Giorgio Basta

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Giorgio Basta , 17th century engraving
Giorgio Basta , 17th century watercolor
Street sign in Brindisi Montagna

Giorgio Basta also Georg or Georgius Count Basta von Hust , Freiherr von Sult and Count von Huszt and Mármaros (born January 30, 1550 in Rocca in the province of Taranto ; † August 26, 1607 in Vienna or November 20, 1607 in Rocca near Taranto) was a Habsburg - imperial field marshal and court war councilor, superior team of the Marmaros county, then governor in Transylvania, army commander in Hungary and military specialist writer.

Life

He was the son of Demetrio Basta, an Albanian Epirot who settled in the Kingdom of Naples after Skanderbeg's death in 1468 during the fourth wave of emigration of the Arbëresh and came to Austria for imperial military service .

Giorgio received his military training from 1589–1590 in the Spanish Netherlands at a Spanish-Italian war school. At a young age he made a name for himself in the military undertakings of the Spanish governor Alexander Farnese .

Georg Basta then entered the service of the Roman-German Emperor Rudolf II. In the so-called Long Turkish War from 1593 to 1606 between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire , he gave him the supreme command of the Habsburg army and the administration of Transylvania as an imperial fief. On September 4, 1605 (dated Prague) he became imperial count with the addition of "von Hust" (Huszt in the northern Hungarian Marmaros county) with an improvement in the coat of arms , became a Bohemian lord on March 15, 1606 and received the incolate . He was commissioned to secure Transylvania, which had been contractually acquired through the occupation of the House of Habsburg in 1598, because of the talent, fearlessness and iron perseverance attributed to him.

The former prince of Transylvania, Sigismund Báthory , did not keep the contract of assignment concluded with Emperor Rudolf II and transferred the land to his cousin, the young Cardinal Andreas Báthory . The Voivode Michael the Brave also intended to conquer Wallachia and Transylvania and add them to his domain. In autumn 1599 he defeated the Cardinal Prince Andreas Báthory , who lost his life. In November 1599, the emperor appointed Michael as his governor and Georg Basta as military commander. The two got into an argument. Georg Basta accused Michael of treason, beat him at Miriszló in September 1600 and drove him out of the country.

In this situation Sigismund Báthory wanted to regain control of Transylvania. Michael went to the emperor to regain his favor. Together, Basta and Michael beat Sigismund Báthory on August 3, 1601 near Gorosslo (ung. Goroszló, now Gurăslău, Hereclean Commune, Sălaj County). But only a few days later, on August 19th, Michael was murdered, who had united Transylvania , Wallachia and Moldova under his hand and thus Emperor Rudolf II had become too powerful.

Georg Basta's style of rulership in Transylvania brought about a population uprising under Moses Székely in 1603, which he was able to suppress; During a second under Stephan Bocskai he was recalled to Hungary against the Ottomans in 1604, but in 1605 he split Bocskai's Heiducken army at Osgyan.

After Michael's death, the Habsburgs tried four more times to bring the estate-based Transylvania and its income under their absolutist control and centralized administration. In the course of the fighting, Basta and his Habsburg mercenary troops and the Transylvanian princes and their army groups took turns in the rule for a few months. The country was devastated. In 1606 the Habsburgs finally withdrew from Transylvania, defeated; the principality remained class and (relatively) independent.

When in 1606 the Peace of Zsitvatorok with the Ottomans was closed, drew Basta, taken since 1605 in the Reichsgrafen- and Austrian Mr stand back and died on August 26, 1607 in Vienna and was 1,612 in the local Franciscan Church (Vienna) to the grave placed.

A memorandum written by him shows how Georg Count Basta von Hust assessed the conditions in Transylvania at that time. He advocates the use of an extensive settlement of the area by German colonists.

Hungarian and Romanian historians describe Count Basta as a man of violent character, motivated by hatred of the Magyars . During his brief reign in Transylvania, the principality's economic situation deteriorated. In the terror waged by its plundering armies of destitute mercenaries , Transylvania lost a third of its population and most of its aristocratic upper class.

Report from a contemporary witness

General Basta's barbarism in Hungary, 1604

A short excerpt from the report of the siege of the city of Bistritz (now in Romania), which Georg Basta carried out and how he feared and ruined this city and area under two years , by the Bistritz pastor Stephan Decani († 1682):

“And soon both Haiducken and Walloons spread to the villages where they lived in the most cruel ways. Those who were cut down were still happy. For they twisted ropes around the heads of the prisoners until their brains spurted out; or they tortured their bodies with burning coals to steal their hidden goods. - There was no sparing here, no humanity! Men, women, children - even those in the womb - became victims of the bitter inhuman soldiers. They cut open the breasts of women and sprinkled them with salt; The nails of young men were cut open and nailed to trees, then these unfortunate people were driven around the trees until all their guts were wrapped around and they fell dead. - Many took refuge in the mountains, only to another, and slower deaths. Hunger and frost, which were now extraordinary, became their murderers! "

- Stephan Decani : Quoted from Johann Seivert : Transylvania letters: Seventh and eighth letters. From the sad fate of the city of Bistritz in 1602

Works

Basta wrote some military manuals based on his experience of warfare in Eastern Europe. The most famous of these are

  • “Il maestro di Campo generale…” (Venice, 1606);
German edition: Il Maestro di Campo Generale; That is / external report / report and explanation / from the office of a General Feldt-Obersten: how he, besides carrying high ampts and Befelchs half, / order the field / and lead and rule his army. Oppenheim 1617.
  • “Il governo della cavalleria leggiera” (Venice, 1612);
also in German: Gouverno della Cavalleria, This is / report of the leadership of the light horses: that also concerns the heavy horses / so much the captains knew about / understood. - And Auffs neuw explained with figure and demonstrationibus by the same / now interpreted out of Italian into our German mother tongue / and cut into Kupffer by Johann Theodor de Bry. Oppenheim 1614.

Relatives

Georg Basta married Anna de Liedekerke in the Netherlands in 1589, on Zulte, who died on March 27, 1619 in Courtrai , a daughter of Anton Ritter de Liedekerke, on Heule, Morrsele and Axele, and his wife Louise de la Barre, on Mouscron , was. Their marriage had four children:

  1. George the Younger (* 1599 or 1590), estate in the Duchy of Opava ;
  2. Karl (* 1591, † Troppau 1612), imperial equestrian officer and chamberlain to Archduke Mathias;
  3. Mary Magdalene; married to Don Franzisco Marques de Medina Carausa, royal Spanish cavalry captain;
  4. Ferdinand Graf Basta von Hust, Comte de Mouscron (* around 1596, † September 29, 1652 in Hainburg an der Donau in Lower Austria), on Zulte, Nazareth, Aelbeke, Oosthove, Moorsele, Lefegham, Bisseghem, pledgee of the Troppau castles (12th June 1613 included under the estates of the Duchy of Opava ); married in Courtrai on July 7, 1618 with Franziska Albertine van der Gracht, in whose marriage twelve children were born.

literature

  • Meinolf Arens: Habsburg and Transylvania 1600 - 1605 . Violent attempts at incorporation of an East Central European principality into an early absolutist imperial association. Publication series "Studia Transylvanica", Volume 27, Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2001, XVI
  • Charles-Albert de Behault: Le général Georges Basta, comte d'Hust et du Saint-Empire, terreur des armées ottomanes , Bulletin trimestriel de l'Association de la noblesse du royaume de Belgique, n ° 300, October 2019.
  • Wilhelm Edler von Janko :  Basta, Georg Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 131.
  • Reinhard Rudolf Heinisch: Basta, Georg Graf . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 1. Munich 1974, p. 150
  • Procházka novel : Genealogical handbook of extinct Bohemian noble families . Neustadt an der Aisch 1973, ISBN 3-7686-5002-2 (master sequence Basta von Hust, pp. 35–37 with further references)

Web links

Commons : Giorgio Basta  - collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ according to ADB; according to other sources 1544
  2. ↑ according to ADB 1612
  3. ^ Based on the novel by Procházka , see literature
  4. ↑ D. Filadefos Mugnos : Teatro Genologico Delle Famiglie Nobili, Titolate, Feudatarie & Antiche Nobili, del Fedelissimo Regno di Sicilia, Viventi & Estinte, Libro VI. Palermo 1655, p. 202 (Italian, online version in Google Book Search [accessed January 2, 2017]).
  5. ↑ Gregory Hanlon: The Hero of Italy: Odoardo Farnese, Duke of Parma, His Soldiers, and His Subjects in the Thirty Years' War . University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-968724-4 , pp. 105 (English, online version in Google Book Search [accessed January 2, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Telos . Telos Press, Candor 1989 (English).
  7. ↑ D. Coetzee, LW Eysturlid: Philosophers of War: The Evolution of History's Greatest Military Thinkers [2 volumes]: The Evolution of History's Greatest Military Thinkers . ABC-CLIO, 2013, ISBN 978-0-313-07033-4 .
  8. ↑ J. Murray O. Blewitt, JB PENTLAND: A Handbook for Travelers in Southern Italy ... Sixth edition [of the work originally written by Octavian Blewitt], revised and corrected on the spot. [The editor's preface signed: JBP, i. e. Joseph B. Pentland.] 1868.
  9. ↑ G. Hanlon, URPG Hanlon: The Twilight Of A Military Tradition: Italian Aristocrats And European Conflicts, 1560-1800 . Taylor & Francis, 2008, ISBN 978-1-135-36143-3 .
  10. ↑ Lawrence, DR: The Complete Soldier: Military Books and Military Culture in Early Stuart England, 1603-1645 . Brill, 2009, ISBN 978-90-04-17079-7 .
  11. ^ Metamorphosis Transylvaniae . Taylor & Francis, 2014, ISBN 978-1-317-85664-1 .
  12. ↑ Ungrisches Magazin , Pressburg 1781, Vol. I / 2, pp. 173–183, here p. 175.
personal data
SURNAME Basta, Giorgio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Basta, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION General Feldobrist in the service of Emperor Rudolf II.
DATE OF BIRTH 1544 or January 30, 1550
PLACE OF BIRTH Rocca near Taranto, Naples
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1607
Place of death Vienna