Battle of Solferino
The Battle of Solferino on 24 June 1859 resulted in the victory of the allied French Army under Napoleon III and Sardinian Army under Victor Emmanuel II against the Austrian Army under Emperor Franz Joseph I. It was the last major battle in world history where all the armies were under the personal command of their monarchs. 300,000 soldiers fought in the important battle, the largest since the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. There were about 130,000 Austrian troops and a combined total of 140,000 French and allied Piedmontese troops. After the battle, the Austrian Emperor refrained from further direct command of the army; the battle led the Swiss Jean-Henri Dunant to write A Memory of Solferino. Although he did not witness the battle, he toured the field following the battle and was moved by what he saw. Horrified by the suffering of wounded soldiers left on the battlefield, Dunant set about a process that led to the Geneva Conventions and the establishment of the International Red Cross; the Battle of Solferino was a decisive engagement in the Second Italian War of Independence, a crucial step in the Italian Risorgimento.
The war's geopolitical context was the nationalist struggle to unify Italy, which had long been divided among France, Austria and numerous independent Italian states. The battle took place near the villages of Solferino and San Martino, south of Lake Garda between Milan and Verona; the confrontation was between the Austrians, on one side, the French and Piedmontese forces, who opposed their advance. In the morning of 23 June, after the arrival of emperor Franz Joseph, the Austrian army changed direction to counterattack along the river Chiese. At the same time, Napoleon III ordered his troops to advance, causing the battle to occur in an unpredicted location. While the Piedmontese fought the Austrian right wing near San Martino, the French battled to the south of them near Solferino against the main Austrian corps; the Austrian forces were led by their militarily inexperienced 29-year-old emperor, Franz Joseph, were divided into two field armies: 1st Army, containing three corps, under Franz von Wimpffen and 2nd Army, containing four corps under Franz von Schlick.
The French army at Solferino led by Napoleon III, was divided in four Corps plus the Imperial Guard. Many of its men and generals were veterans of the French conquest of Algeria and the Crimean War, but its commander-in-chief had no military experience of note; the Sardinian army had four divisions on the field. Although all three combatants were commanded by their monarchs, each was seconded by professional soldiers. Marshal Jean-Baptiste Philibert Vaillant served as Chief of Staff to Napoleon III, while Victor Emmanuel was accompanied by his Minister of War, Lieutenant General Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora; the Austrian high command was hindered by the rivalry between the Chief of Staff, Heinrich von Heß, the Emperor's Adjutant General Karl Ludwig von Grünne. According to the allied battle plan formulated on 24 June, the Franco-Sardinian army moved east to deploy along the right river banks of the Mincio; the French were to occupy the villages of Solferino, Cavriana and Medole with the 1st Corps, 2nd Corps, 3rd Corps, 4th Corps.
The four Sardinian divisions were to take Pozzolengo. After marching a few kilometers, the allies came into contact with the Austrian troops, who had entrenched themselves in those villages. In the absence of a fixed battle plan, the fighting which took place was uncoordinated, why so many casualties occurred, it fell into three separate engagements, at Medole and San Martino; the battle started at Medole around 4 am. Marching towards Guidizzolo, the 4th Corps encountered an Austrian infantry regiment of the Austrian 1st Army. General Niel decided to engage the enemy and deployed his forces east of Medole; this move prevented the three corps of the Austrian 1st Army from aiding their comrades of the 2nd Army near Solferino, where the main French attacks took place. The French forces were numerically inferior to the Austrians'; the 4th Corps contained three infantry divisions under de Luzy and Failly and a cavalry brigade. Niel, holding a thin line of 5 kilometres in length, was able to stop the Austrian assaults on his position by ably warding off attacks and counterattacking at opportune moments.
After 15 hours of combat the Austrians retreated. Around 4:30 am the advance guard of the 1st Corps came into contact with the Austrian V Corps under Stadion near Castiglione delle Stiviere. Around 5 am 2nd Corps under Mac-Mahon encountered; the Austrian forces were three corps strong and positioned on the towns of Solferino and Volta Mantovana. The Austrians were able to hold these positions all day against repeated French attacks. Near 3 pm the French reserves, formed by Canrobert's 3rd Corps and the Imperial Guard under Regnaud, attacked Cavriana, defended by the Austrian I Corps under Clam-Gallas occupying it at 6 pm and thereby breaking through the Austrian center; this breakthrough forced a general retreat of both Austrian armies. On the no
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy – Habsburg Empire, Austrian Monarchy or Danube Monarchy – is an unofficial umbrella term among historians for the countries and provinces that were ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg between 1526 and 1780 and by the successor branch of Habsburg-Lorraine until 1918. The Monarchy was a typical composite state composed of territories within and outside the Holy Roman Empire, united only in the person of the monarch; the dynastic capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611. From 1804 to 1867 the Habsburg Monarchy was formally unified as the Austrian Empire, from 1867 to 1918 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the head of the Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg was elected Holy Roman Emperor: from 1452 until the Empire's dissolution in 1806, Charles VII of Bavaria was the only Holy Roman Emperor, not Habsburg ruler of Austria. The two entities were never coterminous, as the Habsburg Monarchy covered many lands beyond the Holy Roman Empire, most of the Empire was ruled by other dynasties.
This Austrian Habsburg Monarchy must not be confused with the House of Habsburg, existing since the 11th century, whose vast domains were split up in 1521 between this "junior" Austrian branch and the "senior" Spanish branch. The monarchy had no official name. Instead, various names included: Habsburg Monarchy Habsburg Empire Habsburg/Austrian Hereditary Lands Austrian Monarchy Danubian Monarchy The Habsburg family originated with the Habsburg Castle in modern Switzerland, after 1279 came to rule in Austria; the Habsburg family grew to European prominence with the marriage and adoption treaty by Emperor Maximilian I at the First Congress of Vienna in 1515, the subsequent death of adopted Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in 1526. Following the death of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in the Battle of Mohács against the Turks, his brother-in-law Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was elected the next King of Bohemia and Hungary. Names of the territory that became Austria-Hungary: Habsburg monarchy: This was an unofficial umbrella term, but frequent, name during that time.
The entity had no official name. Austrian Empire: This was the official name. Note that the German version is Kaisertum Österreich, i.e. the English translation empire refers to a territory ruled by an emperor, not just to a "widespreading domain". Austria-Hungary: This name was used in the international relations, though the official name was Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. An unofficial popular name was the Danubian Monarchy often used was the term Doppel-Monarchie meaning two states under one crowned ruler. Crownlands or crown lands: This is the name of all the individual parts of the Austrian Empire, of Austria-Hungary from 1867 on; the Kingdom of Hungary was not considered a "crownland" after the establishment of Austria-Hungary 1867, so that the "crownlands" became identical with what was called the Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Imperial Council. The Hungarian parts of the Empire were called "Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen" or "Lands of Holy Stephen's Crown"; the Bohemian Lands were called "Lands of the St. Wenceslaus' Crown".
Names of some smaller territories: Austrian lands or "Archduchies of Austria" – Lands up and below the Enns: This is the historical name of the parts of the Archduchy of Austria that became the present-day Republic of Austria on 12 November 1918. Modern day Austria is a semi-federal republic of nine states that are: Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Burgenland and the Capital of Vienna, a state of its own. Burgenland came to Austria in 1921 from Hungary. Salzburg became Austrian in 1816 after the Napoleonic wars. Vienna, Austria's capital became a state 1 January 1922, after being residence and capital of the Austrian Empire for the Habsburg monarchs for centuries. Upper and Lower Austria were split into "Austria above the Enns" and "Austria below the Enns". Upper Austria was enlarged after the Treaty of Teschen following the "War of the Bavarian Succession" by the so-called Innviertel part of Bavaria. Hereditary Lands or German Hereditary Lands or Austrian Hereditary Lands: In a narrower sense these were the "original" Habsburg Austrian territories, i.e. the Austrian lands and Carniola.
In a wider sense the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were included in the Hereditary lands. The term was replaced by the term "Crownlands" in the 1849 March Constitution, but it was used afterwards; the Er
Hungarian Revolution of 1848
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of the many European Revolutions of 1848 and linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas. The revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire, ruled by the Habsburg dynasty. After a series of serious Austrian defeats in 1849, the Austrian Empire came close to the brink of collapse. Thus, the new young emperor Franz Joseph I had to call for Russian help in the name of the Holy Alliance. Tsar Nicholas I answered, sent a 200,000 strong army with 80,000 auxiliary forces; the joint army of Russian and Austrian forces defeated the Hungarian forces. After the restoration of Habsburg power, Hungary was placed under brutal martial law; the anniversary of the Revolution's outbreak, 15 March, is one of Hungary's three national holidays. The Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary after the Austrian Empire was created in 1804; the administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary remained untouched by the government structure of the overarching Austrian Empire.
Hungary's central government structures remained well separated from the imperial government. The country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary - located in Pozsony and in Pest - and by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna. After the death of the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, in February 1790, enlightened reforms in Hungary ceased, which outraged many reform-oriented francophone intellectuals who were followers of new radical ideas based on French philosophy and enlightenment. Ignác Martinovics worked as a secret agent for the new Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II, until 1792. In his Oratio pro Leopoldo II, he explicitly declares that only authority derived from a social contract should be recognized. In another of his works, Catechism of People and Citizens, he argued that citizens tend to oppose any repression and that sovereignty resides with the people, he became a Freemason, was in favour of the adoption of a federal republic in Hungary. As a member of the Hungarian Jacobins, he was considered an idealistic forerunner of revolutionary thought by some, an unscrupulous adventurer by others.
He was in charge of stirring up a revolt against the nobility among the Hungarian serfs. For these subversive acts, Francis II, the Holy Roman Emperor, dismissed Martinovics and his boss, Ferenc Gotthardi, the former chief of the secret police, he was executed, together with six other prominent Jacobins, in May 1795. More than 42 members of the republican secret society were arrested, including the poet János Batsányi and linguist Ferenc KazinczyThough the Hungarian Jacobin republican movement did not affect the policy of the Hungarian Parliament and the parliamentary parties, it had strong ideological ties with the extra-parliamentary forces: the radical youths and students like the poet Sándor Petőfi, the philosopher and historian Pál Vasvári and the novel-writer Mór Jókai, who sparked the revolution in the Pilvax coffee house on 15 March 1848; the Diet of Hungary had not convened since 1811. The frequent diets held in the earlier part of the reign occupied themselves with little else but war subsidies.
In the latter years of Francis I the dark shadow of Metternich's policy of "stability" fell across the kingdom, the forces of reactionary absolutism were everywhere supreme. But beneath the surface a strong popular current was beginning to run in a contrary direction. Hungarian society, not unaffected by western Liberalism, but without any direct help from abroad, was preparing for the future emancipation. Writers, poets, artists and plebeian, layman and cleric, without any previous concert, or obvious connection, were working towards that ideal of political liberty, to unite all the Magyars. Mihály Vörösmarty, Ferenc Kölcsey, Ferencz Kazinczy and his associates, to mention but a few of many great names, consciously or unconsciously, as the representatives of the renascent national literature, accomplishing a political mission, their pens proved no less efficacious than the swords of their ancestors. In 1825 Emperor Francis II convened the Diet in response to growing concerns amongst the Hungarian nobility about taxes and the diminishing economy, after the Napoleonic wars.
This -- and the reaction to the reforms of Joseph II -- started. But the Nobles still retained their privileges of paying no taxes and not giving the vote to the masses; the influential Hungarian politician Count István Széchenyi recognized the need to bring the country the advances of the more developed West European countries, such as England. It was a direct attack upon the constitution which, to use the words of István Széchenyi, first "startled the nation out of its sickly drowsiness". In 1823, when the reactionary powers were considering joint action to suppress the revolution in Spain, the government, without consulting the diet, imposed a war-tax and called out the recruits; the county assemblies protested against this illegal act, Francis I was obliged, at the diet of 1823, to repudiate the action of his ministers. But the estates felt that the maintenance of their liberties demanded more substantial guarantees than the dead letter of ancient laws. Széchenyi, who had resided abroad and studied Western institutions, was the recognized leader of all those who wished to create a new Hungary out of the old.
For years he and his friends educated public opinion by issuing innumerable pamphlets in which
Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Croatia, Transylvania, Milan and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands, Parma. By marriage, she was Duchess of Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress, she started her 40-year reign when her father, Emperor Charles VI, died in October 1740. Charles VI paved the way for her accession with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 and spent his entire reign securing it, he neglected the advice of Prince Eugene of Savoy, who averred that a strong military and a rich treasury were more important than mere signatures. He left behind a weakened and impoverished state due to the War of the Polish Succession and the Russo-Turkish War. Moreover, upon his death, Prussia and France all repudiated the sanction they had recognised during his lifetime. Frederick II of Prussia promptly invaded and took the affluent Habsburg province of Silesia in the seven-year conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession.
In defiance of the grave situation, she managed to secure the vital support of the Hungarians for the war effort. Over the course of the war, despite the loss of Silesia and a few minor territories in Italy, Maria Theresa defended her rule over most of the Habsburg empire. Maria Theresa unsuccessfully tried to reconquer Silesia during the Seven Years' War. Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, had eleven daughters, including the Queen of France, the Queen of Naples and Sicily, the Duchess of Parma, five sons, including two Holy Roman Emperors, Joseph II and Leopold II. Of the sixteen children, ten survived to adulthood. Though she was expected to cede power to Francis and Joseph, both of whom were her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Maria Theresa was the absolute sovereign who ruled with the counsel of her advisers. Maria Theresa promulgated institutional and educational reforms, with the assistance of Wenzel Anton of Kaunitz-Rietberg, Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz and Gerard van Swieten.
She promoted commerce and the development of agriculture, reorganised Austria's ramshackle military, all of which strengthened Austria's international standing. However, she despised the Jews and the Protestants, on certain occasions she ordered their expulsion to remote parts of the realm, she advocated for the state church and refused to allow religious pluralism. Her regime was criticized as intolerant by some contemporaries; the second and eldest surviving child of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Archduchess Maria Theresa was born on 13 May 1717 in Vienna, a year after the death of her elder brother, Archduke Leopold, was baptised on that same evening. The dowager empresses, her aunt Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg and grandmother Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg, were her godmothers. Most descriptions of her baptism stress that the infant was carried ahead of her cousins, Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia, the daughters of Charles VI's elder brother and predecessor, Joseph I, before the eyes of their mother, Wilhelmine Amalia.
It was clear that Maria Theresa would outrank them though their grandfather, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, had his sons sign the Mutual Pact of Succession, which gave precedence to the daughters of the elder brother. Her father was the only surviving male member of the House of Habsburg and hoped for a son who would prevent the extinction of his dynasty and succeed him. Thus, the birth of Maria Theresa was the people of Vienna. Maria Theresa replaced Maria Josepha as heir presumptive to the Habsburg realms the moment she was born. Charles sought the other European powers' approval for disinheriting his nieces, they exacted harsh terms: in the Treaty of Vienna, Great Britain demanded that Austria abolish the Ostend Company in return for its recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction. In total, Great Britain, Saxony, United Provinces, Prussia, Denmark, Sardinia and the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire recognised the sanction. France, Saxony and Prussia reneged. Little more than a year after her birth, Maria Theresa was joined by a sister, Maria Anna, another one, named Maria Amalia, was born in 1724.
The portraits of the imperial family show that Maria Theresa resembled Elisabeth Christine and Maria Anna. The Prussian ambassador noted that she had large blue eyes, fair hair with a slight tinge of red, a wide mouth and a notably strong body. Unlike many other members of the House of Habsburg, neither Maria Theresa's parents nor her grandparents were related to each other. Maria Theresa was a reserved child who enjoyed singing and archery, she was barred from horse riding by her father, but she would learn the basics for the sake of her Hungarian coronation ceremony. The imperial family staged opera productions conducted by Charles VI, in which she relished participating, her education was overseen by Jesuits. Contemporaries thought her Latin to be quite good, but in all else, the Jesuits did not educate her well, her spelling and punctuation were unconventional and she lacked the formal manner and speech which had characterised her Habsburg predecessors. Maria Theresa developed a close relationship with Countess Marie Karoline von Fuchs-Mollard
Ladislaus I of Hungary
Ladislaus I or Ladislas I Saint Ladislaus or Saint Ladislas was King of Hungary from 1077 and King of Croatia from 1091. He was the second son of King Béla I of Hungary. After Béla's death in 1063, Ladislaus and his elder brother, Géza, acknowledged their cousin, Solomon as the lawful king in exchange for receiving their father's former duchy, which included one-third of the kingdom, they cooperated with Solomon for the next decade. Ladislaus's most popular legend, which narrates his fight with a "Cuman" who abducted a Hungarian girl, is connected to this period; the brothers' relationship with Solomon deteriorated in the early 1070s, they rebelled against him. Géza was proclaimed king in 1074, but Solomon maintained control of the western regions of his kingdom. During Géza's reign, Ladislaus was his brother's most influential adviser. Géza died in 1077, his supporters made Ladislaus king. Solomon resisted Ladislaus with assistance from King Henry IV of Germany. Ladislaus supported Henry IV's opponents during the Investiture Controversy.
In 1081, Solomon abdicated and acknowledged Ladislaus's reign, but he conspired to regain the royal crown and Ladislaus imprisoned him. Ladislaus canonized the first Hungarian saints in 1085, he set Solomon free during the canonization ceremony. After a series of civil wars, Ladislaus's main focus was the restoration of public safety, he introduced severe legislation, punishing those who violated property rights with death or mutilation. He occupied all Croatia in 1091, which marked the beginning of an expansion period for the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Ladislaus's victories over the Pechenegs and Cumans ensured the security of his kingdom's eastern borders for about 150 years, his relationship with the Holy See deteriorated during the last years of his reign, as the popes claimed that Croatia was their fief, but Ladislaus denied their claims. Ladislaus was canonized on 27 June 1192 by Pope Celestine III. Legends depict him as a pious knight-king, "the incarnation of the late-medieval Hungarian ideal of chivalry."
He is a popular saint in Hungary and neighboring nations. Ladislaus was the second son of the future King Béla I of Hungary and his wife, a daughter of King Mieszko II of Poland. Ladislaus and his elder brother, Géza, were born in Poland, where Béla had settled in the 1030s after being banished from Hungary. Ladislaus was born around 1040. Ladislaus's "physical and spiritual makeup testified to God's gracious will at his birth", according to his late-12th-century Legend; the contemporaneous Gallus Anonymus wrote that Ladislaus was "raised from childhood in Poland" and became a "Pole in his ways and life". He received a Slavic name: "Ladislaus" is derived from "Vladislav". Béla and his family returned to Hungary around 1048. Béla received the so-called "Duchy" – which encompassed one-third of the kingdom – from his brother, King Andrew I of Hungary; the Illuminated Chronicle mentions that Andrew's son, Solomon, "was anointed king with the consent of Duke Bela and his sons Geysa and Ladislaus" in 1057 or 1058.
Béla, Andrew's heir before Solomon's coronation, left for Poland in 1059. They began a rebellion against Andrew. After defeating Andrew, Béla was crowned king on 6 December 1060. Solomon left the country. Béla I died on 11 September 1063, some time before German troops entered Hungary in order to restore Solomon. Ladislaus and his brothers, Géza and Lampert, went back to Poland, Solomon was once again crowned king in Székesfehérvár; the three brothers returned. To avoid another civil war, the brothers signed a treaty with Solomon on 20 January 1064, acknowledging Solomon's reign in exchange for their father's duchy. Ladislaus and Géza divided the administration of their duchy. Géza and Ladislaus cooperated with King Solomon between 1064 and 1071; the most popular story in Ladislaus's legends – his fight with a "Cuman" warrior who abducted a Christian maiden – occurred during this period. The relationship between the king and his cousins became tense in the early 1070s; when Géza accompanied Solomon on a military campaign against the Byzantine Empire in 1072, Ladislaus stayed behind with half of the ducal troops in Nyírség to "avenge his brother with a strong hand" if Solomon harmed Géza.
Realizing that another civil war was inevitable, the king and dukes launched negotiations to obtain the assistance of foreign powers. First, Ladislaus visited the Kievan Rus', he went to Moravia, persuaded Duke Otto I of Olomouc to accompany him back to Hungary with Czech troops. By the time they returned to Hungary, the royal army had invaded the duchy and routed Géza's troops at the Battle of Kemej on 26 February 1074. Ladislaus met his fleeing brother at Vác, they decided to continue the fight against Solomon. A legend preserved in the Illuminated Chronicle mentions that before the battle, Ladislaus "saw in broad daylight a vision from heaven" of an angel placing a crown on Géza's head. Another legendary episode predicted the dukes' triumph over the king: an "ermine of purest white" jumped from a thorny bush to Ladislaus's lance and onto his chest; the decisive Battle of Mogyoród was fought on 14 March 1074. Ladislaus commanded "the troops from Byhor" on the left flank. Solomon was defeated, but instead of s
Trnava
Trnava is a city in western Slovakia, 47 km to the north-east of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river. It is the capital of a kraj and of an okres, it is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishopric. The city has a historic center; because of the many churches within its city walls, Trnava has been called "parva Roma", i.e. "Little Rome", or more the "Slovak Rome". The name of the city is derived from the name of the creek Trnava, it comes from the Old Slavic/Slovak word tŕň. Many towns in Central Europe have a similar etymology including Trnovo in Slovakia as well as Tarnów, Veliko Tarnovo and Tyrnavos among others. In the Hungarian language, the original name had evolved into Tyrna which influenced later German and Latin forms; when it developed into an important market town, it received the Hungarian name of Szombathely referring to the weekly market fairs held on Saturdays. However, this name was only used by the royal chamber, as is indicated by the adoption of the Slovak name rather than the Hungarian name by German newcomers after the Mongol invasion.
The varieties of the name in different languages include German: Tyrnau. Permanent settlements on the city's territory are known from the Neolithic period onwards. During the Middle Ages, an important market settlement arose here at the junction of two important roads – from Bohemia to Hungary and from the Mediterranean to Poland; the first written reference to Trnava dates from 1211. In 1238, Trnava was the first town in Slovakia to be granted a town charter by the king; the former agricultural center became a center of manufacture and crafts. By the early 13th century, the king of Hungary had invited numerous Germans to settle in Trnava. At the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, a part of Trnava was enclosed by long city walls; the original Slovak market settlement and the Germans stayed behind this wall. Trnava was the place of many important negotiations: Charles I, the king of Hungary, signed here a currency agreement with the Czech King John of Luxemburg in 1327, King Louis I signed a friendship agreement with Emperor Charles IV there in 1360.
The temporary German majority in Trnava's population yielded in favour of the Slovaks during the campaigns undertaken by the Czech Hussites in the 15th century. In April 1430, the Hussites penetrated close to the town and defeated the Hungarian army in the Battle of Trnava. However, they withdrew to Moravia. On 24 Jun 1432 a small group of Hussites masked as tradesmen entered the town, overcame the guards in the night and captured the town without a fight, they made Trnava the center of their campaigns in northwestern Kingdom of Hungary from 1432 to 1435. The town, along with the rest of the territory of present-day Slovakia, gained importance after the conquest of most of what is today Hungary by the Ottoman Empire in 1541, when Trnava became the see of the Archbishopric of Esztergom; the cathedrals of the archbishopric were the Saint John the Baptist Cathedral and the Saint Nicholas Cathedral in the town. Many ethnic Hungarians fleeing from the Turks moved to the town after 1541 from present-day Hungary.
In the 16th and the 17th century, Trnava was an important center of the Counter-Reformation in the Kingdom of Hungary. The Archbishop Nicolas Oláh invited the Jesuits to Trnava in 1561 in order to develop the municipal school system. Subsequently, he had a seminary opened in 1566 and in 1577 Trnava's priest Nicolas Telegdi founded a book-printing house in the town; the first Catholic Bible translation into Hungarian was completed in the town by the Jesuit György Káldi, born there in 1573. The 17th century was characterized by many anti-Habsburg uprisings in the country – these revolts of Stephen Bocskay, Gabriel Bethlen, George I Rákóczi, Imre Thököly negatively affected Trnava's life. On 26 December 1704 Francis II Rákóczi's army suffered decisive defeat against the Imperial Army, led by Sigbert Heister, near Trnava; the Jesuit Trnava University, the only university of the Kingdom of Hungary at that time, was founded by Archbishop Péter Pázmány. Founded to support the Counter-Reformation, Trnava University soon became a center of Slovak education and literature, since most of the teachers, one half of the students and the majority of the town's inhabitants were Slovaks.
Pázmány himself was instrumental in promoting the usage of the Slovak language instead of the Czech language and had his work "Isteni igazságra vezető kalauz" and several of his sermons translated into Slovak. From the late 18th century Trnava became a center of the literary and artistic Slovak National Revival; the first standard codification of the Slovak language was based on the Slovak dialect used in the region of Trnava. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 Richard Guyon's army fought here with an Austrian army on 14 December, in 1848; the importance of the town decreased in the early 19th century, when the university was moved to Bu
Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1301)
The Kingdom of Hungary came into existence in Central Europe when Stephen I, Grand Prince of the Hungarians, was crowned king in 1000 or 1001. He forced his subjects to accept Christianity. Although all written sources emphasize only the role played by German and Italian knights and clerics in the process, a significant part of the Hungarian vocabulary for agriculture and state was taken from Slavic languages. Civil wars and pagan uprisings, along with attempts by the Holy Roman Emperors to expand their authority over Hungary, jeopardized the new monarchy; the monarchy stabilized during the reigns of Ladislaus Coloman. These rulers occupied Dalmatia with the support of a part of the local population. Both realms retained their autonomous position; the successors of Ladislaus and Coloman—especially Béla II, Béla III, Andrew II, Béla IV —continued this policy of expansion towards the Balkan Peninsula and the lands east of the Carpathian Mountains, transforming their kingdom into one of the major powers of medieval Europe.
Rich in uncultivated lands, silver and salt deposits, Hungary became the preferred destination of German and French colonists. These immigrants were peasants who settled in villages, but craftsmen and merchants came, who established the most cities of the Kingdom, their arrival had a key role in the shaping of an urban lifestyle and culture in medieval Hungary. The location of the kingdom at the crossroads of international trade routes favored the coexistence of several cultures. Romanesque and Renaissance buildings and literary works written in Latin prove the predominantly Roman Catholic character of the culture, but Orthodox, non-Christian ethnic minority communities existed. Latin was the language of legislation and judiciary, but "linguistic pluralism" contributed to the survival of many tongues, including a great variety of Slavic dialects; the predominance of royal estates assured the sovereign's preeminent position, but the alienation of royal lands gave rise to the emergence of a self-conscious group of lesser landholders, known as "royal servants".
They forced Andrew II to issue his Golden Bull of 1222, "one of first examples of constitutional limits being placed on the powers of a European monarch". The kingdom received a major blow from the Mongol invasion of 1241–42. Thereafter and Jassic groups settled in the central lowlands, colonists arrived from Moravia and other nearby countries; the erection of fortresses by landlords, promoted by the monarchs after the withdrawal of the Mongols, led to the development of semi-autonomous "provinces" dominated by powerful magnates. Some of these magnates challenged the authority of Andrew III, the last male descendant of the native Árpád dynasty, his death was followed by a period of anarchy. Central power was re-established only in the early 1320s; the Hungarians, or Magyars, conquered the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. Here they found a predominantly Slavic-speaking population. From their new homeland, they launched plundering raids against East Francia and other regions of Europe.
Their raids were halted by Otto I, future Holy Roman Emperor, who defeated them at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. Hungarians lived in patrilineal families; the tribal confederation was headed by the grand prince, always a member of the family descending from Árpád, the Hungarians' leader around the time of their "land-taking". Contemporary authors described the Hungarians as nomads, but Ibn Rusta and others added that they cultivated arable land; the great number of borrowings from Slavic languages prove that the Hungarians adopted new techniques and a more settled lifestyle in Central Europe. The cohabitation of Hungarians and local ethnic groups is reflected in the assemblages of the "Bijelo Brdo culture", which emerged in the mid-10th century. Although they were pagan, the Hungarians demonstrated a tolerant attitude towards Christians and Muslims; the Byzantine Church was the first to proselytize among their leaders: in 948 the horka, around 952 the gyula, were baptized in Constantinople. In contrast, the grand prince Géza received baptism according to the Latin rite.
He invited foreign warriors to develop a new army based on heavy cavalry. Géza arranged the marriage of his son, with Giselle of Bavaria, a princess from the family of the Holy Roman Emperors; when Géza died in 997, his son had to fight for his succession with Koppány, the eldest member of the House of Árpád. Assisted by German heavy cavalry, Stephen emerged the victor in the decisive battle in 998, he applied for a royal crown to Pope Sylvester II, who granted his request with the consent of Emperor Otto III. Stephen was crowned the first king of Hungary on either December 25, 1000, or January 1, 1001, he consolidated his rule through a series of wars against semi-independent local rulers, including his maternal uncle, Gyula. He proved his kingdom's military strength when he repelled an invasion by Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1030. Marshlands, other natural obstacles, barricades made of stone, earth or timber provided defense at the kingdom's borders. A wide zone known as gyepü was intentionally left uninhabited for defensive purposes along the frontiers.
Most of the early medieval fortresses in Hungary were made of timber. Stephen I's views on state administration were summarized around 1015 in a work known as Admonitions. Stating that "the country that has only one language and one custom is w
Legislatures of Austria–Hungary