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A good three hundred years later, Carl von Clausewitz wrote that the political aim is the purpose and war only the means. Maximilian I never knew this sentence, but he acted on it. The Viennese Double Wedding shows the Primacy of Purpose at work: a ruler achieves a great political objective with a means that at first glance does not look like politics at all: family.
An inheritance that could not be won by arms
Situation
After the death of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus in 1490, Maximilian lays claim to the Hungarian crown. In 1490 he marches into Hungary with an army, but the campaign does not win him the crown. In the Peace of Pressburg in 1491, he reaches an agreement with the new king, Vladislaus II, who is also king of Bohemia: if Vladislaus’s line dies out without male heirs, the Habsburgs are to succeed.
Link to the principle
Maximilian has learned that the obvious means, war, does not secure his purpose. A claim on paper is not enough either. He needs a means that makes the succession more secure and does without new campaigns.
The purpose: succession and protection against the Ottomans
Situation
At the beginning of the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire is advancing in the Balkans, and Hungary lies on the frontier. Maximilian wants two things: the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary are to pass permanently to Habsburg, and the rulers in the east are to stand together against the Ottomans. As early as 1506, the Houses of Habsburg and Jagiellon agree on marriages between Maximilian’s grandchildren and Vladislaus’s children for this purpose.
Link to the principle
The purpose is political and long-term. It defines what a useful means is: one that creates ties that will still hold when the rulers involved are no longer alive.
The means: a wedding instead of war
Situation
In July 1515, Maximilian, Vladislaus II and his brother Sigismund I, king of Poland, meet in Vienna. On July 22, two marriages are concluded in St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Louis, Vladislaus’s nine-year-old son, is married to Maximilian’s granddaughter Mary. Vladislaus’s daughter Anne is to marry one of Maximilian’s grandsons, but neither grandson is present. So the 56-year-old emperor steps up to the altar himself as a proxy. If no marriage contract with a grandson is concluded within a year, he intends to marry Anne himself. He also adopts little Louis as his son.
Link to the principle
The solution seems almost comical, but it shows the principle in its purest form. Maximilian subordinates even his own person to the purpose. How he looks as an older groom beside a girl who turns 12 the next day is secondary. All that matters is that the union stands legally.
The price of the means
Situation
According to the Austrian reference work Österreich-Lexikon, the meeting costs about as much as a military campaign; the money comes from Jakob Fugger. To win Sigismund of Poland over to the agreement, Maximilian also makes political concessions: he gives up supporting Moscow against Poland and Lithuania and offers to mediate in the dispute between Poland and the Teutonic Order. Ferdinand declares himself ready to marry Anne as early as 1516, and in 1521 he marries her in Linz. The placeholder is no longer needed.
Link to the principle
Even a peaceful means has a price, in this case about as high as a war. If you think from the purpose, you ask not only whether a means works but also whether its cost fits the purpose. Maximilian pays with money and concessions, not with soldiers. In return he gets what no campaign brought him: a contractually secured claim to the inheritance.
What came of it
Situation
Maximilian dies in 1519. On August 29, 1526, the young King Louis II falls at the Battle of Mohács against the Ottomans; he leaves no children. Ferdinand is elected king of Bohemia that same year. In Hungary, part of the nobility elects him and another part elects John Zápolya, and the struggle for the country goes on for a long time. Even so, 1515 is often regarded as the cornerstone of the Habsburg Monarchy, which lasted until 1918.
Link to the principle
The means fulfilled its purpose, though not as smoothly as planned. The marriage did not settle everything. It created a claim that Ferdinand had to enforce politically. That, too, is part of the principle: the means serves the purpose, but it does not replace further action.
Key takeaways
Key lessons
- First clarify what you want to achieve in the long run, and only then choose the means.
- If an obvious means has failed, look for a different one instead of trying harder.
- Subordinate vanity and habit to the purpose.
- Check whether the price of a means fits the purpose.
- Remember that even a good means only opens a door that you still have to walk through.
Summary
Maximilian I wanted to bind Bohemia and Hungary to Habsburg and unite the east against the Ottomans. War had not achieved that for him. So he chose a different means, marriage, and subordinated everything to it, even his own role as a stand-in groom. The Viennese Double Wedding shows the Primacy of Purpose: it is not the familiar means that decides, but what is to be achieved in the end.
Sources
- Manfred Hollegger: Maximilian I. (1459–1519). Herrscher und Mensch einer Zeitenwende. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2005 (in German).
- Carl von Clausewitz: Vom Kriege. Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler 1832 (in German).
