History of Hungary: A Captivating Guide to Hungarian History, Starting from the Roman Empire through the Magyar Tribes, Austro-Hungarian Empire and Hungarian Revolution by History Captivating

Author:History, Captivating
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

Illustration 15: Location of Mohács battlefield on a partial map of Hungary in 1526

The Hungarians formed an army under the Archbishop of Kalocsa, Pál Tomori, who was also the noble commander of the forces of Lower Hungary. He was joined by the aforementioned John Szapolyai, the voivode (lord) of Transylvania, and together, they raised an army of about twenty-five thousand men. John Szapolyai had an additional twenty thousand or so men at his command in Transylvania, and they were to march west and link up with the main force before meeting the Turks in battle.

Unfortunately, the Hungarians made a number of bad choices, including assembling their main force at Mohács, which was a long march from mountainous and rugged Transylvania and John Szapolyai’s forces, which never linked up with their comrades to the west. The ground at Mohács was an open plain with marshland breaking it up. This made maneuvering difficult, but it was perfect for the Ottomans’ artillery, which outnumbered the Hungarians nearly three to one (three hundred versus eighty). Even the fact that the Turks had marched a long distance in the summer heat (it was late August) did not make up for the disadvantages of the Hungarian force, whose ranks were filled with mostly untrained peasants. The Ottoman forces, on the other hand, were comprised of highly trained soldiers, led by the Janissaries, who had been kidnapped (mainly from Europe) and raised as fanatical Muslim warriors.

The surprise Hungarian charge against the Ottoman left flank was a success, but those Turkish troops were poorly trained irregulars. At about the same time the Hungarians were moving against the Ottoman left, the bulk of the Turkish forces, including the Janissaries, cavalry, and artillery (the Turks had much better artillery and were more proficient with it), moved on the Hungarian right flank and sent it into a panic. The Hungarians were surrounded. Those who could not flee were killed or captured. The estimated total of Hungarian losses is nearly fifteen thousand men, of which one thousand were nobles. This also included the king, who had drowned in the nearby river.

The ease of the victory actually came as a surprise to Suleiman the Magnificent, and he waited in the area around Mohács for what he believed would be the “rest” and “better” part of the Hungarian army to arrive. He whiled away the time by witnessing the execution of over two thousand Hungarian captives. After realizing no other Hungarian force was coming, Suleiman entered Buda, the capital of Hungary, shortly thereafter. (Pest, the city across the Danube from Buda, united with it in 1873, forming Budapest, which is the Hungarian capital today.) However, at the time, Suleiman felt exposed in Buda, so he pulled his forces back to a more defensible line to the south. In 1541, following a two-month siege on the city, he moved into Buda.

Negotiations commenced after the battle, and it was agreed that Hungary would be divided.

(Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

With the destruction of the Hungarians at Mohács, the great powers in central Europe were now the Habsburg family of Austria and Bohemia and the Ottoman Turks.

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