The Principality of Transylvania is often marginalized in international works on the Thirty Years’ War. Much of the regional research, in turn, remains confined to those who read the local languages. One of the study’s foremost purposes, therefore, is to introduce an international audience to pertinent findings in recent Hungarian historiography. To this end, Budapest historian Gábor Kármán assembled a group of primarily Hungarian specialists in the field. Their contributions comprise five chapters about military matters, one of which concerns their financial aspects, two chapters about diplomatic negotiations, three chapters about political propaganda and imagery, as well as one concluding chapter about the nature of the war.
In his introductory chapter, Géza Pálffy presents an outline of the region’s wartime experience. He sees the Transylvanian campaigns as setbacks for both Hungary and the Habsburg monarchy. The economic devastations diminished the value of royal Hungary for the monarchy, whereas repeated insurrections bred mistrust. Thus, the war had a lasting and unfavorable impact on the relationship between Vienna and Hungary.
This outline is followed by a large section on military affairs. In two chapters, János B. Szabó describes the development of Transylvanian military traditions, which combined native horseback with Western mercenary elements. Whereas Szabó’s first chapter focuses on organizational aspects, his second reevaluates Gábor Bethlen’s three campaigns against the emperor between 1619 and 1626, which the author describes as more reasonable and significant than commonly held in international literature. István Czigány, in turn, analyzes the impact of György Rákóczi I. In the 1640s, the Transylvanian prince grasped the opportunity to gain Ottoman approval as well as the assistance of anti-Habsburg powers for an intervention in the war. Even though Rákóczi was a lesser military leader than Bethlen, the favorable international situation allowed him to secure greater political gains for himself and Hungarian Protestants. István Kenyeres highlights the pivotal economic aspect in Transylvanian military history and compares the resources of the principality and its Habsburg nemesis. Although the Habsburgs had superior financial capabilities, they were rarely able to concentrate them on Transylvania alone, which evened the playing field noticeably. Finally, Balázs Sudár documents the participation of Ottoman troops in the campaigns of Gábor Bethlen. Their value was questionable: the larger the Ottoman contingent, the smaller the military results. In addition, Bethlen’s transfer of Ottoman soldiers to northwestern Hungary tarnished his reputation in the Hungarian and Western public.
The subsequent section of the book examines Transylvania’s alliances. Gábor Kármán traces the diplomatic contacts with Sweden in the period from 1626 to 1643. In the earlier phase of the war, Gustavus Adolphus tried to engage Bethlen in his conflict with Poland, while the latter preferred joint actions against the Habsburgs. Whereas these projects failed to materialize, Swedish-Transylvanian cooperation was more successful in the 1640s. Zsuzsanna Hámori Nagy, in turn, describes the erratic negotiations between Gábor Bethlen and the French court in the 1620s and sees them as precursors of the 1645 Treaty of Munkács, which finally established an official alliance between the two countries. The negotiations primarily revolved around Transylvanian demands for inclusion in a universal peace treaty and protection against retribution by the emperor.
Gábor Almási shows the double-edged centrality of Ottoman vassalage for Transylvania’s international standing. On the one hand, the prospect of Ottoman support made the principality a serious military contender. On the other hand, this dependence on the Ottomans not only limited Transylvania’s policy choices but also exposed its princes to accusations of religious treachery. Nóra G. Etényi continues this line of investigation with her analysis of Transylvania’s political image in the wartime propaganda of the Holy Roman Empire. Examining a multitude of contemporary prints, Etény documents the strong representation of Transylvanian topics in the German debate, particularly during the reign of Gábor Bethlen. Kees Teszelszky, in turn, traces the image of Hungary and Transylvania in the Dutch Republic. The Netherlands and especially Amsterdam played a pivotal role in the contemporary printing industry. Thus, their generally positive representation in Dutch publications, based on religious affinities as well as shared Habsburg antagonists, benefited Transylvanian and other Hungarian Calvinists in the wider European debate.
The volume concludes with the editor’s nuanced discussion of whether the Thirty Years’ War in the Hungarian lands—as expressed in the Transylvanian military interventions—constituted a religious war. In line with corresponding assessments regarding the religious nature of the overall conflict, the author finds weighty arguments for both interpretations. In the end, he describes György Rákóczi as more confessionally oriented than Gábor Bethlen but sees the religious tensions as an underlying constant of seventeenth-century Hungarian politics.
The Princes of Transylvania in the Thirty Years War merges updated versions of well-known Hungarian publications with select new research. Placing Transylvania firmly in a Hungarian context, the authors argue that its princes did not intervene in the Thirty Years’ War primarily as rulers of their polity but as leaders of the Hungarian opposition to the Habsburgs. They also demonstrate that the principality’s tributary status to the Ottomans was not without benefits, as it provided a powerful ally against external interventions.
The volume has a clear focus on diplomatic and especially military history and presents multiple angles and interpretations. The individual segments are highly informative but remain somewhat isolated from each other. This would have made it especially pertinent to fill the gaps and interweave the diverse threads in a comprehensive conclusion. Gábor Kármán’s instructive chapter on the nature of the Thirty Years’ Wars in the Hungarian lands can only partially fulfill this role. Thus, this valuable study provides international readers with important new findings on Transylvania’s role in the Thirty Years’ War, but not yet with a full picture.
