| European Interests and the Risk of Isolation | 3. THE STRUGGLE FOR HUNGARIAN STATEHOOD | 4. UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE HABSBURG EMPEROR |
Apafi and his governing circle had weathered many a storm, and they did not panic when, in 1683, Mustapha Kara's army advanced to Vienna. A contemporary chronicler noted that Europe had not seen such huge army in five hundred years.[94] Still, neither the princely council nor the diet was in a hurry to comply with the sultan's firman, issued on 11 February 1683, and the grand vizier's orders to take up arms. Gifts of gold no doubt helped the prince to delay his departure; he joined the grand vizier not early in the year, at Nándorfehérvár, but at Vienna, in later summer, and he came not {2-358.} with a large army but with a small contingent of Székelys. Apafi was assigned the task of guarding the bridges over the Rába and Rábca rivers, at Győr, together with the forces of the pasha of Silistra, Ibrahim, who was also charged with keeping an eye on the prince.
When, in late October, Apafi pulled out of Hungary with the starving remnants of an army decimated by epidemics, he had some useful lessons to ponder. He had observed the grand vizier's precipitous retreat from Vienna. He learned that Thököly, having refused an order to go into battle, was blamed by the grand vizier for the defeat on 9 October 1683 and had thus fallen out of favour. It seemed that the Sublime Porte's attitude toward Transylvania was turning once again, and in a positive direction.
The first sign of a shift in Constantinople's Transylvanian policy, following the setback at Vienna, was the grand vizier's endorsement of the election of Apafi's son as prince. It is an open question whether Transylvania's politicians, as they solemnly installed the child-prince Mihály Apafi II, perceived that the sultan's gracious act was designed less to reward past merit than to secure future services. The Ottoman governors had ample diplomatic sources, and they were well aware that the entire Christian world was girding for a decisive assault on the Turks.
In keeping with his well-honed practice of seeking security in both directions, the prince in spring 1683 had dispatched a senior envoy, László Vajda, to Vienna with an offer to mediate between the Habsburg emperor and the Turks, and between Leopold I — in his capacity as king of Hungary — and Thököly. In retrospect, this initiative appeared to be a sign of undul self-assertion, but, at the time, no one could anticipate which side would prevail. Vienna and the Porte accepted, and even welcomed the offer. For a few years, the mediating role played by Transylvania had enhanced the country's security with regard to both great powers. To be sure, Apafi was realistic enough to fear the worst, and he urged the palatine, Pál {2-359.} Esterházy 'to try to manage events in such a way that the Hungarian nation may escape utter destruction.'[95]
In the spring of 1684, the Habsburg empire, Poland, and Venice formed — under the Pope's patronage — an anti-Turkish alliance, the Holy League. By then, an independent, mediating role would have been difficult to assume even for a distant great power; Transylvania, a small country located in the potential war zone, could hardly expect to benefit from playing such a role. In May, Emperor Leopold had invited Apafi to join the alliance, but Transylvania's political leaders doubted the sincerity of the offer and, in any case, believed that their country was too exposed to the Turks to take such risks.
In fact, the European, anti-Turkish alliance seemed to offer other opportunities for Transylvania to safeguard its statehood. In early 1684, Sobieski inflicted costly defeats on the Turks in Ukraine and Moldavia; thus Poland effectively took charge of the northeastern segment — which included Transylvania as well as the Romanian voivodeships — of the war zone stretching from Ukraine to Dalmatia. Meanwhile Louis XIV opened the way to a broader anti-Turkish coalition by making peace with the Habsburgs, he counted on pro-French Poland to prevent the Habsburg empire from expanding eastward. Apafi was also inspired by traditional Transylvanian interests to link his country, through Poland, to the French wing of the international coalition. At the same time, the prince sought the backing of Europe's Protestant states so that in the foreseeable political reconfiguration of the region, Transylvania could preserve the positive achievements of its 150-year period of autonomy when it was reunited with the Hungarian kingdom. Charged with this difficult mission, Professor István Kolozsvári set off in spring 1684 for Berlin, the Netherlands, and England.
Apafi was held in high regard by Sobieski, who confided to his wife that the prince was 'the only honourable man' among Christian rulers in the Turkish sphere of dominance.[96] Poland's {2-360.} king did not tarry in inviting Apafi to join the alliance. However, Vienna was impelled by the Franco–Polish plans to pay more attention to its eastern approaches, where Transylvania was essential for preservation of the links forged with Moldavia and Wallachia. The imperial military commanders and Hungary's lords and counties all counted on Transylvania's help to feed and find winter quarters for the hundred-thousand strong army. Transylvania was considered to be a rich source of food supplies; Saxon chroniclers described as a 'golden age' the twenty-five years during which the principality was left largely untouched by destructive invaders.
Caught between conflicting foreign pressures, Apafi could follow an independent policy only if he had the power to back it up. However, with the exiles gone, Transylvania was militarily weak, and its domestic political life was marked by discord. Emperor Leopold sent a proposal to Transylvania by way of the Jesuit Antidius Dunod, and, on 14 April 1685, at Kercsesora, Teleki signed a secret pact. In return for guarantees of religious freedom and its historic privileges, and for admission to the alliance, Transylvania acknowledged the suzerainty of the Habsburg emperor and king of Hungary, gave up its independent foreign policy, and agreed to provide winter quarters for one-sixth of the imperial army. Apafi sought to reinforce this pact with an overt treaty, guaranteed by Poland, that would preserve Transylvania's statehood. Meanwhile, that same spring, he concluded with Wallachia a new treaty of alliance designed to serve their common interests against Habsburg and Turkish influence.
Once more a fleeting opportunity presented itself for Transylvania to enhance its power. Having failed in his attempts to join the anti-Turkish coalition, Thököly turned to Apafi for assistance. Had the two leaders been able to overcome their long-standing differences and personal antagonism, Transylvania could have acquired a powerful army, and Thököly, the finest Hungarian military commander of the period, would have obtained the backing of {2-361.} a state that enjoyed European recognition. However, Teleki, whose authority in the princely council had become unchallengeable, easily obtained that Thököly be stripped of his properties. This sanction had an irreparable consequence: it drove the young leader, who still disposed of considerable military resources, straight into the arms of the Turks. In early summer 1685, Poland and France urged Transylvania to pursue judicious and prudent cooperation with Thököly, but the advice fell on deaf ears. The designated leader of the Thököly party, Captain Mihály Barcsai, had been thrown in jail, and his trial encompassed hundreds of defendants and witnesses for the defence. These legal actions and the persistent demands of parochial feudal interests served to weaken the authority of Prince Apafi and his inner circle. When, after a three-day siege, Várad's outer fortress of Szentjobb capitulated to General Caprara, and imperial forces moved across the border into Transylvania, Leopold requested that his army be provided with winter quarters. In the Treaty of Ebesfalva, concluded in October 1685, Apafi agreed to provide food supplies, but he managed to shelter most of Transylvania from the heavy burden of wintering the German regiments, which were quartered in the Kővár district, Máramaros, and Debrecen.
Old age, illness, and family problems had taken their toll on Prince Apafi, and, in early 1686, the Turks attempted to drive him from office. The Porte realized that the incarceration, in October 1685, of Thököly had been a mistake; to regain influence, it sought to restore the 'Kuruc king's' prestige and authority by freeing him and proclaiming him Prince of Transylvania. On 6 January 1686, at Várad, this onetime child of the principality issued a call to his faithful followers to take up arms. By then, Louis XIV's east-European initiatives had exacerbated the discord among members of the Holy League. Sharply-worded pamphlets issued by the Dutch, English, and French drew Europe's attention to the small principality: they argued that Emperor Leopold's objective was {2-362.} conquest, and that the European balance of power would be best served if Sobieski became king of Hungary, and Thököly, the successful general, prince of Transylvania.
In the meantime, the imperial regiments exhausted the resources of, and effectively devastated, Máramaros County and the Kővár district. Thököly, accompanied by a force of 9,000 Turks, requested free passage to relieve the besieged fortress of Munkács, and when he was rebuffed, he laid siege to Vajdahunyad Castle.
Faced with a military threat on several fronts, the prince's government resorted to radical measures. It compelled landowners to subscribe to loans and increased the taxes payable by serfs, soldiers, the lesser nobility, merchants, towns, and the clergy. It mustered several thousand men into an ill-equipped army that, under Teleki's command, managed to rout Thököly's forces. Meanwhile, in Vienna, a weighty delegation from Transylvania attempted to exploit the favourable opportunities offered by the vagaries of European diplomacy.
According to the brief carried to Vienna by János Haller, Apafi's goal was to preserve the independence and domestic political system of Transylvania. The allies were asked to include Transylvania and the Romanian principalities in any peace settlement with the Turks: specifically, to preserve Transylvania from the Turks, to forgo wintering their armies in the principality, and to provide imperial guarantees of Transylvania's historic privileges. In return, Transylvania would contribute to the war against the Turks by paying 25,000 gold pieces, equivalent to 50,000 thalers, and by providing food supplies as well as transport. A diplomatic effort that spanned several generations had succeeded in implanting the principality in Europe's power structure, and the benefits were reaped in the critical period of spring 1686. Apafi dispatched envoys to the Danish and Swedish kings, to Protestant England and Holland, to the Elector of Brandenburg and the Prince of Würtemberg. At the time of Haller's mission to Vienna, papal {2-363.} diplomacy helped Poland and Russia to make peace; the czar adhered to the Holy League and launched an attack on the Crimean Tartars. As a result, Transylvania and Poland were no longer exposed to the Tartar khan's punishing raids. Vienna's change in attitude owed even more to the Pope's efforts to resolve the crisis. The pontiff urged the Habsburgs to moderate their policies with regard to the Hungarians, and the Protestants in particular: the situation in Hungary and Transylvania was arousing indignation throughout Europe, and if Vienna failed to alleviate the problem, it would lose the western financial aid necessary for a continuation of the Turkish war.
Thus, in Vienna, where, according to Haller, 'the future of all Europe hung in the balance', the principality's terms for preserving its statehood were finally accepted. On 28 June 1686, Leopold's and Apafi's plenipotentiary representatives signed an agreement by which Transylvania would participate in the anti-Turk alliance as a sovereign state. Emperor Leopold acknowledged the rights of the prince, the right of the feudal estates to elect a prince, the freedom of the four fully-recognized religions, and the separate statehood of Transylvania. The second clause of the treaty laid down that 'territories freed from Turkish domination will belong, by right of arms, to the victorious power, but all lands that demonstrably belonged once to Transylvania will be handed back and remain in permanent possession of the principality.' In light of subsequent events, it is important to note the separate clause affirming that 'His Imperial Majesty may never lay claim to either the princely title or the coat of arms [of Transylvania]'. Finally, a clause offered some protection against the continuing military threat to the principality from the Turkish outposts at Várad and Temesvár: 'To guarantee this treaty and Transylvania's security, and as long as this war and a situation of danger endure, the prince and the feudal orders transfer two fortified posts, the fortresses at Kolozsvár and Déva, to His Imperial Majesty. Two-thirds of the garrisons in these fortresses {2-364.} will consist of imperial, and one-third of Transylvanian troops; the soldiers' wages will be provided by His Imperial Majesty, their food and other supplies by Transylvania. As soon as the war is over, both fortresses will be evacuated and handed back.' The agreement was kept secret, and Transylvania revealed its adherence to the Holy League only after the recapture of Buda.
The Hungarian historian Gyula Szekfű, for one, judged that this treaty was 'far more favourable [...] with respect to Transylvania's independence' than that concluded at Kercsesora.[97] But most evaluations of the agreement are marked by uncertainty. Historians who relied mainly on Bethlen's autobiography tended to the view that the treaty failed to be implemented because the Transylvanians rejected it. However, it is now known that a copy of the accord between Emperor Leopold and Prince Mihály Apafi was forwarded to England, presumably to secure a third-party guarantee. It is also a fact that the imperial forces departed in late July from Transylvania. Moreover, when the grand vizier, on his way to attempt the relief of Buda, ordered Apafi — on pain of severe reprisals — to join him with Transylvanian troops, the prince failed to comply; and Apafi did try to raise from aristocrats and other nobles the funds required for compliance with the treaty. Later, when the balance of forces had shifted in Vienna's favour, the court party, representing the dynasty's interests, tried — in the context of a deliberate political strategy — to deny the existence of any such agreement; at the same time, Apafi was prevented from making public his adherence to the alliance both by mistrust on the part of the feudal orders and by the threat of Turkish incursions, the liberation of Várad having been postponed. The circumstances of the agreement have yet to be fully clarified; it is evident, however, that there was an accord which, in summer 1686, offered Transylvania the opportunity — at least formally, and under Habsburg suzerainty — to join the anti-Turkish coalition as a recognized state and, with that qualified sovereignty, to participate in the campaign to drive the Turks out of Hungary.
| European Interests and the Risk of Isolation | 3. THE STRUGGLE FOR HUNGARIAN STATEHOOD | 4. UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE HABSBURG EMPEROR |