Peace of Eisenburg

The Peace of Eisenburg ( Hungarian vasvári béke , Turkish Vasvar Antlaşması ), also the armistice of Eisenburg , ended the Ottoman - Austrian war of 1663/64 . The contract was concluded on August 9 and 10, 1664 in Eisenburg / Vasvár . With the exchange of the documents ratified by Emperor Leopold I and Sultan Mehmed IV , the contract became valid on September 27, 1664.

Peace treaty or armistice

The peace of Eisenburg was limited to 20 years, as a real peace agreement between the rule of the Muslims ( Dār al-Islām ) and that of the Christians ( Dār al-Harb ) is not possible according to traditional Islamic legal ideas ( Siyar ). The Muslim-Christian peace treaty was rather a temporary armistice , referred to as Hudna in Islam , but which could be extended again and again as required. Furthermore, Muslims on the Christian side were neither legally nor contractually capable . Before secular international law emerged , a war against them was generally considered a just war (bellum iustum) .

prehistory

The independence efforts of the Transylvanian Prince Georg II. Rákóczis since 1657 led to a punitive expedition of the Ottomans against their insubordinate vassals . Leopold I, the Roman-German emperor and also the Hungarian king , tried to take advantage of the instability of the principality . In addition, the Ottomans felt alarmed by Nikolaus Zrinski's construction of the Neu-Zrin fortress at the strategically important confluence of the Mur and Drava rivers near Kaniza . The worsening contrast finally led to the outbreak of war in 1663. The main Ottoman armed forces under Grand Vizier Köprülü Fâzıl Ahmed Pascha were initially clearly superior to the inadequately armed Habsburg troops under Raimondo Montecuccoli and were able to manage several Habsburg fortresses in Upper Hungary , etc. a. Neuhäusel , conquer. It was not until 1664 that Leopold was able to set up an army that was at least roughly equal. The victory of Habsburg and his allies in the Battle of Mogersdorf on August 1, 1664 accelerated negotiations.

Peace negotiations and contract signature

Both the Habsburgs and the Ottomans were ready in principle to make a peace agreement. But the Habsburg side was unwilling to comply with the high demands of the Turks, which resulted from a position of strength. Despite the peace preliminaries , the main points of a future peace treaty, which both parties negotiated on April 11, 1664, the fighting in Hungary continued. On July 30, 1664, the negotiations between the emperor's agent and the grand vizier's envoys failed for the last time. After the defeats of Levencz on July 19 and Mogersdorf on August 1, which stopped the Ottoman offensive in Upper and Lower Hungary, Grand Vizier Fâzıl Ahmed was more willing to compromise. The peace treaty of Eisenburg was a major achievement of Simon Renninger. From 1649 he was imperial resident ( Internuntius ) in Constantinople and as the emperor's agent in 1663/64 repeatedly in the camp of the grand vizier in order to conduct secret negotiations on a peace treaty. He also led the negotiations in Eisenburg, where an agreement was reached on August 9 and 10, 1664 respectively. Simon Renninger and the Grand Vizier exchanged the documents and sent them to Emperor Leopold I and Sultan Mehmed IV for ratification . In Vienna, the sealing of the peace was delayed a little, because after Mogersdorf one was looking for another weapon success and in particular the recovery of the fortress Neuhausel hoped. The Christian troops were not strong enough for an offensive or siege, and the Ottomans did not go on the offensive either, so that some tactics along the border rivers Raab and Waag remained. The original Turkish document was ratified in Vienna on September 9th; Renninger did not receive it until the 20th. On September 27th, the two ratified instruments were exchanged.

Turkish version of the contract

Content and meaning

The contract contains a total of ten articles. The most important are:

Article I: Both the Ottoman and the Habsburg troops should vacate all occupied places in the Principality of Transylvania and leave the country. According to old privileges, the Transylvanian estates should be able to freely elect a new prince.
Article II: The counties of Szabolcs and Sathmar , which were formerly under the Transylvanian Prince Rákóczi , were granted to Leopold I and were not supposed to pay taxes to either the Principality of Transylvania or the Ottoman Empire.
Article III: The emperor is allowed to build fortified places in these two counties, as well as the Ottomans and Transylvanians in their areas. The fortress Zickelhid (Hungarian Székelyhid ) is razed.
Article VI: Both parties are prohibited from rebuilding or occupying the fortress New Zrin near Kaniza.
Article VIII: As a replacement for the lost Neuhäusel fortress, the emperor is allowed to build a fortress on the right bank of the Waag, this was done in 1665 through the construction of Leopoldstadt .
Article X: Embassies and gifts are to be exchanged to “strengthen peace and good friendship”. “As a sign of friendship, the envoy of the Roman emperor will hand over a voluntary gift worth 200,000 guilders ”, the Ottoman side will respond with “equally worthy and appropriate gifts”.

Even if 200,000 guilders are given as a “voluntary gift” for the Habsburg side, Austrian chroniclers and historians endeavored from then on to justify their view, but not to understand this as a tribute . Rather, reciprocal gifts of equal value are common in Muslim diplomacy and represent a mutual sign of favor.

consequences

The dissatisfaction of the Hungarian and Croatian nobility with the peace treaty led to the magnate conspiracy .

literature

Katalin Toma: The Peace of Eisenburg 1664 and its effect on the positioning of the Hungarian political elite. In: Arno Strohmeyer , Norbert Spannenberger (ed.): Peace and conflict management in intercultural spaces. The Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy in the early modern period (= research on the history and culture of eastern Central Europe. 45). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-515-10434-0 , pp. 185-195.
Georg Wagner : The year of the Turks 1664. A European test. Raimund Montecuccoli, the battle of St. Gotthard-Mogersdorf and the Peace of Eisenburg (Vasvár) (= Burgenland Research. Vol. 48, ISSN 1608-2559 ). Burgenland State Archives, Eisenstadt 1964.

Individual evidence

↑ The imperial charter was made after the Ottoman one. According to the Muslim calendar, this bears the date: "on the 16th day of the moon Muharram of the year 1075". This is actually August 9, 1664. In the translation, however, the date was mistakenly given as August 10. This date was also adopted in the imperial document, which was written in Latin, and has become part of European historiography. See Wagner: Das Türkenjahr 1664. 1964, p. 441 and p. 611, note 17.
↑ See Wagner: Das Türkenjahr 1664. 1964, pp. 441–446.
↑ See Wagner: Das Türkenjahr 1664. 1964, pp. 439–441

[1] The imperial charter was made after the Ottoman one. According to the Muslim calendar, this bears the date: "on the 16th day of the moon Muharram of the year 1075". This is actually August 9, 1664. In the translation, however, the date was mistakenly given as August 10. This date was also adopted in the imperial document, which was written in Latin, and has become part of European historiography. See Wagner: Das Türkenjahr 1664. 1964, p. 441 and p. 611, note 17.

[2] See Wagner: Das Türkenjahr 1664. 1964, pp. 441–446.

[3] See Wagner: Das Türkenjahr 1664. 1964, pp. 439–441