Magnate conspiracy

This treaty – which ended the Fourth Austro-Turkish War – was highly unpopular in the Military Frontier, and those who were involved in the conspiracy intended to reopen hostilities with the Ottoman Empire after they broke away from Habsburg rule.

The Zrinski brothers and their associate Fran Krsto Frankapan were motivated, not only by anger over Emperor Leopold's recent peace agreement with the Ottomans, but even more so by his preference for paying more attention to Western Europe while leaving much of Hungary and Croatia under Turkish rule.

[2] Similarly to many other European Governments during the 17th century, the Imperial Court was increasingly centralising the administration of the state so they could introduce a more consistent policy of both mercantilism and absolute monarchy.

[2] Similarly to 16th- and 17th-century France, the main obstacle towards a more centralized government was the military and political power and de facto independence of the wealthiest nobles.

Instead of succeeding, the Magnate's poorly organized attempt at a regime change revolt and their extremely foolhardy decision to seek Ottoman backing, while at the same time planning to later recapture much more of Croatia and Hungary from rule by both Sharia Law and the House of Osman, caused the Magnate's plans to be leaked to Emperor Leopold and caused the monarch to order a political purge and execute the conspiracy's leaders for high treason.

Although initially reluctant to commit forces and cause an outright war with the Ottomans, he had by 1661 sent some 15,000 of his soldiers under his field marshal Raimondo Montecuccoli.

This became important, especially because it showed that Hungarian leaders, without direct Habsburg involvement and perhaps backed up by France, could hold their own diplomacy in Rome.

[citation needed] Eventually, the Teutonic Order would also send between 500 and 1000 elite knights to Hungary in support of the Imperial armies against the Ottomans.

[8] By late 1663 and early 1664, the coalition had not only taken back Ottoman-conquered land but also cut off Ottoman supply lines and captured several Ottoman-held fortresses within Hungary.

In the meantime, a large Ottoman army, led by the Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha and numbering up to 100,000 men, was moving from Constantinople to the northwest.

However, on August 1, 1664, the combined Christian armies of Germany, France, Hungary and the Habsburgs won a decisive victory against the Ottomans in the Battle of Saint Gotthard.

Leopold saw no need to continue combat on his eastern front when he could return the region to balance and concentrate on potential conflict with France over the rights to the Spanish throne.

Its text, which inflamed Hungary's nobles, stated that the Habsburgs would recognize the Ottoman-controlled Michael I Apafi as ruler of Transylvania and that Leopold would pay a final gift of 200,000 gold florins to the Ottomans to secure a 20-year truce.

[7][10] One of the primary leaders of the conspiracy was Nikola Zrinski, the Croatian ban who had led the native forces alongside the Habsburg commander Montecuccoli.

[4] However, he died within months during a struggle with a wild boar on a hunting trip; this left the revolt in the hands of Nikola Zrinski's younger brother Petar as well as Ferenc Wesselényi.

The conspirators entered into secret negotiations with a number of nations, including France, Sweden, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Republic of Venice, in an attempt to gain support.

Wesselényi and his fellow magnates even made overtures to the Ottomans offering all of Hungary in return for the semblance of self-rule after the Habsburgs had been removed, but no state wanted to intervene.

The Austrians had informants inside the group of nobles and had heard from several sources of their wide-ranging and almost desperate attempts to gain foreign and domestic aid.

No action was taken until 1670, when the remaining conspirators began circulating pamphlets inciting violence against the Emperor and calling for invasion by the Ottoman Empire.

For years after the crackdown, kuruc rebels would gather en masse to combat the Habsburgs; their forces' numbers swelled to 15,000 by the summer of 1672.

Francis I Rákóczi was the only leading conspirator whose life was spared, due to his mother Sophia Báthory's intervention and a ransom payment.