AUSTRIA fight for the imperial crown in 1322. The pos- sessions of their house, which were divided by them, were finally united in the hands of the fourth brother, Albert II. But another divi- sion took place among the heirs of the latter, when Albert III. got Austria proper, and Leo- pold all the rest. Leopold was slain in battle against the Swiss at Sempach in 1386, but his descendants remained in possession of Styria, and inherited the duchy of Austria in 1457, when Albert's line became extinct. Frederick IV. of Austria, having been elected German emperor, elevated Austria to the rank of an archduchy. His son Maximilian I., who suc- ceeded him in 1493, obtained the Netherlands by marrying Mary, the heiress of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and Tyrol by inheritance ; and by marrying his son Philip to the daugh- ter of Ferdinand and Isabella he brought the Hapsburg family upon the throne of Spain. Philip's son, Charles I. of Spain, became, under the name of Charles V., German emperor in 1519. In 1520 and 1521 the latter ceded the Austrian possessions to his brother Ferdinand I., who subsequently also succeeded him in the empire. Ferdinand obtained the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia as successor, by family treaties as well as elections, to his brother-in- law, King Louis II., who fell in the disastrous battle of Mohacs against the Turks (1526). Thus elevated to the rank of one of the great European powers, the house of Austria pos- sessed an area of 114,000 sq. m. But the pos- session of Hungary was not undisputed. John Zapolya, waywode of Transylvania, aided by the Turks, tried to wrest the crown of St. Stephen from Ferdinand ; and in 1529 Sultan Solyman had already invested Vienna, when the prudent generalship of Count Salm compelled him to retire. By a treaty concluded in 1538, Zapolya got eastern Hungary and the title of king, while the possession of Transylvania was guar- anteed to his descendants. Even after Zapol- ya's death (1540) Ferdinand could reenter into possession of lower Hungary only by paying an annual tribute of 30,000 ducats to the Turks. The war with the latter had soon to be re- newed, however, and Hungary remained a bat- tlefield for more than a century. (See HUN- GARY.) In 1564 Austria was once more divid- ed among Ferdinand's sons, Maximilian II. (German emperor 1564-'76) obtaining Lower Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia; Ferdinand, Tyrol and Upper Austria ; Charles, Styria, Ca- rinthia, Carniola, and Gorz. The final reunion took place about 100 years later. Rudolph II., successor to his father Maximilian (1576-1612), one of the feeblest and worst emperors Ger- many ever had, was compelled to cede Bo- hemia, Hungary, and Austria to his brother Matthias, under whose reign (1612-'19) the 30 years' war originated, by the revolt of the Bo- hemian Protestants against the Hapsburg dy- nasty. Ferdinand II. of Styria, cousin of Mat- thias (emperor 1619-'37), having defeated the rival king elected by the Bohemians, Frederick of the Palatinate (1620), led a war of exter- mination against the Protestants of Bohemia and Moravia, expelled them by thousands from his dominions, and annulled all ancient privi- leges of the states. In the course of the war, Ferdinand, shortly after the assassination of Wallenstein, was compelled to cede Lusatia to Saxony (1635). Ferdinand III. (1637-'57) brought the war to an end by the peace of Westphalia (1648). His son, Leopold I. (1657 -1705), by his misrule drove the Hungarians into alliance with the Turks. In 1683 Kara Mustapha besieged Vienna, which was saved only by the timely arrival of a Polish army, led by John Sobieski. Leopold's armies hav- ing reconquered Hungary, it was converted from an elective kingdom into an hereditary one (1687). Transylvania, too, was occupied. In 1699 Turkey, defeated in many sanguinary battles by Prince Eugene, ceded, by the peace of Carlovitz, the country between the Danube and Theiss rivers to Austria. Leopold's design to obtain the succession in Spain for his second son, Charles, was frustrated by the diplomacy of Louis XIV. of France. This occasioned, on the death of Charles II. of Spain (1700), the war of the Spanish succession, hi which Eng- land, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Savoy took sides with the emperor against France, while Louis XIV.. was aided by a powerful in- surrection in Hungary, under Rak6czy. The victories of Eugene and Marlborough rendered success certain when, by the death of Leopold and of his eldest son Joseph I. (1711), his brother Charles became monarch of Austria. The allies, fearing the preponderance of Aus- tria if the crowns of Spain, Naples, and Ger- many should be united again, desisted from their efforts against France, and a peace was concluded at Utrecht in 1713, by which the Spanish Netherlands, Milan, Naples, and Sar- dinia (exchanged for Sicily in 1720) fell to Aus- tria, while Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., was acknowledged as king of Spain. By this treaty the area of Austria was increased to 191,000 sq. m. The treaty of Passarowitz (1718) secured new advantages on the Turkish border. Having once more waged war with France and Spain, Charles VI. lost Naples, Sicily, and a portion of Milan (1735); while the peace of Belgrade (1739) deprived him of nearly all the fruits of Prince Eugene's vic- tories over the Turks. All these sacrifices Charles consented to, principally from a desire to obtain the general recognition of the so- called "pragmatic sanction," by which his daughter, Maria Theresa, was declared the heiress of the Austrian monarchy. Yet, im- mediately after his death (1740), her right of succession was contested by the leading powers, England excepted. Frederick II. of Prussia seized Silesia, which formed a part of the Bohemian dominions of Austria, and the elector of Bavaria assumed the title of archduke of Austria, and was elected German emperor, j under the name of Charles VII. (1742). Noth-
