The Emperor was exposed on either side to these two implacable enemies. At Versailles, as at the Porte, had the destruction of the house of Austria been sworn.

But France was the power which, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, menaced most seriously the independence of her neighbours. Turkey was, perhaps, from her internal weakness and faulty constitution, in no condition to effect a lasting conquest, however great her mere destructive energies might be. An ingenious nation and an ambitious king, able ministers and skilful generals, revenues, ships, colonies, commercial enterprise, a central situation among divided foes, combined to render France the dominant power of the age.

The great Turkish Vizier, the restorer of order and prosperity, Ahmed Kiuprili, had had a greater counterpart in the French minister, Cardinal Richelieu. The Sultan, Mahomet IV., was wanting in all those qualities which made Louis XIV. for long the successful administrator of a despotic power. The armies of France, under the leadership of a CondÉ, a Turenne, a Luxembourg, were the finest of the world, the envy of neighbouring princes, the pattern for all soldiers. The Duke of Marlborough and John Sobieski both learnt their first lessons in military affairs under French command. Prince Eugene vainly sought employment in the French troops; their opposition to himself taught William III. the art of war.

Nor was the French ascendency won by arms alone. The order and splendour of her government, the genius of her authors, the attractions of her society, the diplomatic skill of her ambassadors, made a French party in every court in Europe.

Portugal may be said to have owed her independent existence to France; Holland till 1672 ranked as a French ally; Sweden, too far removed to be a rival, was an almost constant friend, till Louis' aggressions alienated her also in 1681. France had a party in Poland; the petty princes and republics of Italy vacillated between her and the Empire; in England she had had Cromwell as an ally, and she held both Charles II. and his opponents in her pay. She maintained an understanding with Turkey. Discontented Romanists in England and Ireland, unruly Protestants in Hungary, were alike taught to look to her for advice and for assistance. Her frontiers were steadily advancing at the expense of Spain and of the German princes. Neither force nor treaties seemed to avail aught against her superior strength and cunning. The Lotharingian bishoprics and their dependencies; Elsass, Breisach and Bar, Roussillon, Franche ComtÉ, parts of Flanders, of Artois, of Hainault and Luxemburg, the free imperial city of Strassburg, the territory of Orange, were steadily absorbed by her, and thoroughly incorporated with the French kingdom.

Her opponents saw no possibility of resistance, save in a great confederacy against her. Her power was not finally checked, nor her ambition confined within bounds, till such a confederacy was made. But it is hardly too much to say that such a confederacy would have been scarcely possible had the Turks been completely victorious at Vienna in 1683.

Three years later than that deliverance, in 1686, the League of Augsburg was formed. It was ultimately the union of the Emperor, the German princes, Sweden, Spain, Holland and the Pope, against an ambition that menaced all. This League was the basis of that Grand Alliance which finally defeated France under Marlborough and Eugene. But the true foundations of a similar alliance had been laid before, in 1682, principally by the endeavours of the Prince of Waldeck, in the treaty of Laxenberg between the Circles of Upper Germany and the Emperor.

This incipient League against France had been practically suspended by the Turkish invasion. A Turkish success must have dissolved it. The Pope had been zealous in forming the "Holy League" against the Turks and in promoting union against France. Had Vienna fallen, fear of the Sultan would have driven him into the arms of Louis, and he would have drawn the Catholic powers at least along with him. Probably all the States united in the "Holy League" must have demanded French support for their own salvation. With Austria and Poland beaten, France, and France alone, could have assumed the leadership of Europe against the East. The German Protestant princes would have been ranged under the command of Luxembourg and of VendÔme; Louis would have triumphed upon the Danube; the house of Austria would have existed only by the sufferance of her ancient enemy; and French influence would have been riveted, as a chain, by the force of admiration and of gratitude, upon the neck of Europe. Such an event Louis expected, and the Emperor feared. As the Turks drew near, the French armies lay ready upon the frontier, ready to take advantage of the approaching catastrophe—ready to avenge, but not to save the Empire.

We in England, safe as we were from Turkish invasion, were by no means unaffected by the struggle. Nothing which tended to increase or diminish the power of France or of the German princes could be indifferent to us, and at that particular time our fortunes were closely bound up with those of the powers opposing France.

The motive which induced the Dutch government and the other allies of Augsburg to sanction the descent of William III. upon our shores, and to withdraw, at a critical moment, the flower of their forces upon such a doubtful enterprise, was the necessity of including England in their league. Though James II. would no doubt have awakened resistance in some form or other anyhow, the plot which actually overthrew him was hatched abroad among the allies, and executed by the help of foreign troops and foreign money. English men, ships, and money were needed to beat the French. No method was open for obtaining them except by the superseding of King James, entirely or practically, by William, as king or regent. No personal aims nor admiration of Whig principles would have justified the risks William ran. In truth, neither the allies nor the Dutch government would have allowed him to run such risk at all, save for the common good of the League and of Europe. But a Turkish victory at Vienna would have meant the probable non-existence of the League, by the rallying of half its members to the side of France. It would certainly have meant such a change of circumstances upon the continent, as would have rendered it highly improbable that an army, principally furnished from Germany, could be spared to go to England. James and the Whig nobility would have fought their quarrel alone, with the High-Church Tory majority of the country as arbiters of the strife. Therefore, had the battle of Vienna been fought differently, the Boyne, La Hogue and Blenheim might never have been fought at all. Forces supplied by England, or paid by England, commanded by Marlborough at Blenheim and at Ramilies, broke French power. The power of making the alliance which fought at Blenheim and at Ramilies was won at Vienna.

To turn to Sir William Temple's views again, so convinced was he that a Turkish invasion of Austria would tend to the great advantage of France, that he believed that the Turks themselves would see it, and for that very reason refrain from the enterprise; it being against their interest to make any one Christian power so strong as France would then become.[5]

It is certain that Louis XIV. fully appreciated the value of that diversion of their attention from himself, which an attack from Hungary upon the rear of the German powers would cause. It is equally certain that he, the eldest son of the Church, the most Christian King, the persecutor of the Huguenots, had some understanding with Mohammedans and with Hungarian Protestant malcontents. And this, too, at a time when religious passions still ran high; when the forces of Europe were everywhere divided, owing to religious intolerance; when France herself was about to be fatally injured by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Louis, however, intrigued as readily with Hungarian Protestants as with Irish Romanists, and the intolerance of the Emperor gave every opportunity for interference. Indeed, the attacks of the Emperor Leopold upon the religion of some of his Hungarian subjects well nigh proved fatal to Austria. The Protestants preferred Mohammedan rule, which, if contemptuous, may he just, and is not avowedly persecuting, to the oppressions of a court dominated by the Jesuit fathers. Attempts to Germanize their nation and to override their laws united Hungarians of all religions in a common hostility to Vienna. A dangerous conspiracy, fomented by France, was discovered, and crushed in 1671 by the execution of the principal leaders. But Emerich Count Tekeli, the son of one of the chiefs involved, escaping into Transylvania, threw himself upon the protection of the Turks, and with their assistance commenced a guerilla warfare in Hungary. Numbers of the inhabitants, irrespective of their religion, joined his standard. A levy, under French officers, was made even in Poland for the assistance of the insurgents. With the almost open aid of the Pasha of Buda, their operations assumed the character of regular warfare, and they fully held their own against the Imperial generals.

It was fortunate for Austria that, just as the obligations of a peace and internal confusion had prevented the Turks from attacking Hungary during the Thirty Years' War, so this rising was not taken advantage of by the Porte, in spite of French solicitations, till after the peace of Nimuegen in 1679. During the contest with France, from 1673 to 1679, the Polish war had occupied the attention of the Turks, and the Austrian government had been untroubled. They had not at the same time to wage open war with the East and West. Yet even now, though peace nominally continued in Western Europe, France was glad to avail herself of those difficulties of the Court of Vienna, to which she herself was contributing. Louis seized Strassburg, and quietly annexed other places by the pretended legal decisions of packed tribunals. He attacked the Spanish Netherlands, and conceived himself to be acting generously in that he refrained from taking Luxemburg. It was enough that Austria should be spared the task of fighting, at the same time, on behalf of Spain against the French, and on her own behalf against the Infidels. That the house of Bourbon should strive to embarrass the house of Hapsburg, by intrigues in Turkey, in Hungary and in Poland, was but in accord with a traditional policy, which no danger to their common Christendom could be expected to overrule.

But 1683 was a year of disaster for Louis. In that year he lost two of his natural sons, his Queen, and his greatest minister, Colbert. Above all, in that year his designs against the Emperor were destined to be foiled by the interference of Sobieski, the Deus ex machina for Christendom and for the Empire.