The year 1683 was full of significance for Austria. It was a period of victory and defeat, of triumph and humiliation. Austria's wounds were many and dangerous, but her cure was rapid. In the spring of this momentous year she was threatened simultaneously from the East and the West, and she had every reason to fear that she would be similarly assailed from her northern and southern frontiers.

Her troubles originated, as they had often done before, with Hungary—that land of haughty Magyars and enthusiastic patriots. Leopold I. ascended the throne in 1658, and from that time forward every year of his reign had been marked by intestine wars. Sometimes, by force of numbers, the rebellious Hungarians were, for a time, held in subjection; but the fire of patriotism, though smothered, was never extinguished in their hearts. Deep buried under the ashes of many a deluded hope, it lived on, until some friendly breath of encouragement fanned it to activity, and its flames leaped upward, and defied the emperor anew.

Hungary would not submit to be considered as a provincial dependency on Austria. She claimed the constitutional rights guaranteed to her from time immemorial, and recorded in the golden bull of King Andreas. In 1654 the Emperor Ferdinand had promised, both for himself and his successors, that this constitution should be held inviolate; that all foreign troops should be withdrawn from Hungary, while no Hungarians should be called upon to fight elsewhere than on their native soil; that the crown lands were to be inalienable; all offices bestowed upon native-born Hungarians; Protestants secured in the exercise of their religion; and no war undertaken, nor treaty concluded, with any foreign power, without the consent of the Hungarian Diet.

The Emperor Leopold had promised to ratify the constitution. But, in 1664, Austria declared war against Turkey, and called for money and troops from Hungary. The Magyars, not having been consulted as to the expediency of the war, refused to have any thing to do with it. With the help of France, peace was made with the Porte; and, as soon as his foreign difficulties were settled, Leopold bethought himself of his turbulent Hungarians at home. Austrian troops were marched into Hungary, and the Protestant Magyars, in the enjoyment of high offices, were superseded by Catholics.

The indignation of the Hungarians knew no bounds. They took up arms, and swore never to lay them down until they had freed their native land. The revolution broke out in 1670; and such was the fanaticism of the patriots, that their banners bore the cross as their emblem, and every soldier wore a cross upon his shoulder. By this sign they swore eternal enmity to the detested Austrian lancers; and, however they might be outnumbered, they hoped in God, and rushed by thousands to fill up the ranks whence thousands had fallen. Undaunted by reverses, undismayed by danger, new armies of warriors seemed to spring from the blood of the slain. Nor were the brave Hungarians without sympathy in their struggle for freedom; they had allies both powerful and efficient.

Two of their ablest generals. Zriny and Frangipany, had fallen into the hands of the Austrians, and had perished ignominiously on the scaffold; and another hero, Count Tokoly, had fallen at the siege of Arva. But his son survived, a boy who had been rescued from the enemy and conveyed to Transylvania. There he was taught to hate the oppressors of his country; and no sooner was he of an age to serve, than he entered the army. He brought with him succor from Prince Apafy, of Transylvania, and the promise of aid from the Porte. Fired by the enthusiasm of young Emerich Tokoly, the Hungarians renewed the contest with Leopold, and fortune so favored their youthful leader, that he conquered Upper Hungary, marched to Presburg, drove out the Austrians, and called an imperial Diet to consult as to the propriety of deposing the Emperor Leopold from the throne of Hungary.

But Emerich did not tarry at Presburg to attend the Diet. He marched on to Buda to confer with Kara Mustapha, the grand-vizier of Mohammed IV., on the affairs of Hungary. The victories of the young hero had more effect upon Mustapha than any amount of pleading could have done; he was therefore prepared to receive him favorably. Mustapha was ambitious, covetous, and vindictive; he had latterly felt some uneasiness as to the security of his own influence with the Sultan, and he burned to reinstate himself by gaining a victory or two over the Austrians. Moreover, he thought of the booty which would follow each victory; and, in the hope of retrieving his defeat at St. Gotthard's, he concluded a treaty with Count Emerich, which was specially directed against Austria. He promised, in the Sultan's name, arms, money, and men; and, as an earnest of the friendship of his new ally, Emerich was declared King of Hungary.

Under the ruined walls of the fortress of Fulek, which Emerich had taken from the enemy, Mustapha handed him the diploma of royalty which had been drawn up in Constantinople; at the same time bestowing upon him the rank of a Turkish general, and presenting him with a standard and a horsetail.

The newly-appointed king pledged himself, in return, to consider the Sultan as his lord-paramount, and to pay him a yearly tribute of forty thousand florins. He was so elated with his title, and so desirous of humiliating Austria, that, to free himself from the emperor, he consented to become a vassal of the Porte. He signed the treaty, whereupon Kara Mustapha rejected the proposals of alliance which Leopold was making, and began to dream of extending the dominion of the Crescent, and of founding a Moslem empire in the West, whose capital should be Vienna. He dismissed the Austrian ambassadors with cold indifference, and promised the Sultan that the green banner of the Prophet should carry terror and devastation into the very heart of Austria. This was the danger which threatened the emperor from the East. He had equally powerful enemies in the West. Hungary had sent ambassadors to the court of Louis XIV. These ambassadors had been received in Paris as the accredited envoys of an independent and recognized kingdom; and King Louis, a son of the Catholic Church, had carried his hatred to Austria so far, that he entered into a secret alliance with the unbelieving Porte, and promised assistance to the Protestant rebels of Hungary. This assistance he sent at once in the form of money and arms. French officers were dispatched to Hungary, to join the insurgents and discipline their soldiers. And, while Louis was secretly upholding Turkey and Hungary, he was calling councils at home to establish claims to a portion of the imperial dominions of Austria.

These juridical councils were established at Metz and Brisach, and they had instructions from Louis to reannex to his crown all the domains which had ever been held in fief by any of his predecessors, however remote. They began by summoning the lords of the Trois- Eveches to acknowledge their vassalage to France; and they went on to cite before their tribunal the Elector Palatine, the King of Spain, and the King of Sweden; all and each of whom were called upon to do homage to the king, or have their possessions sequestrated.

All Europe was aghast at these monstrous pretensions, but nobody ventured to put them down, for Louis had a standing army of one hundred and forty thousand men, while the German empire, still suffering from its losses in the Thirty Years' War, could scarcely put into the field one-third of this number.

So that, without the drawing of a sword, Louis was suffered to possess himself of the important city of Strasburg, and subsequently of all Alsatia. Finally he claimed the cloister of Wasserburg and the province of Germersheim, and pushed his greed and arrogance to such a height, that Germany at last awakened from her lethargy, and found resolution enough to protest against the aggressions of this royal robber. Louis, in return, proposed to call a universal council at Frankfort, and have his claims investigated. This was agreed to, and each sovereign sent his plenipotentiaries. Meanwhile the King of France kept possession of all the lands in dispute, and stationed his troops at Strasburg, and at every other town in Alsatia.

Here was danger enough for the Emperor Leopold, from the west; while, north and south, his horizon darkened also. The ambitious Victor Amadeus, seeing that Austria was encompassed by enemies, now bethought himself of annexing Lombardy to his dominions, while there was every reason to fear that the bold and enterprising Peter the Great would extend his frontiers to the Baltic Sea, and, with quite as much right as Louis ever had to Strasburg, declare Dantzic to be a part of his Russian territories.