The Habsburgs- The History of a Dynasty

by Benjamin Curtis

  The institutionalization of the dynasty’s rule encountered major setbacks in Spain but made appreciable advances in the Danubian domains. The Union of Arms and many of Olivares’s other initiatives were rooted in dynastic agglomerative state building, in that the integration they sought to foster was designed fundamentally to increase the crown’s power within the composite Spanish monarchy. But that increase was motivated by dynastic purposes rather than an objective to strengthen the state per se; the intent was to further the Habsburgs’ ability to make war and preserve their legitimacy and prestige. The Union of Arms’ failure to strengthen the crown can be linked to another problem, namely the nobility’s growing control over the central ruling structures. Felipe IV, like his forebears, used the nobility in key service roles to his government. Grandees served as ambassadors and viceroys, they mustered and led ground and naval forces, and they staffed administrative councils. The sheer number of nobles increased—and with them, the governance-delegating networks of client-patronage—because Felipe IV resorted more frequently to selling titles as a way of addressing his monetary shortfalls. In the Danubian domains, Ferdinand II’s victory over the estates, and the establishment of Habsburg hereditary monarchy in Bohemia, were a notable boost to royal authority. Because he exiled much of the Protestant Bohemian nobility, and greatly favored the remaining, loyal Catholic nobles, they also became much more firmly integrated into the dynasty’s ruling structures than before. Most of the middle and lower tiers of governance remained in their hands, including competencies in tax collection and the administration of justice. So though Ferdinand’s power relative to the high nobility did increase, the high nobility’s power itself increased relative to those subordinate to them.

  Neither of the Ferdinands was a reformer, but they did oversee important developments in the military. The original impetus for these developments was that Ferdinand II had an army wholly inadequate to respond to the challenge of the Bohemian rebellion, forcing him to rely on Wallenstein. The armed force which that warlord provided helped Ferdinand to assert his power in Bohemia and to enforce the Verneuerte Landesordnung. In 1635 Ferdinand officially declared that he had exclusive rights over war, trying to sideline the estates, which was an important step on the way to the crown’s monopolization of military force. Other subsequent changes under Ferdinand III’s reign ensured that colonels would be subordinate to the monarch, which helped create a hierarchical, centralized, and more strictly disciplined professional military. In 1649 Ferdinand III also determined that he would not demobilize nine infantry and ten cavalry regiments, which is usually cited as the nucleus of the Austrian Habsburgs’ standing army. Surprisingly, several regiments that first came into existence in the later 1620s lasted until 1918 and the fall of the monarchy. In Felipe IV’s monarchy, in contrast, the armed forces became somewhat more privatized than they had recently been, since he had to depend on magnates such as Medina Sidonia to raise an army against the Catalan rebellion. This example points to a larger, contrary trend by which royal power in the Spanish Habsburg state was slowly disintegrating, while in the Austrian Habsburgs’ domains it was slowly accumulating.

  The ultimate tragedy of Felipe IV’s reign is that he exacted such an immense toll on his realms but had very little to show for it. His monarchy was at war for 40 years, the economy was a wreck, the population was depleted and suffering, and Spain lost a lot of the prestige it once had. Felipe must bear much of the responsibility for this bleak situation. Despite the obvious and worsening problems in Castile, the heart of his monarchy, Felipe and his ministers did not meaningfully reduce their imperial objectives until relatively late in the reign. They tried to maintain Spain’s enormous commitments even under straitened circumstances, which is the very definition of imperial overstretch. Added to their failure to lessen Spain’s military commitments was their failure to reform the governmental and fiscal basis of the monarchy. This latter failure was not for want of trying, of course. What gave Felipe such a woeful countenance in that late portrait by Velázquez is surely the knowledge that he did try to be a good king and yet would be judged a disappointment. He was an intelligent, diligent man who presided over a tremendous cultural bloom, many military victories, and even the expansion of Spain’s empire to its greatest territorial extent. But he left his kingdoms in a sorry state, and as his heir, a disabled young boy who would be the dead end of his dynasty.

  As the Spanish Habsburgs slouched toward extinction, the Austrian branch survived serious disasters and embarked on solidifying its authority within its own domains. Despite his frequent mistakes and overreaching, Ferdinand II accumulated some important victories. White Mountain helped tighten Habsburg power over Bohemia, and his Counter-Reformation push there and in Austria created a long-lasting confessional and ideological base for the monarchy. The ideal of forcibly restoring religious unity in the Empire under the Catholic Church definitively expired. Though his religious attitudes were not uncommon for his age, Ferdinand II had the mingled fortune and misfortune to be a particularly dogmatic man occupying a political position where less dogma would certainly have led to less conflict. Even so, his faith contributed to the tenacity with which he held to his prerogatives, which ultimately strengthened the dynasty in its patrimonial lands. Ferdinand III regarded Westphalia as a humiliation, but the peace he finally secured was essential for ending the disastrous war and allowing the dynasty to focus on rebuilding those lands. The years 1648 and 1659 may together mark the end of Habsburg hegemony in Europe. Yet to the extent that the Thirty Years’ War was a conflict of “everyone against the Habsburgs,” it is noteworthy that it took the combined forces of France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and sometimes England to counter the family’s power. As Spain was eclipsed, the Austrian Habsburgs now stepped up as the dominant branch of the family. The remainder of the seventeenth century would see them become a great power in their own right.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rise and fall (1657–1705)

  The Siege of Vienna in 1683, with its eleventh-hour victory over the last great Turkish invasion of southeastern Europe, is the most famous moment in Leopold I’s reign. But it is not truly the most momentous. That distinction belongs, of all things, to a document. This document begins with a lament about “sixteen years cruel and destructive war,” and “how much Blood has been spilt, and how many Provinces have been laid waste.” Fortunately, two great men—“the most Serene and most Potent Prince and Lord Leopold” and “the most Serene and most Potent Prince and Lord, Sultan Mustafa Han”—are well aware of “the afflicted condition of their subjects.” Moved by compassion, these two illustrious princes are “seriously inclin’d to put an end to such great Calamitys increasing every Day to the Danger of Mankind,” and have therefore determined that “solemn Treatys should for this Cause be set on foot, and concluded at Carlowitz in Sirmium, near the confines of both Empires.”1 This document was the Peace of Karlowitz, signed on 26 January 1699 in the town of Sremski Karlovci in what is today Serbia. The treaty not only put an end to the war that began with the Siege of Vienna—it also awarded the Austrian Habsburgs massive territorial gains, and thereby sealed their rise into a major continental power.

  This period of the dynasty’s history, while usually described as the rise of Austria, is better understood as a shift from being a problem for the European balance of power to being a guarantor for it. While the centuries’-old duty of protecting Europe from the Turks continued, to it was added a new role in countering the aggression of Louis XIV’s France. The reigns of Leopold and Louis, cousins and brothers-in-law, are contemporaneous, but the contrasts between the flashy, megalomaniacal French king and the stolid, unadventurous Habsburg could not be more striking. It was nonetheless thanks to his dogged opposition to the French menace that Leopold reversed his family’s disfavor in Germany of the previous two generations. Leopold thereby became nearly the last ruler of the Empire to enjoy significant imperial support and dignity. He also succeeded in suppressing two revo
lts in oft-restless Hungary. Where the Habsburgs still remained a problem was with the Spanish branch’s succession, the uncertainty of which seesawed Europe between the threats of Bourbon and Habsburg hegemony. The formerly dominant Spanish branch degenerated at this time into a burned-out shell. Despite Leopold’s limitations, he was reasonably competent as a ruler and happily fortuitous in his circumstances and astute underlings. Only the opposite can be said of Carlos II, in whose infirm body the Spanish Habsburgs expired with a whimper.

  Leopold I (1640–1705)

  Leopold reigned for 47 years, longer than any other Habsburg of the early modern period. The ironic thing about him was that the outsized role he had to play as emperor and monarch—defending Germany from the French, defeating the Turks, grappling for the dynasty’s Spanish lands—was too big for the rather unassuming man himself. He managed in most cases to make the best of it, however. He has been described as one of the ugliest members of his line: since both his parents were Habsburgs, Leopold (Figure 7.1) was over-endowed with the family’s idiosyncratic physical attributes, namely a dramatically protuberant lip and jaw. He was fairly slight and never physically robust. He had originally been groomed for a Church career, but when his brother Ferdinand IV died, the succession fell to him. He remained a somewhat reluctant statesman, often preferring to spend time with his books and music. Like many of his family members, he was intelligent, diligent, and very pious. He was a talented composer, and perhaps undermined his own conscientious ruling by making sure that his musicians were paid first even when his court was strapped for funds. His almost slavish dedication to multiple masses per day, regular visits to monasteries, and frequent pilgrimages drew criticism even from the papal nuncio, since these devotions diverted so much time from his governing. But this ponderousness was a major facet of his character. He was patient to the point of inaction, a shy, deeply conservative personality who became more passive as he grew older. Never a visionary or inspiring leader, his regime confronted its late, serious trials less with alacrity than with indecision.

  Because Ferdinand III had not completed arrangements for Leopold to succeed him in the Empire, in 1658 it fell to the young Leopold and his advisors to negotiate with the electors’ difficult conditions. The difficulty arose in part because at this time Felipe IV still had no legitimate son, which meant that Leopold could conceivably inherit the Spanish possessions. That in turn would have posed a major threat to the balance of power, and could have potentially pulled the Empire back into the conflict between Spain and France. Thus Leopold was forced to cancel his marriage plans with Felipe IV’s daughter María Teresa (who eventually married Louis XIV) and agree that he would remain neutral in the Spanish branch’s ongoing conflict with France. There had been some serious competition for the imperial title, including the Bavarian elector Ferdinand Maria and the long-shot Louis XIV. Hence at the outset of his reign, the 18-year-old Leopold occupied a feeble position in the Empire. A number of German princes then formed the so-called League of the Rhine with Louis XIV and Karl X of Sweden as a defensive alliance against Leopold, to prevent him from violating the terms of the Peace of Westphalia or the Empire’s neutrality. Already in his first two years as emperor Leopold was at war, drawn into a conflict in Poland in which he allied with Denmark and Brandenburg against Sweden. This conflict soon stalemated, however, and was ended by 1660.

  FIGURE 7.1 Leopold I, artist unknown. Image courtesy of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.

  The Holy Roman Empire in the years after the Peace of Westphalia was not completely moribund and dysfunctional. The Habsburgs did not give up on the Empire; despite lingering hostility of the princes to the emperor’s authority, the latter actually experienced a rebound from its low point in 1648. The emperor still held some judicial and foreign policy competencies, and remained the symbolic figurehead. Even if this meant that in German affairs Leopold was mostly confined to the power of persuasion, he successfully managed to rebuild the dynasty’s reputation. He did so through effective alliances with the princes and the administrative Imperial Circles. The Catholic princes moved more securely into the emperor’s camp, and Leopold continued to assert his right to appoint loyal bishops in the churches under his authority. The most important factor that revived the dynasty’s influence in Germany, though, was the threat from France. Around 1648 many people in western Germany looked to France to help protect against the kind of imperial overreach Ferdinand II had attempted. By the 1660s, though, it had become clear that France was more of a threat than the emperor. Leopold by the 1670s adopted a firm policy against Louis XIV, which brought him much support and even something like patriotism. This led directly to the Empire contributing to the campaigns against the Turks, and to the stronger German solidarity embodied by the League of Augsburg military alliance in the 1680s.

  Whereas over the previous 150 years the Habsburgs had been viewed as the paramount threat to Europe’s balance of power, in Leopold’s time that role was taken over by France under Louis XIV. The Austrian Habsburgs became vital partners for a number of allies to resist French aggression. The French king was the son of a Spanish Habsburg mother, and then he married another Spanish Habsburg. Though Louis and Leopold never met, they detested each other. Leopold remained neutral during France’s War of Devolution against Spain from 1667–8. He went so far as to draw up a secret treaty (never signed) with Louis whereby the two would divide the Spanish empire in the event that Carlos II died with no heir. In the 1670s Louis renewed his attacks on the Netherlands, and it became impossible for Leopold to maintain his policy of timid neutrality. After the French invaded Lorraine, a part of the Empire, Leopold initially could not respond since he was dealing with another rebellion in Hungary. But he then overcame his religious reservations to ally with the Protestant Dutch in support of Spain, and German princes lined up as well to repulse the French attacks. As a result of this war, Spain lost the Franche-Comté and several cities in the Spanish Netherlands, and Leopold temporarily gave up Freiburg in southwestern Germany.

  The Habsburgs were at war with France several more times leading up to the major conflict over the Spanish succession in 1700. Louis again invaded the Spanish Netherlands in 1683, but Leopold quickly made peace on his western front because he was dealing with the Turks on the eastern front. The Spanish Habsburgs lost Luxembourg to Louis in this War of the Reunions. Many of the German princes were unhappy with what they saw as Leopold’s inadequate defense against the French threat. They nonetheless abjured their earlier alliances with Louis against Leopold to regard the Habsburg emperor instead as the captain of German resistance. Louis fortunately refrained from attacking Germany during the Turkish siege of Vienna, motivated by some sense of Christian solidarity that trumped even his normal, egotistical Realpolitik. Leopold pursued his own Realpolitik, however, by strengthening his alliance with William III of the Netherlands, who after 1688 was also king of England. Their mutual interest in countering France induced William also to support Leopold’s claims for the Spanish succession. In 1686 the League of Augsburg was formed. It bound several German princes, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Brandenburg against France. Leopold rallied Germany in the resulting war, which lasted until 1697. One of Leopold’s string of excellent military commanders, Charles of Lorraine, ably defended Austria’s interests even though it was having to fight on two fronts, against the Turks and the French. The Treaty of Ryswick required Louis to surrender some of his earlier conquests, but he held on to Alsace and the Palatinate. This treaty, however, was merely a short respite until the War of the Spanish Succession three years later.

  The steady defense in the west at this time is a testament to the consolidation of the Austrian Habsburgs’ state. That defense was maintained despite recurring troubles on the eastern frontiers. Hungary and Transylvania were one source of instability. Though by Leopold’s time the Counter-Reformation had successfully reimposed Catholicism in the Austrian lands and the Bohemian kingdom, Protestant
ism remained widespread throughout much of Hungary. The high nobility was mostly Catholic (having never left, or having returned), but much of the middle nobility and the wider population was still Calvinist. There were other pockets of religious heterogeneity in Hungary, too, with many Orthodox Serbs and Uniate Ruthenians. This situation was intolerable to a new generation of high Church officials such as the Archbishop Kollonich. Under his watch there were forced conversions to Catholicism, expulsions of Protestants, and confiscation of their property. Protestant pastors were even sent to the galleys for supposed disloyalty to the crown. From the 1680s onward, as Hungary was reconquered from the Turks, in order to repopulate the territory a lot of land was given to Germans. All these measures not surprisingly provoked resistance at many levels of Hungarian society.

  The simmering discontent flared into two notable rebellions during Leopold’s reign. The first was sparked by the Treaty of Vasvár which Leopold signed with the Turks in 1664. Many Hungarian nobles regarded this treaty as a disgraceful capitulation to the Ottomans, one that sacrificed Hungarian interests to the Habsburgs’ focus on the threat from France. Nobles from several families in both Hungary and Croatia—including the Wesselényis, the Zrinskis, and the Frankapans—in 1670 launched an amateurish revolt that included impractical plans like kidnapping Leopold and offering the Hungarian crown to Louis XIV. Leopold’s loyalists easily suppressed the plot and the noble conspirators were executed. Leopold, however, did not follow through on his advisors’ encouragement to imitate Ferdinand II after White Mountain and definitively crack down on Hungarian liberties. He was plagued by worry over breaking his coronation oath to respect Hungary’s laws. He thus stopped short of making the crown hereditary, but did increase taxes. He also centralized some aspects of the Hungarian administration and ratcheted up Counter-Reformatory activities.