ar's power rose to its greatest height. He now obtained possession
of Carinthia, Istria and parts of northern Italy. His possessions
extended from the Giant Mountains in Bohemia to the Adriatic, and
included almost all the parts of the present Habsburg empire west of the
Leitha. His contemporaries called Ottakar "the man of gold" because of
his great wealth, or "the man of iron" because of his military power.
From political rather than racial causes Ottakar favoured the
immigration of Germans into his dominions. He hoped to find in the
German townsmen a counterpoise to the overwhelming power of the Bohemian
nobility. In 1273 Rudolph, count of Habsburg, was elected king of the
Romans. It is very probable that the German crown had previously been
offered to Ottakar, but that he had refused it. Several causes, among
others his Slavic nationality, which was likely to render him obnoxious
to the Germans, contributed to his decision. As Rudolph immediately
claimed as vacant fiefs of the Empire most of the lands held by Ottakar,
war was inevitable. Ottakar was deserted by many of his new subjects,
and even by part of the Bohemian nobility. He was therefore unable to
resist the German king, and was obliged to surrender to him all his
lands except Bohemia and Moravia, and to recognize Rudolph as his
overlord. New dissensions between the two sovereigns broke out almost
immediately. In 1278 Ottakar invaded the Austrian duchies, now under the
rule of Rudolph, but was defeated and killed at the battle of Durnkrut
on the Marchfeld.

Wenceslas II.

Ottakar's son, Wenceslas II., was only seven years of age at the death
of his father, and Otto of Brandenburg, a nephew of Ottakar, for a time
governed Bohemia as guardian of the young sovereign. Otto's rule was
very unpopular, an insurrection broke out against him, and Bohemia was
for a time in a state of complete anarchy. The country was at last
pacified through the intervention of Rudolph of Habsburg, and at the age
of twelve Wenceslas became nominal ruler of the country. All power was,
however, in the hands of Zavis of Falkenstein, one of the great Bohemian
nobles, who had married the king's mother, Kunegunda. The power of Zavis
at last became invidious to the king, by whose order he was beheaded in
1290. Wenceslas, though only nineteen years of age, henceforth governed
Bohemia himself, and his short reign was a period of great happiness for
the country. Poland also accepted the ru