History, The Partition of Hungary

General political chaos intensified during the first two decades of the 16th century, and rendered Hungary incapable of effective defense against its foreign foes. In August 1521 an Ottoman army under Sultan Suleyman I captured Belgrade and Sabac (both now in Serbia), the chief strongholds of the kingdom in the south. In 1526 Suleyman crushed the Hungarian army at Mohacs, where King Louis II and more than 20,000 of his men perished. After his army captured the city of Buda on September 10, 1526, Suleyman withdrew from Hungary.

For more than 150 years after the defeat at Mohacs, Hungary was the scene of almost continuous strife, chiefly among the Habsburg Holy Roman emperors, who seized control of the western portion of the former kingdom; the Ottomans, who established their control over the central region; and groups of the native nobility, especially that of Transylvania. In the course of the struggle for control of Hungary, Transylvania became the center of the Magyar movement against Ottoman and Austrian, or Habsburg, domination. The Magyars had abandoned the Catholic church during the Protestant Reformation, thereby further offending the Catholic Habsburgs. After the middle of the 16th century and the beginning of the Counter Reformation, the strife between the Protestant Magyars and the Catholic Habsburgs became increasingly violent. At the end of the Long War (1593-1606), Emperor Rudolf II was forced to grant the Magyars of Transylvania political and religious autonomy, additional territory, and other concessions.

The Transylvanians sided against the Habsburgs during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), led at first by Gabriel Bethlen, prince of Transylvania and king of Hungary. George I Rakoczy, who succeeded Bethlen as prince of Transylvania in 1631, resumed the fight against Habsburg domination of western Hungary. In alliance with the Swedes and the French, Rakoczy invaded Austrian territory in 1644. Emperor Ferdinand III was forced to meet many of Rakoczy’s demands, including the extension of full freedom of religion to all Hungarians under Habsburg rule.

In the decade following the accession of George II Rakoczy as prince of Transylvania, the Ottomans extended their sphere of influence into Transylvania, gradually reducing it, in effect, to provincial status. Meanwhile, missionary efforts in the Habsburg section of Hungary brought many of the people living there back into the Roman Catholic church. Under the influence of the church, these Hungarians abandoned the nationalist fight against Habsburg rule. Increasingly repressive measures were adopted against Protestants. These persecutions provoked a revolutionary uprising in the Hungarian dominions of the Habsburgs. Led by Count Imre Thokoly, the rebels won a series of victories over the forces of Emperor Leopold I. Thokoly obtained the military support of the Ottomans in 1682, but in the war that followed, the emperor’s armies succeeded in driving the Ottomans from most of Hungary. The collapse of Thokoly’s insurgent forces followed swiftly. Leopold punished the rebel leaders and forced the Hungarian legislature to declare the crown of Hungary forever hereditary in the house of Habsburg. By the provisions of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, the Ottomans retained only the Hungarian Banat, a region they lost 19 years later. The Treaty of Karlowitz also granted Transylvania to the Habsburgs.