Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor

Leopold became heir apparent in 1654 when his elder brother died, and was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1658 at seventeen. For the next forty-six years he fought on two fronts: the Ottomans pressing from the east, Louis XIV from the west. The Great Turkish War dragged from 1683 to 1699, but Leopold's general Prince Eugene of Savoy won it, and the Treaty of Karlowitz returned nearly all of Hungary — lost since 1526 — to Habsburg hands. In the west things went worse. Leopold fought France three times, the last over whether his younger son Charles could claim the entire Spanish inheritance agains…