From Bohemia to the Thirty Years War 237bolder spirits among the Bohemian exiles and the remains of their army
before he moved to join Bethlen. Despite their large combined forces
the fighting during the remainder of the year was inconclusive, as the
Imperialists too regrouped, and by the late autumn Bethlen faced his
perennial problem that many of his men wanted to go home before
the winter. He had as usual begun negotiating well in advance, almost
as soon as his success at Neuhäusel had strengthened his hand, and as
Ferdinand was anxious for a settlement Bethlen was able to drive a hard
bargain. He was ready to forego the Hungarian crown, but in return he
received even larger territorial concessions, together with confirmation
of Hungarian religious privileges and recognition of Transylvanian inde-
pendence. Jägerndorf was left to fend for himself, but without money
to pay his men most of them deserted and his resistance fizzled out,
although he himself escaped.^16
The eternal opportunist, Bethlen did not respect the peace treaty for
long, and by the spring of 1623 he was again planning a large-scale
attack, for which he enlisted unofficial support from the Ottoman sul-
tan against an undertaking that captured Habsburg territories would
become Turkish tributaries. He was also to be joined by a force of
Bohemian exiles lead by Thurn, while the new Palatine supporters in
Germany were to launch a simultaneous attack through Bohemia. In the
event the latter were defeated by Tilly before they could set out, while
Bethlen’s own advance was delayed waiting for his full complement to
report for service after bringing in the harvest. Hence he proceeded later
and more cautiously than he had originally intended, but still with a
reported 40,000 to 50,000 men, as before mainly light cavalry, although
these numbers are even more suspect than the usually unreliable figures
quoted for armies in this period.^17 The Imperialist forces were by this
time reduced in numbers, over-stretched and ill-organised, so that only
a relatively small army could be mustered to oppose Bethlen, who how-
ever preferred to raid and skirmish rather than to seek a pitched battle,
while the emperor’s commanders sought to block his route to Vienna.
Eventually he trapped the Imperialists in the small fortified town of
Göding (Hodonin), sixty miles north of the city, where he mounted
a siege instead of pressing on. As he had little infantry or artillery it
became a long-drawn-out affair, but Bethlen was nearer to success than
he knew when the approach of winter caused him to negotiate yet
another truce and withdraw. A formal peace followed in May 1624,
essentially confirming the terms of the previous one, but only two years
later Bethlen was back on the attack in conjunction with Christian IV
of Denmark.