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After the defeat of the Ottomans by the Austrians at Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs gradually began to impose their rule on the formerly autonomous Transylvania. Apart from strengthening the central government and administration, the Habsburgs also promoted the Roman Catholic Church, both as a uniting force and also as an instrument to reduce the influence of the protestant nobility and weaken the estates by creating a conflict between protestant and catholic elements. In addition, they tried to persuade Orthodox clergymen to join the Uniate (Greek Catholic) Church, which retained Orthodox rituals and customs but accepted four key points of Catholic doctrine and acknowledged papal authority. In 1699 and 1701, Emperor Leopold I decreed Transylvania's Orthodox Church to be one with the Roman Catholic Church. Many, but not all, priests converted although it was not clear to them what was the difference between the two denominations.
From 1711, Austrian control over Transylvania was consolidated, and the princes of Transylvania were replaced by Austrian governors. The proclamation ( 1765) of Transylvania as a grand principality was a mere formality. The pressure of Austrian bureaucratic rule gradually eroded the traditional independence of Transylvania. In 1791 the Romanians petitioned Emperor Leopold II for recognition as the fourth "nation" of Transylvania and for religious equality, but the Transylvanian Diet rejected their demands, restoring the Romanians to their old status.
In early 1848, the Hungarian Diet seized the opportunity presented by the revolution to enact a comprehensive legislative program of reforms, referred to as the April Laws, which also included provision for the union of Transylvania and Hungary. The Romanians of Transylvania initially welcomed the revolution believing that they would benefit from the liberal reforms. However, their position changed due to the opposition of Transylvanian nobles to reforms such as emancipation of the serfs, and the failure of the Hungarian revolutionary leaders to recognise Romanian national interests. A Romanian national assembly at Blaj in the middle of May, produced its own revolutionary program calling for proportionate representation of Romanians in the Transylvanian Diet and an end to ethnic oppression. The Saxons were worried from the start about the idea of union with Hungary, fearing the loss of their traditional privileges. When the Transylvanian Diet met on 29th May the vote for union was pushed through despite the objection of many Saxon deputies. On June 10, the Emperor sanctioned the union vote of the Diet. Military executions, the arrest of revolutionary leaders and other activities which followed the union, hardened the position of the Saxons. In September 1848, another Romanian assembly in Blaj denounced union with Hungary and called for an armed rising in Transylvania. Warfare erupted in November with both Romanian and Saxon troops, under Austrian command, battling the Hungarians led by Polish General Józef Zachariasz Bem. Within four months, Bem had ousted the Austrians from Transylvania. However, in June 1849, tsar Nicholas I of Russia responded to an appeal from Emperor Franz Joseph and sent Russian troops into Transylvania. After initial successes against the Russians, Bem's army was defeated decisively at the Battles of Timisoara on 9th August. The surrender of the Hungarians followed.
After quashing the revolution, Austria imposed a repressive regime on Hungary and ruled Transylvania directly through a military governor. German again became the official language. Austria abolished the Union of Three Nations and granted citizenship to the Romanians. Although the former serfs were given land by the Austrian authorities, it was often barely sufficient for subsistence living. Their poor conditions obliged many Romanian families to cross into Wallachia and Moldavia searching for better lives.
However, in the compromise ( Ausgleich) of 1867, which established the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the special status of Transylvania ended and it became a province under Hungarian control.
Although Romania was ruled by a German king, it refused to join the Central Powers and stayed neutral when the First World War began. However Russian successes in 1916, Allied promises of territory (including Transylvania), and fear of Germany convinced Romania to join the Allied Powers. Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary on the 27th August 1916. Confident of victory, Romanian troops crossed into Transylvania. An Austro-German counter offensive began the following month, driving the Romanian army back into Romania by mid-October and eventually leading to the capture of Bucharest. Following the Russian-German Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, Romania surrendered to the Central Powers in May 1918. However, the resulting Treaty of Bucharest never completed ratification in Romania and was denounced in October 1918 by the Romanian government, which then re-entered the war on the Allied side.
By mid-1918 the tide of the war had turned against the Central Powers and Austria-Hungary began to disintegrate. Many of the various ethnic groups living inside Austria-Hungary proclaimed their independence during September and October 1918, and it became politically expedient for the allied victors to break up the empire into various national components in accordance with Woodrow Wilson's 14 points. The leaders of Transylvania's National Party met and drafted a resolution invoking the right of self-determination, and proclaimed the unification of Transylvania with Romania. In November, the Romanian National Central Council, which represented all the Romanians of Transylvania, notified the Budapest government that it had assumed control of twenty-three Transylvanian counties and parts of three others. A mass assembly on 1st of December 1918 in Alba Iulia passed a resolution calling for unification of all Romanians in a single state. When the Communist Party of Hungary, led by Béla Kun, came to power in March 1919 it proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic and promised that Hungary would regain the lands it had lost. During the war between Romania and the Soviet Republic of Hungary, the latter initially halted the Romanian advance in the East, but in July the Romanian army broke through Hungarian lines and marched into Budapest.
The Treaty of Versailles, formally signed on June 1919, recognised Transylvania as belonging to Romania. The Treaties of St. Germain (1919) and Trianon (signed on June 1920) further elaborated the status of Transylvania and defined the new border between the states of Hungary and Romania.
In August 1940, during the Second World War, Hitler awarded the northern part of Transylvania to Hungary by the second Vienna Award (Vienna Arbitration Award or Vienna Diktat). After the Second World War the teritory of northern Transylvania returned to Romania. The post-WWII borders with Hungary, agreed on at the Treaty of Paris in 1947, were identical with those set out in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon.
See also:
References for History of Transylvania:
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopĉdia Britannica. 1911 Britannica
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