The peace in many respects marked the beginning of a new epoch. The Holy Roman Empire from then on was reduced to a loose union of otherwise independent states, and Habsburg politics shifted its emphasis, falling back entirely on the political, military, and financial resources of the hereditary Habsburg lands, now including also Bohemia. The new central organs and the administrative bodies of the territories took on much greater importance than the remaining institutions of the Holy Roman Empire. The emperor came to rely on a standing army rather than on troops provided by the German princes.
The heavy drain the religious wars had made on the population of the Austrian territories was compensated for by immigrants from the Catholic parts of the empire and by Croatian refugees from the southeast. The economic position of the peasants on the whole deteriorated. Many members of the nobility, as well as the church, acquired new property. In mining, boom and depression followed quickly upon each other. The loss of many experienced miners during the Counter-Reformation resulted in difficulties, but the government took several steps toward improving and extending the salt mines. In 1625 it founded the Innerberg Union, under which Steiermark’s iron industry was reorganized. The emperor also tried to interfere with the trade organizations of the towns, though without much success. Trade and finance in the Austrian territories were dominated by foreign capital.
The cultural life of the period was also dominated by the religious struggle. In the field of education the schools of the denominational parties rivaled each other. In 1585 a Jesuit university was founded at Graz, while at Salzburg a Benedictine university was established (1623). Austrian humanists produced some outstanding works of poetry and historical writings, and the sovereigns were great patrons of the arts, but on the whole this was an epoch dominated by Italian and Western influences. Austria as a great power
After the Thirty Years’ War, Austrian rulers were understandably reluctant to enter into another military conflict. In 1654 Ferdinand IV, the eldest son of the emperor, died. His brother, the future emperor Leopold I, who had been destined for a church career, was then considered as heir to the throne and was recognized as such by Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. In Germany, however, difficulties arose when France declared itself against Leopold. Nevertheless, following the death of Emperor Ferdinand, Leopold was finally elected (1658) after having conceded constitutional limitations that restricted his liberty of action in foreign politics. West German princes under Johann Philipp von Schönborn, archbishop of Mainz, formed the French-oriented League of the Rhine. At the same time, Austria was engaged in the northeast when it intervened in the war between Sweden and Poland (1658) in order to prevent the collapse of Poland. There were some military successes, but the Treaty of Oliva (1660) brought no territorial gains for Austria, though it stopped the advance of the Swedes in Germany.
During the Thirty Years’ War the Turkish front had been quiet, but in the 1660s a new war broke out with the Turks (1663–64) because of a conflict over Transylvania, where a successor had to be appointed for György II Rákóczi, who had been killed fighting against the Turks. The Turks conquered the fortress of Neuhäusel in Slovakia, but the imperial troops succeeded in throwing them back. The Austrian military success was not, however, reflected in the terms of the Treaty of Vasvár: Transylvania was given to Mihály Apafi, a ruler of pro-Turkish sympathies. A minor territorial concession was also made to the Turks. The year after the Turkish peace, Tirol and the Vorlande reverted to Leopold I (1665), and the second period of the Habsburg partition (1564–1665) came to an end.
In Hungary dissatisfaction with the results of the Turkish war spread. Not only the Protestants, who were threatened by the Counter-Reformation, but also many Catholic nobles were alarmed by Habsburg absolutism. A group of Hungarian nobles and Steiermark’s Count Hans Erasmus of Tattenbach entered into a conspiracy. The Austrian government, informed of their activities, had four of the ringleaders executed—an action that led to a rising by rebels known as Kuruzen (Crusaders).
In the meantime, the position of the Habsburgs in the west had again deteriorated. At first, Leopold I’s leading statesmen, Johann Weikhart, Fürst (prince) von Auersperg (dismissed in 1669), and the president of the Court Council of War, Wenzel Eusebius, Fürst von Lobkowitz, remained rather passive in view of the expansionist policies of Louis XIV of France. They also stayed outside the Triple Alliance of Holland, England, and Sweden that was concluded in order to ward off the attacks of Louis against the Spanish Netherlands. When Louis actually invaded Holland, the emperor finally entered the war, but, in the ensuing Treaties of Nijmegen (1679), he had to cede Freiburg im Breisgau to France.
Another and still more menacing danger appeared in the southeast. After some deliberation the leader of the Hungarian rebels, Imre Thököli, had asked the Turks for help, whereupon the grand vizier Kara Mustafa Pasa organized a large Turkish army and marched it toward Vienna. Habsburg diplomats succeeded in concluding an alliance between Austria and Poland. Meanwhile, imperial troops under Charles IV (or V) Leopold, duke of Lorraine and Bar, tried to hold back the Turks but had to retreat. From July 17 to September 12, 1683, Vienna was besieged by the Turks. Deciding against a direct assault, the Turks had begun to drill tunnels underneath the bastions of the city when relief columns arrived from Bavaria, Saxony, Franconia, and Poland. King John III Sobieski of Poland took over the command of the relieving army, which descended upon the Turks and dispersed them. The emperor concluded a pact with Poland and the Venetian republic known as the Holy League. In 1685 Neuhäusel was won back, and in September 1686 Ofen (Buda) was captured despite fierce Turkish resistance.
In 1687 the Hungarian diet recognized the hereditary rights of the male line of the Habsburgs to the Hungarian throne. In 1688 Belgrade, Serbia, was conquered, and Transylvania was secured by imperial troops. Meanwhile, Louis XIV had begun an offensive against the German Palatinate that grew into the War of the Grand Alliance. This war meant that no further troops could be spared for the Turkish war, and in 1690 all recent conquests in the south, including Belgrade, were lost again. A victory of the imperial and the allied German troops under Margrave Louis William I of Baden-Baden near Slankamen, Serbia, (1691) prevented the Turks from advancing farther, but then the margrave was ordered to the Rhine front. Eventually Prince Eugene of Savoy took over the command and gained a decisive victory over the Turks in the Battle of Zenta (1697). After another offensive against Bosnia, the Turks finally decided to negotiate a peace. In the Treaty of Carlowitz (1699) Hungary, Transylvania, and large parts of Slavonia (now in Croatia) fell to the Habsburg emperor. Meanwhile, the war in the west, overshadowed already by the question of the Spanish succession, had come to an end with the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697). War of the Spanish Succession
From 1701 to 1714 Austria was involved in hostilities with France—the War of the Spanish Succession—over the heir to the Spanish throne. The childless king Charles II of Spain, a Habsburg, had willed all his possessions to a Bourbon prince—a grandson of Louis XIV of France. All those who disliked the idea of a French hegemony in Europe consequently united against the French. The emperor declared war (1701) and was immediately supported by Brandenburg-Prussia and Hanover. In the spring of 1702, England and Holland entered the war in the Grand Alliance against France. Louis XIV was able to win the electoral princes of Bavaria and Cologne as his allies. At this critical juncture another Hungarian rising, led by Ferenc II Rákóczi, occurred. The rebels were prepared to join forces with the enemies of Austria and for years engaged Austrian troops. The rebels even threatened Vienna, whose suburbs had to be fortified. In the war with France, imperial troops fought on four fronts: in Italy, on the Rhine, in the Spanish Netherlands, and in Spain. Much larger forces were mobilized than had been customary during the 17th century, and the financial drain on the imperial treasury was so heavy that the emperor had to resort to Dutch and English loans. When Bavaria entered the war on the side of the French, Austria was in further danger, until the Battle of Blenheim (1704), in which an English and Austrian army under the duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the French and Bavarian forces.