According to topschoolsintheusa, the decades that followed were decisive for the fate of Austria. Then, that state conglomerate was formed which under the name of Austria, gathering various ethnic and national groups, reached our times; then Austria had sealed its destiny as a Danubian organism. The lasting union of the Austrian lands with the Spanish kingdom and the Burgundian dominions would certainly have reserved a second-rate place for Austria, less rich, less powerful, even less civilized. But the determination of Charles V to cede the inherited dominions of his house to his brother Ferdinand (treaties of Worms, April 28, 1521, and of Brussels, February 7, 1522) completely changed the fortunes. For them, Austria, virtually removed from the conflicts for hegemony which then began in the West between France and Spain; placed outside even, for a moment, from the life of the German Empire, which Charles V continued to preside over, it found, as its free field, the Danube valley. And in fact the reign of Ferdinand was characterized by the union with Bohemia, by the attempts of union with Hungary, by the struggle against the Turks, now advancing towards the middle and lower Danube. Bohemia, after the death of King Louis on the fields of Mohács (29 August 1526), could be secured to Ferdinand thanks to his skilful tactics (February 1527): so that, from that moment, the personal union of the ancient reign of St. Wenceslas and Austria. In Hungary, however, where the succession was also open due to the death of Luigi, things went differently. The votes of the states remained divided between Ferdinand and the Transylvanian magnate Giovanni Zapolya (Szapályai): the latter, faithful to the decision of the Hungarian diet of Rákos, of 1505, to pay homage to the Turks rather than recognize a foreign king, called the sultan in the country and had himself installed king of Hungary. Shortly after (1529) the Turks, commanded by Sultan Suleiman, appeared for the first time under the walls of Vienna. The city, defended only by Austrian and imperial troops under the leadership of Count Nicola Salm, Hans Katzianer, Guglielmo von Rogendorf and Leonardo Fels, was able to resist with such valor that Suleiman raised the siege and retreated back to Hungary. A second attack against Vienna, in 1532, also broke in front of Güns, strongly defended by Nicola Juričić. of Guglielmo von Rogendorf and Leonardo Fels, he was able to resist with such valor, that Suleiman raised the siege and retreated back to Hungary. A second attack against Vienna, in 1532, also broke in front of Güns, strongly defended by Nicola Juričić. of Guglielmo von Rogendorf and Leonardo Fels, he was able to resist with such valor, that Suleiman raised the siege and retreated back to Hungary. A second attack against Vienna, in 1532, also broke in front of Güns, strongly defended by Nicola Juričić.
In addition to driving out the Turks, Ferdinand aimed to reconquer Hungary. But the states of the Empire and the inherited countries did not understand this, willing to give aid for the fight against the infidels, but not for an enterprise of conquest. The interest of the monarch and that of the countries subjected to him seemed divergent here and the opposition of the states, strengthened in that period of semi-anarchy that was the government of Frederick III, was such that it could not be won by a monarchy, as that Habsburg, anything but firmly established. Monarchical absolutism, which later will also be characteristic of Austrian state life, was then still a long way off; and liberties of character. feudal had good game in the struggle. Thus Ferdinand was forced to recognize king of Hungary Giovanni Zápolya (peace of Great Varadino, February 24, 1538) and to be content once again with the promise of future succession. Even the union of all the hereditary lands, re-established by the ancestor Maximilian I, was again broken by Ferdinand, who divided them between his three sons by testamentary disposition. Maximilian (II) had lower and upper Austria, Bohemia and the hypothetical succession in Hungary; the second son Carlo, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and the coast; finally, the last one, Ferdinand, the Tyrol and anterior Austria. The possessions of the first two were reunited again in 1619, when the son of Charles of Styria, Ferdinand II, ascended the throne; while the Tyrol maintained its distinct position until 1665. By dividing its possessions, Ferdinand also partly destroyed that central bureaucratic organization which, by renewing Maximilian’s reforms, he himself had established. The administrative bodies created by Ferdinand in 1527, i.e. the secret council for foreign policy, the imperial chancellery for internal administration, the courtly council as the supreme court and the courtroom as the supreme financial body, were now 1564, imitated in the territories of the three new branches of the house.
Thus the destinies of Austria were fixed. Freed from ties with those western lands that the adventurous policy of Maximilian I had ensured for the Habsburg dynasty, Austria resumed, more clearly and more decisively, that central-eastern position of state which, moreover, already in other moments of its history he had assumed, albeit to a lesser extent. The union with Bohemia, finally achieved, and the ever more tenacious insistence on wanting to dominate Hungary, gave the Habsburgs of Austria a distinct function that was distinct from that of the Habsburgs of Spain. And if they were aiming at Hungary for evident purposes of dynastic enlargement, yet, at that moment when the Turkish tide was advancing threateningly towards central Europe, their action, which placed them in contrast with the Turks, he made Austria a barrier for the defense of European and Christian civilization against the Muslim world. For them it could be repeated what Machiavelli and Guicciardini had said about Ferdinand the Catholic, king of Spain: that, by cloaking their enterprises with the color of religion, they gained in authority and fortune. The first siege of Vienna, in 1529, marked, in this sense, a milestone in the history of Austria. Like the ancient in this sense, a milestone in the history of Austria. Like the ancient in this sense, a milestone in the history of Austria. Like the ancient Ostmark had been a bulwark of the Frankish Empire against invasions from Eastern Europe, so now Austria became a bulwark of Central Europe against invasions from the Balkan Peninsula. In this function, it would have found not only its reasons for being, but also the reasons for giving life, under its name, to a vast state conglomerate, internally not homogeneous, but also called upon to fulfill its great historical function.
