The Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire faced each other along a hostile and shifting frontier from ca. 1490 to ca. 1740. From this long period of confrontation only the highlights are familiar in historical literature: the failed siege of Vienna in 1529, the failed siege of 1683, followed by the recovery of once-Habsburg territory in Hungary and Croatia. There are also a few studies of the buildup of Habsburg defenses in Hungary, prior to the Long Turkish War of 1593–1606, ending in a stalemate.

For most of the seventeenth century, scholars have paid scant attention to Habsburg-Ottoman relations. In fact, both mega-states were otherwise preoccupied. After two long and successful wars against Safavid Iran, the Ottomans experienced a period of instability (ca. 1640–1660), even as Cossack raiders threated the Empire's historic sources of grain along the Black Sea. Meanwhile, the end of the Thirty Years’ War left the Habsburg dynasty with frustrated hopes and a mountain of debt. During his long reign, Leopold I (1655–1703) faced a succession crisis, not only in the dynasty's Spanish lands, but even at home, where he had no male heir until after his third marriage in 1673. As for the Ottomans, Vienna was content to be represented at the Porte by “residents” who lacked both the status and the funding provided to ambassadors during the sixteenth century.

There was a flare-up in 1663–1664 when the Ottomans captured the anchor-fortress of Nové Zámky (Ujvar/Neuhausel/Ersekuvár), not far from Vienna's outer defenses. Historians often take the Habsburg victory at Szentgotthárd in 1664 as evidence for a continuing military equilibrium along the frontier. Yet as Georg Michels observes, this was only a temporary defeat; the ensuing Treaty of Vasvár satisfied the main demands of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (Köprülüzade Fazil Ahmed Pasha, 1661–1676). The Habsburg Empire under Siege offers a convincing demonstration of the fragility of Habsburg power in Hungary. It focuses on Upper Hungary—the northern and eastern half of Royal Hungary, roughly coterminous with modern Slovakia.

Previous discussion of unrest in Royal Hungary has centered on the conspiracy of Catholic magnates (led by Férenc Wesselényi and Péter Zrínyi), said to have been offended by Leopold's concessions in Treaty of Vasvár; they hoped to find a more accommodating ruler in Sultan Mehmed IV (1648–1687). But Michels makes a strong case that plotting among the magnates was only the tip of an iceberg. Some decades ago, Lászlo Bénczedi called for an investigation of broader anti-Habsburg and pro-Ottoman sentiment. Acknowledging his work, Michels has followed up with an extensive program of archival research, primarily in Hungary but also in Austria, England, and the Netherlands.

Prior to the reign of Leopold I, Upper Hungary was largely spared the experience of a Counter-Reformation. In this region, where even Habsburg soldiers were Protestant, the budget for one key fortress had from 1574 included a salary for a Calvinist pastor—until 1668. In 1670, the garrison here would join an anti-Habsburg rebellion. Elsewhere, evidence shows some villages reacting with fury to the installation of Catholic pastors.

The Habsburg command structure was strong enough to collect taxes from Leopold's subjects and expel Protestant pastors, but it was not strong enough either to repel all-too-frequent Ottoman raids or to withstand any serious challenge from within. As Michels notes, troops and commanders constantly complained of shortages; whatever funds Vienna could spare for Hungary were mainly devoted to reconstruction of the fortress at Komárno (renamed Leopoldsburg), to defend against Ottoman attacks from newly conquered Nové Zámky. On the two occasions when rebellion broke out, most Habsburg civil and military personnel fled the country, and garrisons often mutinied.

Ahmed Köprülü designated Péter Zrínyi as go-between for discussions between potential rebels and the Porte. As discontent spread, Hungary's anti-Habsburg magnates provided legitimacy more than leadership. No partisan of the older nationalist historiography, Michels recognizes that Hungarians who deeply mistrusted the Habsburgs did not trust one another; Protestants and Catholics were mutually suspicious at best, nobles and magnates had long-standing quarrels, and Lutheran mining towns and Calvinist nobles did not always see eye-to-eye. But in the thirteen counties that made up Upper Hungary, the “principal power brokers” of the anti-Habsburg movement were “a supra-county confederation” (100) of the nobles who dominated the county assemblies.

According to Michels, “the driving force” behind successive rebellions in 1670 and 1672 was “the widespread conviction that the Ottomans were Hungary's only hope” (136). The first revolt began with the news that Zrínyi had received confirmation from the Sultan of Ottoman military support for an anti-Habsburg uprising in Hungary. The second revolt collapsed upon receipt of another letter from Zrínyi, this time saying that “the Ottomans have deceived us.” Everything thus depended on the Grand Vizier, but no one could penetrate the intentions of Ahmed Köprülü, neither Habsburg spies at the Porte nor the periodic embassies from rebels in Hungary.

It has sometimes been observed that Hungary never had a religious war. But the pattern of interconfessional hostility in Upper Hungary suggests comparison with “peacetime” periods in France in between formally declared religious wars. Habsburgs could be brutal in imposing their will on Protestant townsmen and villagers (one diarist-observer gives Ottoman troops a backhanded compliment—they did not kill at random). When the wheel had turned, some Calvinist nobles declared a “day of reckoning: for Catholic clergy and laymen. The more extensive revolt of 1672 may or may not have been “a great unwritten drama of European history” (252), but the extensive documentation provided here gives new and important context to more familiar military and political events.

What is lacking is a sense of the anchor points of a more traditional history. Why did Vienna expend so little effort on defending Habsburg territory against Ottoman incursions? Why did Ahmed Köprülü decide, on two occasions, that Ottoman interests north of the Black Sea were more important than exploiting the opportunities on offer in Hungary? These questions—on which the outcome of events turned—are alluded to, not discussed. Social history can indeed enrich our understanding of war and politics, but, in turn, the newer history still needs the orientation offered by its older sibling.