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Contents

Introduction. A survey of the relations between Hungary and Austria. Part I. 1526-1657 - Part II. 1657-1700
Chapter I. Rakoczi's early life - The inherent difficulties of his position - Friendship with Bercsényi and plans for a Hungarian uprising - Imprisonment, trial, escape, and exile in Poland
Chapter II. The return and beginning of the Hungarian revolution - Early adhesions; Ocskay, Karolyi - Rapid growth - Events from June to December 1703
Chapter III. First negotiations for peace; English and Dutch mediation; the situation in Europe - The Emperor's military forces and financial resources; the Imperial Commanders in Hungary, Heister and Palffy
Chapter IV. Heister's campaigns and barren victories - Forgach's mission and defection - Rakoczi's election in Transylvania - The battle of Höchstädt (Blenheim) and its effect on Hungary - Armistice and first formal conference at Selmecz - Spring to autumn 1704
Chapter V. The battle of Nagyszombat - English diplomacy in Vienna and French diplomacy in Hungary - Campaigns and negotiations till Emperor Leopold's death, November 1704 - June 1705
Chapter VI. Kurucz's attitude towards the new reign - Fruitless efforts for peace - Desultory military operations of the Hungarians - Herbeville's campaign in the East - The convention at Szecsen and the constitution of the Hungarian Confederacy - Battle of Zsibo - The Austrians reconquer Transylvania and lose South-Western Hungary
Chapter VII. Further efforts of England and Holland and the difficulties they encounter on both sides - Rakoczi's senate and council at Miskolcz - Hungarian finances - The military situation in the winter of 1706 - The armistice
Chapter VIII. The Peace Congress at Nagyszombat - Rákóczi and Wratislaw - Transylvanian question the main obstacle to peace - Failure of the Congress
Index
Map to accompany Hungary's Fight for a National Existence, 1703-1711

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Preface

Thanks to the magnanimous resolution of the Emperor - King Francis Joseph - the remains of Francis Rakoczi II. were brought home to Hungary in 1906. For 170 years they had lain in foreign soil, at Rodosto in Turkey, now they have found their eternal rest in the cathedral of Kassa.

The occasion was one of grateful emotion and rejoicing in Hungary. The manifestations of these feelings drew also the attention of the foreign press to the memory of the man and the part he had played in Hungarian history. It was then that I discovered that there was no history written in English on Francis Rakoczi and the great national movement which he provoked and led. Yet for the time he and his cause were most important although disturbing factors in the policy of England, nobody worked harder or more sincerely for an accommodation between Rakoczi and his sovereign, who was England's ally, than her Minister in Vienna, and his despatches remain until to-day one of the main sources for the history of the first stage of the struggle.

I have spent over thirty years of my life between England and the United States of America, and thus conceived the wish to narrate to Anglo-Saxon readers who Rakoczi was, what he really did, and why, in spite of his struggle ending in defeat, his memory is cherished by his nation.

I have no aim and no desire beyond writing a merely historical tale. Deep in the ground rest the bones of the Austrian and Hungarian soldiers fallen in Rakoczi's war. May all the issues that divided them lie as profoundly buried. Yet it is evident that the lesson to be derived from those days stands for all times. The long struggle ended with a compromise. It would have been well for Austria if her statesmen, understanding the necessity of the latter, would have avoided the outbreak of the former, and it would have been as well for Hungary and still better for Rakoczi if he had concluded the compromise when at the height of his power he could have done so voluntarily.

The present volume gives the history of the movement up to this moment, viz. till the breaking off of the peace negotiations in 1706. It is the history of the uprising on its upward plane. I hope to be able to continue the work and bring it to its natural ending with the Peace of Szathmar in a second volume.

The sources from which I have drawn my material are cited in the footnotes. I cannot let this occasion go by without thanking M. de Karolyi, Director of the Imperial and Royal Archives in Vienna, for the friendly courtesy with which he has helped me in my researches. Thanks to him, I have been able to make use of hitherto unknown documents. At the same time I must mention that the Austrian sources for the period flow very scarcely. While, thanks to the literature of memoirs and letter collections, the figures of the French and English historical actors of the period stand vividly before us, and the same is even the case with Rakoczi, Bercsenyi, and other Hungarian leaders, there are no Austrian memoirs of the times. The private letters of her statesmen, ministers, and generals lie as yet unexplored in family archives, and in consequence their individual figures are less marked out before us than those of their foreign contemporaries.

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