As the seventeenth century drew to a close, France was still the single most powerful country in Europe. However, the balance was shifting. England's growing commercial and naval power was making it a rival of France in Western Europe. The trade of the United Provinces was declining and the strains of incessant warfare were being felt there. Sweden too was on the decline whilst her long-time rivals, Prussia and Russia, were growing in size and military strength. The Hapsburgs' territories centered on Austria were also growing more centralized and powerful despite (or because of) the loss of Imperial control over Germany.

Austria 

The Hapsburg Emperors' attempt during the Thirty Years War to assert real control over Germany had ended in failure. But the Hapsburgs consolidated their power in Central and Eastern Europe - Austria, Bohemia, Royal Hungary, Silesia and Moravia.

	Leopold I  (1658-1705) became heir to the throne only on the premature death of his brother Ferdinand (1654). His father Ferdinand III made Leopold King of Hungary (1655), and then King of Bohemia (1656). On Ferdinand III's death in 1657, Leopold inherited Austria. Finally, despite the attempts of Cardinal Mazarin to prevent his election, the eighteen-year-old Leopold became Holy Roman Emperor in 1658, over a year after his father's death.   The Pestsaule - an exuberant sculpture erected on the orders of Leopold to celebrate Vienna's delivery from plague in 1679 Leopold was well-educated and cultured; he read widely, wrote music and collected art. He was conscientious, industrious, and pious. Unfortunately, he was also extremely indecisive. "If I were permitted to say so, I would personally wish that the Emperor's trust in God were a bit less, so that he might deal with somewhat more foresight with the dangers that threaten …" Cardinal Franceso Albizzi (the papal nuncio) on Leopold I.
	Like many German princes, Leopold I felt that the power of the state, and the reach of its administration, should be extended. Cameral Science or Cameralism was the name contemporaries gave to the science of building up state power.
	Leopold had been forced to make a number of concessions that weakened central control in order to gain election as Holy Roman Emperor. Leopold summoned an Imperial Diet at Regensburg in 1663 - it remained sitting permanently. It was meant to provide support for the war against the Turks, but very few of the promised troops were ever raised. The Diet's decrees were almost equally ineffectual (when the various princes' envoys stopped bickering about precedence and passed any). French influence over Mainz, Trier, Saxony, Bavaria and Cologne meant that the Diet never presented a united front against Louis XIV's military expansion into Germany and the Netherlands.   "Those who are unacquainted with the proceedings of this assembly would wonder that, where so many ministers are met and maintained at so great a charge by their masters, so little business is done, and the little that is so slowly …" Sir George Etherege on the Imperial Diet.
	After the defeat of the Bohemian rebels at The Battle of the White Mountain, the Hapsburgs asserted rigid control over Bohemia. It was ruled by the Bohemian Chancery in Vienna, whose members were all nominated by the crown. Catholicism was imposed and a new obedient aristocracy installed. The heavy tax burden carried by Bohemian peasants provoked a revolt in 1680, but it was soon suppressed.
	Only about 25% of Hungary was ruled by the Hapsburgs; (this region was known as "Royal Hungary"). Another 40% was ruled by the Prince of Transylvania under the suzerainty of the Ottomans. The remaining 35% was ruled directly by the Turks. The Hungarian nobility jealously guarded their local autonomy from Hapsburg control, and only in 1687 did the Diet of Pozsony (Pressburg) establish the Hapsburg right of hereditary succession to the crown of Hungary.
	The Hapsburgs did manage to raise an army of about 100,000 men, which was one of the largest armies in Europe.
	Leopold I was deeply religious and continued his father, Ferdinand's policies of suppressing Protestantism; there were few Protestants remaining in Austria and Bohemia, but in Moravia, Silesia and Hungary there were significant minorities of Lutherans and Calvinists. In 1681, 62 of 144 deputies in the Lower House of the Hungarian Diet were Protestants, and many nobles were Calvinists.
	The same drive for religious uniformity led Leopold I to expel all Jews from Vienna in 1670. At the same time, the chronically inefficient finances of the Hapsburg monarchy rendered it heavily dependent on Jewish financiers.
	Protestants and Jews alike could escape Hapsburg persecution by moving into Ottoman territory, where the sultan would tolerate anyone who could pay the additional taxes on infidels.
	Leopold had other reasons for hostility to Ottoman Turkey. There had been formal peace between the Empire and the Turks since the Treaty of Zsitvatorok (1606).

Moreover a new spirit of expansion was being displayed by the Grand Vizier Mehmed Köprülü.

Transylvania & Hungary 

	The independent and often hostile policies of the Princes of Transylvania had long been a problem for the Hapsburgs. During the Thirty Years War, Bethlen Gabor had assisted the Hungarian Protestants in their revolt.
	In 1656, Prince György Rákóczi (George II Rákózi) of Transylvania allied with Charles X of Sweden in a campaign to seize Polish territory and divide it between them. However, Charles X was forced to withdraw his troops when Denmark attacked Sweden. On the orders of Mehmed Köprülü, the Khan of the Crimean Tatars attacked Transylvania. The Turks attacked both Transylvania and Royal Hungary, and attempted to establish a puppet ruler in Transylvania. György was defeated and died of wounds in 1660.
	Mehmed's son, Ahmed Köprülü, who succeeded him as Grand Vizier in October 1661, was equally determined to see Transylvania reduced to obedience. In January 1662, a Turkish army defeated the last Transylvanian forces near Segesvár (Schässburg). The Turkish army tried to advance further but was delayed long enough at the fortress of Neuhäusel (Nové Zámky) to allow the organization of an Austrian army. August 1664, the Austrians commanded by Raimondo Montecuccoli defeated the Turks at the battle of St. Gotthard (Szentgotthárd).
	The Peace of Vasvár (1664) recognized Turkish power in Transylvania, and restored Northwestern Hungary to Hapsburg control.

	The Hungarian nobility were angered at the Hapsburgs' concessions to the Turks. The separatist "Wesselényi conspiracy" arose amongst Hungarian nobles and was encouraged by the French ambassador, but it was soon an open secret and Leopold had some of its ringleaders executed (1671). Hungary's wealthiest nobleman, Ferenc Rákóczi I, was deeply involved in the plot.
	Leopold used this conspiracy as an excuse for the military occupation of Hungary and provoked another revolt. The young Protestant nobleman, Imre Thököly, responded to the suppression of Protestant churches and schools by raising an army of Hungarian exiles and Polish mercenaries. In 1678, it attacked the Austrians in northern Hungary.
	Encouraged by Pope Innocent XI (who feared the growing Ottoman threat), Leopold I made peace with the Hungarian nobility by conceding most of their demands. At a meeting of the Estates in Sopron (May 1681), Leopold restored religious toleration and a significant degree of local self-government in Hungary. Thököly and his Transylvanians joined forces with the Turks.
	In response to the 1683 Ottoman invasion of Austria, Hapsburg troops in Hungary were pulled back to help relieve besieged Vienna. The Turks besieged the city in July 1683 with an army of 200,000, and it was desperately defended by a garrison of c. 13,000 commanded by Count Rüdiger von Starhemberg. The Viennese were superior in artillery, and made a number of aggressive sorties against the encamped Turks.
	By September 1683, the Turks had made several breaches in the walls, but Jan Sobieski's army of Poles and Saxons arrived in the nick of time and defeated the surrounding army (12 September 1683).

	The Ottomans retreated in disorder and Hapsburg forces occupied the whole of Hungary. Buda was recovered (September 1686) and remnants of Turkish forces were defeated in 1687 at Nagyharsány, near Mohács (- a symbolic site, since it was there in 1526 that Suleiman the Magnificent had decisively defeated the Hungarian army, taking 100,000 captives into slavery and ending Hungarian independence).
	The sultan nominated Thököly as Prince of Transylvania, but Hapsburg troops under Louis of Baden smashed Turkish forces at Zalánkémen (August 1691).
	Both Hungary and Transylvania lost any effective local independence and were ruled from Vienna. The last attempt at rebellion, from 1703-11, was appropriately led by a Rákóczi, who was also stepson of Thököly. Ferenc Rákóczi II (1676-1735) had some initial success, but the victory at Blenheim (1704) allowed Prince Eugene to transfer troops from the West. Hapsburg forces were victorious at Zsibó (1705) and Trentschin (1708), and Rákóczi fled to Poland (1711), then to France, and eventually took refuge in Constantinople.

Hapsburg consolidation
 

	Imperial forces had captured Belgrade in 1688, but lost it back to the Turks in 1690. For some time there was military stalemate, but in 1697, Prince Eugene of Savoy took effective command of the Hapsburg armies in the East. At the Battle of Zenta (11 September 1697) after a rapid forced march, his army surprised the Ottoman army crossing the River Tisza - 20,000 Turks were killed in combat and 10,000 more drowned.
	This defeat, combined with pressure from Polish and Russian forces and threats to Adriatic shipping, compelled the Ottomans to sue for peace. The Treaty of Karlowitz (26 January 1699) recognized Hapsburg control of Hungary and Transylvania.
	Leopold now concentrated on the West. He saw vital Imperial interests at stake in the War of the Spanish Succession - in particular, preventing French domination of the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. Prince Eugene was sent to Northern Italy where he scored important victories at Luzzara (1702) and Turin (1706).
	The death of Leopold I's son Joseph I (1705-11) and accession of his younger son Charles VI coincided with the loss of Dutch and British support for Austria against France. They had intended that Charles acquire the Spanish empire, but now that he had succeeded in Austria they had no wish grant him all the Spanish territories as well and thus create a vast Hapsburg empire. Britain and the United Provinces concluded the Peace of Utrecht with France in 1713, giving Spain and Spanish America to a Bourbon, but granting Spain's other European possessions to Charles VI. The Karlskirche, Vienna begun 1715
	Charles VI fought on alone (to little effect) and agreed the Peace of Rastatt (March 1714). The Spanish Netherlands now became the Austrian Netherlands (although Hapsburg control was lessened by the obligation to pay for Dutch garrisons in frontier fortifications shielding the Netherlands from French expansion). In Italy the Emperor gained Naples, Milan, Mantua, & Sardinia. Milan and Mantua were wealthy and strategically placed. Naples and Sardinia were poor and difficult to defend because the Hapsburgs had no navy.
	Nevertheless, the Hapsburgs entered the 18th Century with a far larger and more secure dynastic state than they had entered it.