The Bocskai uprising was a rebellion by Protestant Hungarians against the Catholic Habsburg Monarchy, resulting in the independence of Transylvania and the granting of religious rights to Protestants across the Hungarian lands.
Background[]
Under Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, the Habsburgs moved their capital from Prague to the safer Vienna, failed to include any Hungarians in their central financial institution, and rarely visited Hungary. The Long Turkish War, which began in 1591, devastated Hungary as unpaid Walloon mercenaries and Tatar raiders both ravaged Hungary and Transylvania, leading to thousands of deaths from hunger and disease. While Stephen Bocskai engineered Hungary's participation in the anti-Ottoman league and attempted to undo Balthasar Bathory's defection to the Turks, German and Walloon mercenaries again devastated Hungary for its disloyalty. Emperor Rudolf II also confiscated Hungarian lands and resold them to pay his mercenary armies, and his attempts to revert Calvinist and Lutheran Hungary to Catholicism caused further resentment. Gabriel Bethlen persuaded Bocskai to lead an anti-Habsburg, Ottoman-backed uprising. After Bocskai's treasonous correspondence was intercepted, he was forced to raise an army of Hajduks and launch his rebellion early.
War[]
At the start of the war, Bocskai was joined by Hajduk defectors from Giovan Giacomo Barbiano di Belgioioso's Habsburg army, which he forced to retreat from Varad. The Habsburg general Giorgio Basta captured and executed the rebel leader Balázs Németi, only to become surrounded by rebel and Ottoman soldiers at Edeleny. He narrowly escaped to Eperjes, after which he retreated to Pozsony as Bocskai harried his supply lines. Gergely Némethy began to capture Transdanubian castles, although he was unable to persuade Styrians and Croatians to join his army due to anti-Turkish sentiment. In February 1605, Bocskai was proclaimed Prince of Transylvania by the Szelekys and county nobility. In September, Segesvar surrendered to the rebels. In April 1606, Bocskai was proclaimed Prince of Hungary. In June 1606, a peace treaty between the Habsburg Monarchy and the rebels recognized Transylvanian independence and made territorial and religious concessions to the Hungarians.