Peace of Linz

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The Peace of Linz was concluded on December 13, 1645 between Emperor Ferdinand III. and Prince Georg I. Rákóczi of Transylvania closed.

prehistory

The Swedish army under Lennart Torstensson moved into Bohemia on January 24, 1645 and defeated the imperial army under Melchior von Hatzfeldt in the battle of Jankau on March 6, 1645 , who was captured by the Swedish. The remaining imperial troops then withdrew to Prague to protect the Bohemian capital from further attacks by the Swedes. The Swedes decided, however, with their approximately 28,000-strong army, instead of advancing to Prague in the direction of Vienna. On March 13th, Jihlava surrendered, the next day Znojmo, both cities after only a short siege. Torstensson now turned further south and stood in front of Krems on March 24th, which surrendered a few days later after initial resistance. On March 24, 1645, the first Swedish soldiers crossed the Danube and reached Göttweig in Lower Austria. The main power moved along the Danube, occupied Klosterneuburg on April 5th and stood in front of Wolfsschanze (today 20th district of Vienna) on April 9th. An attack on Vienna ultimately failed on this hill, which was successfully defended or later recaptured by the Emperor's brother, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Torstensson then withdrew to the north and, from May 4th, besieged the city of Brno, the last large city in Moravia that was not yet in Swedish hands.

Georg I. Rákóczi , Prince of Transylvania, had terminated the 1642 renewed Peace of Szőny (1627) with the Habsburgs in 1643 and then allied himself with France and Sweden. The Transylvanian army then conquered royal Hungary in 1644. In July 1645 Rákóczi led his troops to Moravia to support Torstensson in the siege of the stubbornly defending city of Brno.

Ferdinand III. recognized the danger of a joint military advance by Torstensson and Rákóczi against Vienna and therefore signed the preliminaries for peace with the Prince of Transylvania on August 8, 1645 . On the one hand for this reason, on the other hand because of the failed general attack on the city of Brno, which had been besieged for more than three months on August 15, as well as the increasing difficulties in supplying his troops, Torstensson broke off the siege of Brno on August 23 and withdrew to Silesia.

In the summer of 1645, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, İbrahim , feared an increase in power for the Prince of Transylvania, who was his vassal. He therefore asked Rákóczi to make peace with the emperor. Emperor Ferdinand III. On October 16, 1645 issued his court master Maximilian von und zu Trauttmansdorff secret instructions as well as powers of attorney for the peace negotiations with the Transylvanian prince in Linz .

The Peace of Linz

The Prince of Transylvania undertook to return the emperor's conquests and end his alliance with France and Sweden. Ferdinand III. confirmed the political rights of the Hungarian estates. He granted the Protestants in royal Hungary, including the peasants, freedom of religion to their Catholic landlords. This meant that Rákóczi reasserted all the concessions that Stephan Bocskai had reached in the Peace of Vienna (1606) and Gabriel Bethlen in the Peace of Pressburg (1626). In addition, Rákóczi got some areas hereditary and seven Upper Hungarian counties transferred for life. These seven counties were conquered by Bethlen in the early 1620s. They were supposed to revert to the Habsburgs after his death , but after Bethlen’s death (1629) they remained a point of contention between the Habsburgs and Bethlen’s successor Rákóczi, whose own lands with the headquarters in Sárospatak were in the immediate vicinity of these counties.

By signing the peace treaty on December 13, 1645, the emperor was able to avert the danger of a joint attack by the Swedish and Transylvanian troops on Vienna. He was able to end the war in the east of his empire, the danger of a two-front war was averted.

The Swedes in Austria 1645/47

In 1645 the Swedes conquered most of the cities, towns, castles and monasteries in the Waldviertel by March 30th . On March 31st, Torstensson had Krems on the Danube occupied and on April 5th Korneuburg in Lower Austria. The Kaiser therefore ordered the Wolfsschanze, a bridgehead on the left bank of the Danube on the road to Vienna, to be cleared on April 9th. A day later, the Swedes captured Wolfsschanze and prepared to attack Vienna. Since Torstensson did not receive the expected help from Rákóczi, he decided to break off the campaign to Vienna. Instead, the Swedish troops plundered Lower Austrian and Moravian cities such as Mistelbach , Nikolsburg , Laa or Staatz and on May 4th Torstensson began again to besiege the Moravian capital Brno.

After the failure of the siege of Brno, the Swedes evacuated Lower Austria at the end of September and on December 15, 1645 Lennart Torstensson resigned supreme command of the Swedish army for health reasons. In February 1646 the united imperial and Bavarian troops succeeded in driving the Swedes out of Bohemia. Then the imperial troops conquered Krems on May 5th, Wolfsschanze on May 29th and Korneuburg on August 4th, whose Swedish garrison only surrendered after a protracted siege .

The new Swedish Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustav Wrangel had Bregenz (Vorarlberg) plundered on January 4, 1647 , as many spiritual and secular treasures had been brought to safety there. The value of the booty was at least 6 million guilders.

On February 18, 1647, the Imperial Swedish Preliminary Treaty to the Peace of Westphalia was signed in Osnabrück .

literature

  • Prof. Walter Kleindel; "The Chronicle of Austria" ; Chronik Verlag in Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag GmbH; Gütersloh / Munich; 4th revised and updated edition 1994; ISBN 3-570-14400-3
  • Friedemann needy ; "Pocket Lexicon Thirty Years' War" ; Piper Verlag GmbH; Munich; October 1998; ISBN 3-492-22668-X
  • Péter Hanák; “The History of Hungary - From the Beginnings to the Present” ; Corvina Kiadó, Budapest / Reimar Hobbing Verlag, Essen; 1988; ISBN 963-13-2486-9
  • Imre Gonda / Emil Niederhauser; "The Habsburgs - A European Phenomenon" ; Corvina Kiadó, Budapest / Verlag Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna; 2nd edition 1978/1985; ISBN 963-13-2120-7