e
immigration, after an abortive rising against the Turks, of some 30,000
Slav and Albanian families into Slavonia and southern Hungary, where they
were granted by the emperor Leopold a certain autonomy and the recognition
of the Orthodox religion.

By the conquest of Hungary and Transylvania Leopold completed the edifice
of the Austrian monarchy, of which the foundations had been laid by
Ferdinand I. in 1526. He had also done much for its internal consolidation.
By the death of the archduke Sigismund in 1665 he not only gained Tirol,
but a considerable sum of money, which he used to buy back the Silesian
principalities of Oppeln and Ratibor, pledged by Ferdinand III. to the
Poles. In the administration of his dominions, too, Leopold succeeded in
strengthening the authority of the central government. The old estates,
indeed, survived; but the emperor kept the effective power in his own
hands, and to his reign are traceable the first beginnings of that system
of centralized bureaucracy which was established under Maria Theresa and
survived, for better or for worse, till the revolution of 1848. It was
under Leopold, also, that the Austrian standing army was established in
spite of much opposition; the regiments raised in 1672 were never
disbanded. For the intellectual life of the country Leopold did much. In
spite of his intolerant attitude towards religious dissent, he proved
himself an enlightened patron of learning. He helped in the establishment
of the universities of Innsbruck and Olmuetz; and under his auspices, after
the defeat of the Turks in 1683, Vienna began to develop from a mere
frontier fortress into one of the most brilliant capitals of Europe. (See
LEOPOLD I.)

[Sidenote: War of Spanish Succession.]

Leopold died in 1705 during the war of Spanish Succession (1702-13), which
he left as an evil inheritance to his sons Joseph I. (d. 1711) and Charles
VI. The result of the war was a further aggrandizement of the house of
Austria; but not to the extent that had been hoped. Apart from the fact
that British and Austrian troops had been unable to deprive Philip V. of
his throne, it was from the point of view of Europe at large by no means
desirable that Charles VI. should succeed in reviving the empire of Charles
V. By the treaty of Utrecht, accordingly, Spain was left to the House of
Bourbon, while that of Austria received the Spanish Netherlands, Sardinia
and Naples.

[Sidenote: Austria from 1715 to 1740.]