The campaign was now urged with great vigor, and nearly all of Hungary
was conquered. Such was the first great disaster which the intolerance
and folly of Rhodolph brought upon him. The Turks and the Hungarians
were now good friends, cordially cooeperating. A few more battles would
place them in possession of the whole of Hungary, and then, in their
alliance they could defy all the power of the emperor, and penetrate
even the very heart of his hereditary dominions of Austria. Rhodolph, in
this sudden peril, knew not where to look for aid. The Protestants, who
constituted one half of the physical force, not only of Bohemia and of
the Austrian States, but of all Germany, had been insulted and oppressed
beyond all hope of reconciliation. They dreaded the papal emperor more
than the Mohammedan sultan. They were ready to hail Botskoi as their
deliverer from intolerable despotism, and to swell the ranks of his
army. Botskoi was a Protestant, and the sympathies of the Protestants
all over Germany were with him. Elated by his advance, the Protestants
withheld all contributions from the emperor, and began to form
combinations in favor of the Protestant chief. Rhodolph was astonished
at this sudden reverse, and quite in dismay.
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