The rebellions did just enough to ensure that the Habsburgs would always treat Hungary as a separate state – but in every other way were a disaster, leaving huge areas as a wilderness of burned-out estates, castles and towns, with many dispossessed families and a depopulation as bad as in the areas fought over with the Ottomans. They offered too the first taste of post-liberation ethnic tension, as many Serbs chose to rally to the Habsburgs rather than the rebels, making it clear that an external ruler could, through careful distribution of favours and punishments, keep in play antagonisms
...more
