Gabriel (Gabor) Bethlen (Hungarian: Bethlen Gábor, Slovak: Gabriel Betlen) (1580-1629), prince of Transylvania (1613-1629) and leader of a anti-Habsburg insurrection in the Habsburg Royal Hungary on the territory of present-day Slovakia. His last armed intervention in 1626 was part of the Thirty Years War. He led an active Protestant-oriented foreign policy.

This most famous representative of the Iktári branch of the very ancient Hungarian Bethlen family, was born at Ilia (Hungarian:Marosillye) and educated at Lazarea (Hungarian: Szárhegy), at the castle of his uncle András Lázár . Thence he was sent to the court of the Transylvanian Prince Sigismund Báthory (Zsigmond Báthory), whom he accompanied on his famous Wallachian campaign. Subsequently he assisted Stephen Bocskay to become the Prince of Transylvania (1605), and remained his chief counsellor. Bethlen also supported Bocskay's successor Gabriel Báthory (1608-1613), but the prince became jealous of Bethlen's superior abilities, and Bethlen was obliged to take refuge with the Turks.

In 1613, Bethlen led a large army against Prince Báthory, but in the same year Báthory had been murdered by two of his officers and Bethlen was placed on the throne by the Turks (Ottoman Empire), in opposition to the wishes of the Austrian Habsburg emperor, who preferred a prince who would incline more towards Vienna than towards the Turkish Constantinople. On October 13, 1613, the Transylvanian Diet at Cluj-Napoca (Hungarian:Koloszvár, German:Klausenburg), confirmed this choice of the Turkish sultan. In 1615, Bethlen was also officially recognized by the Austrian emperor Matthias as the Prince of Transylvania and Bethlen promised in secret that he will help the Habsburgs against the Turks.

While avoiding the cruelties and excesses of many of his predecessors, Bethlen established a singular variant of patriarchal but sufficiently enlightened despotism. He developed mines and industry and nationalised many branches of Transylvania's foreign trade, his agents buying up the products at fixed prices and selling them abroad at a profit, almost doubling his revenues by this and other devices. He built himself a grand new palace in his capital, Alba Iulia (Hungarian:Gyulafehérvár), kept a sumptuous court, and patronised the arts and learning, especially in connection with his own, Calvinist, faith. He founded an academy to which he invited any pastor and teacher from Royal Hungary, sent students abroad to the protestant universities of England, the Low Countries and protestant Germany, conferred hereditary nobility on all Protestant pastors and forbade landlords to prevent their serfs from having their children schooled.

Other parts of his revenue he devoted to keeping up an efficient standing army of mercenaries, with whose help he conducted an ambitious foreign policy. Keeping peace with the Porte, he struck out to the north and west.

There were several reasons for his anti-Habsburg interventions in the neighbouring Royal Hungary (1619-1626), which took place when the Thirty Years War took place in Western Europe:

• No doubt he was partly motivated by personal ambition
• Habsburg absolutism in Royal Hungary
• The Habsburgs had started a successful Counter-Reformation in Royal Hungary a confiscated properties of local Protestants. Bethlen seems also to have been genuinely anxious to protect protestant liberties
• The Habsburgs had violated the Peace of Vienna of 1606 that put an end to the anti-Habsburg uprising of Bethlen's "predecessor" Stephen Bocskay .
• The Habsburgs had violated the secret agreement with Bethlen of 1615 and prolonged the peace with Ottoman Empire in July 1615, and even entered into an alliance with George Druget , the captain of Upper Hungary (i. e. eastern Slovakia and adjacent territories) against Bethlen.

While Emperor Ferdinand was occupied with the Czech anti-Habsburg rebellion (1618), Bethlen led his armies into Royal Hungary (more exactly to present-day Slovakia) in August 1619, and occupied the town of Košice (German: Kaschau) in September, where his Protestant supporters declared him „head“ of Hungary and protector of the Protestants. He soon won over the whole territory of present-day Slovakia, even securing the capital of Royal Hungary Pressburg (today: Bratislava) in October, where the palatine even handed over the Hungarian crown to Bethlen. Then, Bethlen’s troops joined with the troops of Czech and Moravian estates (led by J. M. Thurno) and they failed to conquer Vienna in November – Bethlen was forced to leave Austria because he was attacked by Habsburg troops (George Druget and Polish mercenaries) in eastern Slovakia. Although he had conquered the whole present-day Slovakia, i. e. most of Royal Hungary, Bethlen was not averse to a peace, nor to a preliminary suspension of hostilities, and negotiations were opened at the conquered towns Pressburg, Košice and Banská Bystrica (German:Neusohl) successively. Initially they led to nothing because Bethlen insisted on including the Czechs in the peace, but finally a truce was concluded in January 1620, under which Bethlen received 13 counties in the east of Royal Hungary (mainly in present-day Slovakia). On 20 August 1620 the estates elected him King of Hungary at the Diet in Banská Bystrica with the consent of the Turks, but Bethlen refused to accept of crown for tactical and diplomatic reasons (mainly because he wanted that a reconsiliation with the Habsburgs remains possible). The war with the Habsburgs resumed in present-day southwestern Slovakia and Lower Austria in September.

The defeat of the Czechs by Ferdinand II’s troops at the battle of the White Mountain on November 1620 (to which also Bethlen sent 3000 troops which however came too late) gave a new turn to Bethlen’s insurrection against the Habsburgs. Ferdinand II took a fearful revenge upon the vanquished in Bohemia and started to successfully reconquer what is today Slovakia (Pressurg reconquered in May 1621, central Slovakia in June 1621) and Bethlen started peace negotiations, since he was not directly supported by the Turks and had lost the support of Protestant nobles because they had not received the confiscated property of the Catholics on Bethlen’s territory. As a result, the Treaty of Nikolsburg (Czech: Mikulov) was concluded on December 31 1621, under which Bethlen renounced the royal title on condition that Ferdinand confirmed the 1606 Peace of Vienna (which had granted full liberty of worship to the Protestants) and engaged to summon a general diet within six months. In addition, Bethlen secured the (purely formal) title of “Imperial Prince“ (of Transylvania), seven counties around the Upper Tisza (Tisa) river (in present-day Slovakia, Ukraine, Hungary and Romania), the fortresses of Tokaj, Mukacheve (Hungarian:Munkács) and Ecsed , and a duchy in Silesia.

Subsequently Bethlen twice (1623-1624 and 1626) launched campaigns to the territory of present-day Slovakia against Ferdinand , this time as an ally of the anti-Habsburg Protestant powers. The first war was concluded by the 1624 Peace of Vienna, the second by the 1626 Peace of Pressburg, both confirmatory of the 1621 Peace of Nikolsburg. After the second of these campaigns, Bethlen attempted a rapprochement with the court of Vienna on the basis of an alliance against the Turks and his own marriage with one of the Austrian archduchesses; but Ferdinand had no confidence in him and rejected his overtures. Bethlen was obliged to renounce his anti-Turkish projects, which he had hitherto cherished as the great aim and object of his life, and continue in the old beaten paths. Accordingly, on his return from Vienna he wedded Catherine, the daughter of the elector of Brandenburg, and still more closely allied himself with the Protestant powers, especially with his brother-in-law Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (their wifes were sisters), who, he hoped, would assist him to obtain the Polish crown. He died before he could accomplish any of his great designs (November 15, 1629), having previously secured the election of his wife Catherine as princess. His first wife, Zsuzsanna Károlyi, died in 1622.

Gabriel Bethlen was certainly one of the most striking and original personages of his century. A zealous Calvinist, whose boast it was that he had read the Bible twenty-five times, he was nevertheless no persecutor, and even helped the Jesuit Kaldy to translate and print his version of the Scriptures. He was in communication all his life with the leading contemporary statesmen, so that his correspondence is one of the most interesting and important of historical documents. He also composed hymns.

External links

Detailed timeline http://www.angelfire.com/sk3/quality/Part_of_Hungary_II.html