The Hungarian who tried to sell Austria

King Matthias tried to make a deal with the Habsburgs, but they would not go into it.

“Proud Vienna suffered sore / From King Mátyás’ dark array,” the Hungarian historical recollection clearly considers King Matthias’s reign in the Middle Ages as the last glorious days of the Hungarian Kingdom, as the Hungarian National Anthem reveals, writes 24.hu.

Of course it is not unfounded: the king rules with a steady hand, both in home affairs and in foreign policies, with a clear concept, his troupes won over and over again, and, for instance, the culture was also developing rapidly during his time.

But all of this was built on fickle grounds. If we only look at foreign policies, Matthias’s priority was the elimination of the Ottoman threat. Admitting that the troupes of the Hungarian Kingdom would not be able to do that in the long run, he thought that — he or his descendants — would, somehow with the help of a hinterland, face the Turks. He tried to build an ally system, he decided to get the Czech, then later the German-Roman imperial throne.

Most of his western battles were fought for these reasons and by the second half of the 1480’s it could have seemed like he had never been in a stronger position, as his troupes took over a significant part of Austria, including Vienna.

But in reality, these wars not only decreased the county’s powers but also turned allies against Matthias. The then already ill king, instead of getting closer to the imperial throne, has to think about what will happen to his life’s work in lack of a descendant.