense. The hajdús, meanwhile, terrorized Transylvanians as they moved between their settlements in Bihar and Szatmár counties and the Barcaság.
At first, Brassó managed to forestall the threat. Following Báthori's example at Szeben, the hajdú general András Nagy tried to capture the town by ruse, then withdrew. He had reportedly been bribed by the city fathers, if on a modest scale, for contemporary records reveal only the gift of carts and horses. Nagy headed with his troops for royal Hungary. But the danger hanging over Brassó did not disappear. On June 19, the prince himself came to the Barcaság and, three days later, the situation turned critical: when Chancellor Imrefi requested that the prince be admitted, Brassó refused and threatened to fire upon the visitors.
Brassó's citizens counted on the support of the voivode Radu Şerban, who was an old acquaintance of Chief Magistrate Weiss and who for ten years had been the best customer — always paying on time — of Brassó's craftsmen. The Brassó people had kept in touch with Şerban after his expulsion by Báthori's soldiers, and now, when an attack by the prince seemed imminent, they sent emissaries to seek Şerban's assistance. The request came during the latter's brief return to power in Tîrgovişte, and he readily set off with his mercenaries to wreak vengeance on Báthori. Şerban was familiar with all the passes leading from his country to Transylvania. While the prince's troops awaited him at the most commonly used entry-point, Törcsvár, he surprised his allies and enemies by taking less frequented, shepherds' paths through the {2-27.} mountains to reach the principality on July 7. After a day's rest in Brassó, he engaged the prince's forces in battle near a paper mill, the very spot where Mózes Székely had been defeated. Radu Şerban's triumph was not complete. Although the prince was put to flight and his closest advisor, Imrefi, fell in battle, Báthori managed to withdraw to his stronghold of Szeben.
By doing this, however, Báthori drew the war to his new princely capital. Radu Şerban marched on Szeben, and, from Hungary, so did Zsigmond Forgách, the captain-general of Kassa. That summer, the latter had disregarded the injunction of the palatine (nádor) in welcoming the hajdús who had moved into Hungary; now, he took the initiative in attacking Báthori. Behind him stood István Kendi and a few aristocrats from Upper Hungary, who hoped that they could profit from Báthori's problems and seize his principality. Thus Szeben became the target of two armies: from the Barcaság came Radu Şerban's multinational mercenary force, and, from royal Hungary, county troops as well as hajdús. The attacking forces were of a kind. A chronicler relates that 'the country is being ravaged, devastated, put to the torch, looted by forces from two sides ... the Vlachs (Romanians) send everything they can lay their hands on back to Wallachia … Even our people, with whom we share language and creed, rampage and loot mercilessly, and perhaps even more brutally than do the Vlachs.'[14]
Szeben was subjected not only to their joint siege but also to the besieged prince's exactions. Báthori, once again short of money, demanded funds, and when the aldermen proved unable to pay up, he had them thrown in jail. Still, he must have had secret resources: he managed to suborn András Nagy, helped him pay his soldiers, and sent him off to recruit hajdús in Hungary. Meanwhile, Gabriel Bethlen, who was considered an expert on the Turks, asked the neighboring Turkish commanders for help. Thus, by the fall of 1611, confusion reigned in Transylvania as a multitude of warring groups vied against each other. The situation was becoming reminiscent {2-28.} of the chaos at the turn of the century when, unexpectedly, a certain order emerged.
Instead of adding to the confusion, the appearance of the Turks served to bring stability and calm. It was almost as if the master had come back to restore order in his long-neglected domain. Without putting up a fight, both Forgách and Radu Şerban fled from the troops of Omer, the pasha of Bosnia. Şerban had no home to withdraw to, for Mihnea had followed the advancing Turks and reclaimed his seat in Tîrgovişte, and he thus sought refuge, first in Poland, and then in Vienna. On Forgách's roundabout retreat through Moldavia, his troops were decimated by hunger and cold. When, after two months, they straggled into Kassa, even the children reportedly went out into the streets to observe the weaponless and dishevelled survivors.
With the arrival of Pasha Omer's troops and the flight of Forgách, Transylvania experienced the same shift in the balance of power that had brought change to Wallachia and Moldavia a few months earlier. The Porte had forcefully reasserted its political presence in the region, confirming that the Romanian voivodeships and Transylvania, lying as they did on its road to the West, belonged to its sphere of dominance. And now, unlike a few years earlier, the Turks felt able to expel intruders.
Force of circumstance drove Brassó and the opposition nobles who had sought refuge there to turn towards the Porte. In the process, they made a pact with András Ghiczy. The latter was a former hajdú captain who had some Transylvanian connections but was politically active in Upper Hungary; apparently, the Porte had been cordial to his emissaries when they came to seek support for Bálint Homonnai. Ghiczy had subsequently accompanied Gábor Báthori to the principality. Now, in autumn 1611, the prince delegated Ghiczy to convey his thanks to Constantinople for the help against Forgách. On the way, the princely emissary stopped at Brassó, where he rallied to the opposition. It was as the latter's {2-29.} spokesman that he showed up in Constantinople, bearing petitions on behalf of Transylvania's three 'nations' calling for the expulsion of the despotic prince.
With this, Brassó's rebels regained their composure. When he wrote to Báthori in late January 1912, Mihály Weiss signed his letter 'your formerly loyal servant,' obviously considering himself no longer loyal or a servant.[15] Openly renouncing his constituents' obligations to the prince, Weiss turned the Barcaság into a virtual state within the state. They minted their own coins and, counting on the Porte's assistance, girded for battle.
In the event, that support was slow to materialize, for in the fall of 1611 the Porte was not disposed to take quick decisions. The fearsome and venerable grand vizier, Pasha Murad, had passed away in August, and his successor, Pasha Nasuh, had yet to return from the Persian front. Nevertheless, and probably without the latter's knowledge, the Porte granted Ghiczy's wish that he be recognized as prince of Transylvania in place of Báthori. Pasha Ali Oglu Magyar was assigned to assist him, and the two Romanian voivodes were instructed to give him armed support.
'In signum gratitudinis,' Ghiczy reaffirmed the hoary offer of Jenő and Lippa and promised to pay the established tribute of 15,000 forints in gold. He left his brother Péter as hostage with the chief governor, Mehmed Gurdji. The imperial decree calling for the election of a prince ends with a warning: 'Do not rebel against us again, and maintain your loyalty towards us, for if you persist with such actions, you can be sure, as God is my witness, that, great and small, you will be put to the sword and your country will be turned to ashes ... and you will be held responsible: those who survive will curse you before the world'.[16]
Ghiczy promptly sent back the report of the Porte's promises and threats, and he himself was still making his way through Wallachia when Mihály Weiss opened negotiations in Brassó. The new prince-elect sent several written overtures 'to all the nations of {2-30.} the country.' He informed political leaders that God had taken mercy on 'the many desperate poor people, orphans, and widows' and assuaged the Porte's anger at Gábor Báthori's despotic acts; the Porte 'wished to preserve the country with its ancient liberties and laws.' Ghiczy threatened force against those who refused to support him, warning that 'Transylvania was facing a tragic end similar to that of Troy.'[17]
Báthori reacted to the Porte's threat in a manner typical of Transylvania's princes: at the meeting of the diet on 26 June, 1612, he proposed war against the Turks and association with the Hungarian Kingdom. He invited the noble orders to decide whether 'we should approach the Christian princes and the King of Hungary ... because, if we are not to fall between two stools, we must have someone to trust ... we have no choice but to raise arms against those who threaten us with arms.'[18]
The prince's intention was clear: by invoking the Turkish threat, he was once again activating Transylvania's seesaw strategy, which had always brought catastrophic results. However, the feudal orders stood firm and refused to vote for war. Báthori could only persuade them to draft a rebuttal, addressed to the Porte, of the charges raised by Ghiczy.
| 2. GABRIEL BETHLEN'S REIGN | 2. GABRIEL BETHLEN'S REIGN | Gabriel Bethlen Stops the War |