Leseprobe

63 A Hungarian intermezzo and Poland’s support for the Habsburgs From September 1618 Bethlen Gábor, Protestant Prince of Transylvania, was in contact with the insurgent Estates in the Habsburg Empire.He was allied with the Turks and was granted permission to become involved in the Bohemian insurrection, albeit without the official support of the Sultan. Bethlen decided to give military support to the Protestant rebels, and in early September 1619 he set out at the head of his army to invade Royal Hungary.This marked the begin- ning of Transylvania’s participation in the Thirty Years’War, and Hungary temporarily became an important theatre of war.10 By October, the city of Pressburg (Bratislava) and the Hungarian crown were already in Bethlen’s possession. In a simultaneous move in late autumn 1619, the troops of the rebels, under the command of Count Jindřich Matyáš Thurn, advanced against the imperial city of Vienna and joined forces with the Transylvanian army.Together, the Protestant armies had more than 70,000 soldiers (fig. 2). The rebels almost succeeded in cutting Vienna off from the imperial troops, who were entrenched north of the Danube near Krems. Only in a narrow strip were they able to maintain contact with the Habsburg army. However, the imperial commander Charles, Count of Bucquoy, managed to rein- force the Habsburg troops in the Vienna area, just enabling him to save the imperial capital from impending conquest by the enemy. The continuation of Habsburg hegemony in East Central Europe was severely imperilled. In this critical situation, support on even the most modest scale could be of decisive significance.11 King Sigismund III of Poland authorised the Emperor to recruit soldiers in Poland. Thereupon, the Catholic Hungarian György Homonnai, a personal enemy of Bethlen Gábor, recruited 11,000 cavalry there on behalf of the Habsburgs, and with this force he invaded northern Hungary, which was occupied by Transylvanian soldiers. Although the Polish forces were too weak to cut off the supply lines of Bethlen’s troops, they were able to create some confusion in Upper Hungary. On 22 November, the 11,000 Polish cavalry defeated the Transylvanians under the command of György (George I) Rákóczi near Stropkov.12 Bethlen then had to march a part of his army, about 12,000 men, to Upper Hungary, because