The Secret Chancellery of Anhalt

A Sincere Warning.

the bulwark of the Holy Roman Empire, gallantly defended for many years with blood and great expense (the Kingdom of Hungary), is divided within itself, stripped bare, and ruined. It has mostly fallen into the hands of Gabor Bethlen Gabriel Bethlen (1580–1629) was the Prince of Transylvania and a leader of an anti-Habsburg insurrection supported by the Ottomans., his own loyal and bonded vassal. The Kingdom of Bohemia, along with its incorporated lands, is for the most part ruined. These regions, and indeed nearly the greater part of the Holy Roman Empire, have exhausted original: eneruirt themselves of money, provisions, and people. Bitter minds continue to pursue the extremes they have practiced until now; they still seek the utmost help and assistance from the Turkish Porte The "Sublime Porte" was the metonym for the central government of the Ottoman Empire. and may, or perhaps will, defect to them entirely.

Oh God, what fine, hand-picked soldiery—to say nothing of the other countless, innocent, or uninvolved ruined souls—has perished these past two years, either through a lack of timely sustenance, or by the sword, or by fire, or by disease.

If someone—whether from the Union Referring to the Protestant Union, a coalition of Protestant German states. within the Holy Roman Empire, the Estates, Hungary, Bohemia, the incorporated, confederated, and united lands, or from His Holy Roman Imperial Majesty’s noble
House—