The
Ottoman-Hungarian War refers to a series of
battles between the
Ottoman Empire
and the medieval
Kingdom of
Hungary. Following the
Byzantine civil war, the
Ottoman
capture of Gallipoli and
the decisive
Battle of Kosovo, the
Ottoman Empire seemed poised to conquer the whole of the Balkans.
However, the Ottoman invasion of Serbia drove Hungary to war
against the Ottomans, with the former having interests in the
Balkans and competing for the vassalship of the Balkan states of
Serbia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Moldavia.
Initial Hungarian success culminated in the
Crusade of Varna, though without
significant outside support the Hungarians were defeated.
Nonetheless the Ottomans suffered more
defeats at Belgrade, even after the
conquest of Constantinople.
In particular was the infamous
Vlad the
Impaler who with limited Hungarian help resisted Ottoman rule
until the Ottomans were able to place his brother, a man less
feared and less hated by the populace on the throne of
Wallachia. Ottoman success was once again halted
at Moldavia due to Hungarian intervention but the Turks emerged
triumphant at last when Moldavia and then Belgrade fell to
Bayezid II and
Suleiman the Magnificent
respectively.
In 1526 the Ottomans crushed the Hungarian
army at Mohács
with King Louis II
of Hungary perishing along with 14,000 of his foot
soldiers. Following this defeat, the eastern region of the
Kingdom of Hungary (mainly
Transylvania) ceased as an independent power
and served as an Ottoman
tributary
state, constantly engaged in
civil war
with
Royal Hungary. The war continued
with the
Habsburgs now asserting primacy
in the conflict with the
Suleiman and
his successors. The northern and western parts of Hungary
managed to remain free from Ottoman rule, but the Kingdom of
Hungary, the most powerful state east of Vienna under
Matthias I, was now divided and at constant war
with the Turks.
Background
In the century after the death of
Osman I,
Ottoman rule began to extend over the Eastern Mediterranean and the
Balkans. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the
Venetians in 1387, and the Turkish victory at the
Battle of Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked
the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman
expansion into the rest of Europe.
The
Battle of
Nicopolis
is thought to be the first significant encounter
between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, where a broad alliance of
Christian monarchs and the Knights
Hospitaller were defeated by a numerically superior Turkish
army (the Ottomans had also enlisted the support of their new
vassal, the Serbian
Despotate).
Louis I of Hungary (King:
1342-1382)
In 1344
Wallachia and
Moldavia became Louis's vassal.
Louis with
his ernomous 80.000 strong army repelled the Serbian Dušan's armies in
vojvodine of Mačva and principality of
Travunia in 1349. when Czar Dusan broke
into Bosnian
territory he
was defeated by Bosnian Stjepan II with the assistance of
King Louis' troops, and when Dušan made a second attempt he was
decisively beaten by his luckier rival, King Louis the Great
himself, in 1354. The two monarchs signed the peace
agreement in 1355.
His latter campaigns in the Balkans were aimed not so much at
conquest and subjugation as at drawing the Serbs, Bosnians,
Wallachians and Bulgarians into the fold of the Roman Catholic
faith and at forming a united front against the looming Turkish
menace. In 1366 John V Byzantine Emperor visited Hungary to beg for
help against Turks. It was relatively easy to subdue Balkanian
Orthodox countries by arms, but to convert them was a different
matter. Despite Lajos' efforts, the peoples of the Balkans remained
faithful to the Eastern Orthodox Church and their attitude toward
Hungary remained ambiguous. Louis annexed
Moldavia in 1352 and established a vassal
principality there, before conquering Vidin in 1365. The rulers of
Serbia, Walachia, Moldavia, and Bulgaria became his vassals.They
regarded powerful Hungary as a potential menace to their national
identity. For this reason, Hungary could never regard the Serbs and
Wallachians as reliable allies in her subsequent wars against the
Turks. However Lajos defeated the Turks when Hungarian and Turkish
troops clashed for the first time in history at Nicapoli in 1366.
The
Hungarian Chapel in the Cathedral at Aachen
was built to
commemorate this victory. He defeated the Turkish army in
Wallachia in 1374.
In the
spring of 1365, Louis I headed a campaign against the Bulgarian
Tsardom of Vidin
and its ruler Ivan
Sratsimir. He seized the city of Vidin
on 2 May
1365; the region was under
Hungarian rule until 1369.
But it is easily arguable that his Balkan enterprises brought
Hungary, on balance, more loss of money than profit.
Despite
these successes the Ottomans would have to start all over from
near-scratch when in 1402 Timur the lame of the Chagatai Khanate captured the Ottoman
Sultan Bayezid the
Thunderbolt at Ankara, so named
for the speed of his crushing victories against his Christian
opponents, most notably at Nicopolis
.
Campaigns of Murad II, 1421 - 1451
The Ottoman Empire seemed to have collapsed after 1402 but Murad
II, the successor to Mehmed I proved to be a man of far greater
ghazi skills then his peaceful predecessor whose appreciation of
Byzantine assistance even made him go so far as to accept the
Byzantine Emperor as his suzerain. Such an arrangement was out of
all proportion to the powers of the two Empires, and in 1422 Murad
II demonstrated how much of a "suzerain" the Emperor was to the
Sultan when Constantinople
narrowly escaped an Ottoman
conquest
With Byzantium neutralized and terrified in servitude as a vassal,
Murad II began his holy war against his Christian opponents,
attacking Macedonia and capturing Thessalonika from the Venetians
in 1430. Between 1435 and 1436 the Ottomans made a show of strength
in Albania but the country survived total knock out when the
Kingdom of Hungary, whose borders now neared those of the Ottoman
realm intervened.
His first battles and the Long
campaign
The burden of the Ottoman War now rested with him.
In 1441 he delivered
Serbia
by the victory of Semendria. In 1442, not
far from Nagyszeben, on which he had been forced to retire, he
annihilated an immense Ottoman presence, and recovered for Hungary
the suverainty of
Wallachia. In February
1450, he signed an alliance treaty with
Bogdan II of Moldavia.
In July,
he vanquished a third Turkish army near the Iron
Gates
. These victories made Hunyadi a prominent
enemy of the Ottomans and renowned throughout
Christendom, and stimulated him in 1443 to
undertake, along with King Władysław, the famous expedition known
as the
long campaign.
Hunyadi,
at the head of the vanguard, crossed the Balkans through the Gate of Trajan
, captured Niš
, defeated
three Turkish pashas, and, after taking
Sofia
, united with the royal army and defeated Sultan Murad II at
Snaim. The impatience of the king and the
severity of the winter then compelled him (February 1444) to return
home, but not before he had utterly broken the Sultan's power in
Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Albania
.
No sooner had he regained Hungary than he received tempting offers
from
Pope Eugene
IV, represented by the
Legate
Julian Cesarini, from
Đurađ Branković,
despot of Serbia, and
Gjergj
Kastrioti, prince of Albania, to resume the war and realize his
ideal of driving the Ottomans from Europe.
All the preparations
had been made when Murad's envoys arrived in the royal camp at
Szeged
and offered
a ten years' truce on advantageous
terms. Branković bribed Hunyadi -he gave him his vast
estates in Hungary- to support the acceptance of the peace.
Cardinal
Julian Cesarini found a
traitorous solution. The king swore that he would never give up the
crusade, so all future peace and oath was automatically invalid.
After this Hungary accepted the Sultan's offer and Hunyadi in
Władysław's name swore on the
Gospels to
observe them.
Battle of Varna
Murad II was unable to stop Hunyadi from calling in reinforcements
from Western Europe. Few knights came, but those that did assisted
in capturing Nis on November 3 1443, defeating another Turkish army
as they crossed the Balkan Mountains and then taking another
victory on Christmas day. Christmas or not, supplies for the
Crusader army were low and Hunyadi concluded a 10-year peace treaty
with Murad II, presumably on his terms for it was triumphant
Hungarian that entered Buda in February of 1444. 10 years was the
maximum time permitted by Islamic law for a treaty with an
"infidel". Unfortunately for the Hungarians, no such time limit
existed in the minds of the Papal legate, for if it did it would
have been a very small one - Cardinal Cesarini incited the
Hungarians to break the treaty and attack the Turks once more. It
was a foolish move, for much of the Crusader armies' strength had
been reduced due to the loss (by defection) of Serbia, Albania and
the Byzantine Empire. Fanciful ideas had been discussed of Greeks
making diversionary attacks in the Peloponnese. Even the recapture
of Jerusalem was entertained.
It was a foolishly small Crusader army that attacked across the
Danube. Sultan Murad II, upon hearing of the Christian breach of
the treaty is said to have mounted the broken treaty on his
standard and said the words, "Christ, if you are God as your
followers claim, punish them for their perfidy". Accounts vary as
to how many troops were present but the Crusaders may have been
30,000 whilst the Ottomans between two to three times larger.
Nonetheless Hunyadi's successful defense wagons held the line until
King Ladislas led a foolish glory-motivated charge to his death
against the Turkish lines. His head was mounted on a spear and all
the defeated Christians could see it, most likely before their
death, for very few survived the battle. It was somewhat consoling
for to the Hungarians that John Hunyadi lived to fight and win
another day. For Murad II, the battle was a close call. His forces
had suffered heavy casualties and the prisoners suffered death at
the hands of his revenge.
After Varna
The Hungarians recovered their strength after Varna and John
Hunyadi was able lead another expedition down the Danube. Turkish
counter-attacks saw this "crusade" driven back. After Murad dealt
with the Greeks at the Peloponesse and other traitors who fought
him at Varna, he turned his attention to Albania, whose leader was
once one of many Ottoman hostages was now a popular resistance
leader. Hunyadi could not refuse an offer to fight the Turks and in
1448 an army of some 24,000 Hungarians marched south into Serbia to
link up with his Albanian ally. At the Second
Battle of Kosovo Murad scored
another victory against the Hungarians and prevented their army
from linking up with their Albanian allies. This time, Hunyadi had
had enough and was unable to campaign against the Ottoman Sultan.
Murad II passed on his powers to his successor, Mehmed II. Thanks
to such victories, the Ottoman forces were able to
capture Constantinople in 1453 with
only the Italians able to offer minimal yet much-needed
support.
Battle of
Belgrade
Meanwhile, the Ottoman issue had again become acute, and, after the
fall of Constantinople in
1453, it seemed natural that
Sultan
Mehmed II was rallying his resources in
order to subjugate Hungary. His immediate objective was
Nándorfehérvár (today Belgrade). Nándorfehérvár was a major
castle-fortress, and a gate keeper of south Hungary. The fall of
this stronghold would have opened a clear way to the heart of
Central-Europe. Hunyadi arrived at the
siege of Belgrade at the end of 1455,
after settling differences with his domestic enemies. At his own
expense, he restocked the supplies and arms of the fortress,
leaving in it a strong garrison under the command of his
brother-in-law
Mihály
Szilágyi and his own eldest son
László Hunyadi. He proceeded to
form a relief army, and assembled a
fleet of two hundred ships. His main ally was
the
Franciscan friar,
Giovanni da
Capistrano, whose fiery oratory drew a large
crusade made up mostly of peasants. Although
relatively ill-armed (most were armed with farm equipment, such as
scythes and
pitchforks) they flocked to Hunyadi and his small
corps of seasoned
mercenaries and
cavalry.
On July 14, 1456 the
flotilla assembled by
Hunyadi destroyed the Ottoman fleet. On July 21, Szilágyi's forces
in the fortress repulsed a fierce assault by the
Rumelian army, and Hunyadi pursued the retreating
forces into their camp, taking advantage of the Turkish army's
confused flight from the city.
After fierce but brief fighting, the camp
was captured, and Mehmet raised the siege and returned to Constantinople
. With his flight began a 70 year period of
relative peace on Hungary's southeastern border.However, plague
broke out in Hunyadi's camp three weeks after the lifting of the
siege, and he died August 11.
He was buried inside the (Roman Catholic) Cathedral of Alba Iulia
(Gyulafehérvár), next to his younger
brother John. Sultan Mehmet II paid him tribute:"Although he
was my enemy I feel grief over his death, because the world has
never seen such a man."
The Noon Bell
Pope Callixtus III ordered the bells of every European church to be
rung every day at noon, as a call for believers to pray for the
defenders of Belgrade. However, in many countries (like England and
Spanish kingdoms), news of the victory arrived before the order,
and the ringing of the church bells at noon thus transformed into a
commemoration of the victory. The Popes didn't withdraw the order,
and Catholic (and the older Protestant) churches still ring the
noon bell in the Christian world to this day.
Mehmed II (1451 - 1481) and fall of
Constantinople
Mehmed
conquered Constantinople
in 1453. (Main article:
Fall of Constantinople April 2, 1453
– May 29, 1453 )With Constantinople under his belt and a great
euphoria from the conquest, Mehmet II began making preparations for
his next campaign against Belgrade. The city was a triple-walled
fortress but was poorly manned. Nonetheless when Mehmed II tried to
take the city, not only was he repulsed but a furious and suicidal
counter-attack launched by the inexperienced and fanatical
civilians drove the Turks from the field. Even so the Ottomans were
able to campaign with greater success elsewhere.
The Duchy of Athens, Trebizond
and Albania was brought beneath the Sultan's boot in 1456, 1461
and 1468. Of equally great importance was the death of
John Hunyadi to the
Plague, depriving the Hungarians one of
their most heroic generals.
Matthias Corvinus was John
Hunyadi's son. The 15 years old boy was crowned in
Buda in 1458.In 1471 Matthias renewed the
Serbian Despotate in south Hungary under
Vuk Grgurević for the protection
of the borders against the Ottomans.
In 1479 a huge
Ottoman army, on its return home from ravaging Transylvania, was
annihilated at Szászváros (modern Orăştie
, 13 October 1479) in the so-called Battle of
Breadfield
. The following year Matthias recaptured
Jajce, drove the Ottomans from northern Serbia and instituted two
new military banats, Jajce and Srebernik, out from reconquered
Bosnian territory.
In 1480, when a Ottoman fleet
seized
Otranto in the Kingdom of Naples, at the earnest solicitation
of the pope he sent the Hungarian general, Balázs Magyar, to
recover the fortress, which surrendered to him on 10 May 1481.
Again in
1488, Matthias took Ancona
under his
protection for a while, occupying it with a Hungarian
garrison.
Wallachian and Moldavian wars
Vlad the Impaler & war
with Wallachia, 1456 - 1475
Mehmed II's post-Constantinople troubles escalated further when the
Balkan principality of
Wallachia under the dreaded
Count Vlad Dracula rebelled against the Ottoman Empire
and declared the King of Hungary as his
suzerain. The main drive for these actions was
Vlad's return to his homeland after being in exile, as a hostage of
the Ottoman sultan. Five years after his return from exile, Vlad
initiated war with the Turks when in 1461 he impaled the Turkish
ambassadors demanding tribute from him and took the fortress of
Giurgiu. Vlad then began leading a bloody assault across the Danube
to the Black sea, destroying as much of the ports as he could lay
his hands on to prevent Ottoman naval attacks. Ottoman attempts to
subdue Vlad militarily proved a failure but his cruelty, which had
given him the edge of striking terror into the hearts of his
enemies proved to be his undoing. When Mehmed offered the populace
the choice of Radu, Vlad's brother or the Impaler himself, the
populace knew who to choose and soon Vlad was once again an exile
on the run. An attempt to return a few years afterwards ended in
his death in battle.
Stephen the Great &
war against Moldavia, 1475 -
1476
Mehmed's army seems to have spent itself in Wallachia for the
campaign against the Moldavians was shorter and yielded poorer
results still. In 1475 Mehmed ordered an invasion of Moldavia.
Again, the Ottomans often took possession of the field but
Moldavian hit & run tactics proved effective against the Turks.
Poor roads slowed the Ottomans further still until Stephen was able
to concentrate his forces at Vaslui. An Ottoman offensive was held
in check and then finally driven from the field on 10 January
1475.
The Ottomans returned in 1476, this time assisted by their allies
from Crimea, the Tartars and their newly-conquered Vassal of
Wallachia. Stephen knew that he did not have the resources to
defend his people and evacuated them to the mountains. After a
failed attack on the Ottoman vanguard Stephen seemed on the brink
of defeat when King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary offered assistance
against the Sultan. The Ottomans withdrew when the Hungarians began
moving in and fighting did not resume until 1484.
Bayezid's early reign was cursed with a small civil war against his
brother Jem, who escaped to the west. There European leaders
entertained ideas of installing a pro-Western Sultan whilst
Crusading their way to the Balkans. Consequently Bayezid II did not
incite any serious wars with his Christian opponents until his
brother's death in 1495. In the meantime Bayezid signed a ten-year
peace with Hungary in 1484 although this did not prevent a defeat
of an Ottoman army at Villach in 1493. Between 1484 and 1486
Bayezid campaigned annually against Moldavia in an attempt to
subdue it and link up with Crimea, his Muslim vassal and ally.
Despite two defeats in 1485 and 1486 Moldavia was subjugated. As
Bayezid's reign drew to a close he was entangled in a civil war
between his sons Ahmed and Selim. Eventually Selim took the throne
in 1512 and for the next 8 years continued minor conquests in the
west - although his main achievement was the conquest of the
Mamluke Sultanate. It would be
Selim's successor, Suleiman who would continue the war against
Hungary.
Suleiman
resumed the war against Hungary by attacking the city of Belgrade
, the same settlement that had defied Mehmed II over
half a century ago. Despite reminiscent heroic resistance,
the city fell to Suleiman. In 1522 Suleiman took his army to a
strategically successful siege of Rhodes, allowing the Knights
Hospital to evacuate for the fort. Even so the Hungarians should
not have wasted the small reprieve in weakening their state.
Mohács: the Fall of the Kingdom
When Suleiman launched an invasion in 1526 the Grand vizier was
able to construct a great bridge ahead of the Sultan allowing his
army to march into Hungary. Despite 80 days of marching and taking
5 days to cross the
Danube River the
Ottomans met no resistance against the Hungarians. The original
plan set out by King Louis II was to send a vanguard to hold the
Danube where the Ottomans were expected to cross, yet the nobles of
the Kingdom refused to follow the King's deputy in battle, claiming
that they did so out of zealous allegiance to the King (and would
therefore only follow him). Consequently when King Louis II took
the field his army of 26,000 men seemed to be doomed to fail
against the Ottomans' 100,000. At Mohacs the plains of Hungary
allowed the Heavier Christian Knights to launch an effective
charge. As the Hungarian knights brushed aside first the
Akinjis and then the
Sipahis,
the Ottoman cavalry regrouped and flanked the knights. However, the
Sultan placed his Janissaries and cannon chained up as an effective
last line of defense. The Hungarian cavalry took serious casualties
from the skilfully handled Turkish artillery. With the Cavalry
annihilated, the Infantry suffered immense casualties as the weight
of numbers of the Ottomans and their skill in battle took their
toll. When Suleiman the Magnificent found the body of the dead
Louis II he is said to have been disappointed at cutting down the
youth, who had no heirs.
Aftermath of Mohács
Hungary around 1550.
John Zápolya, who had been
instructed by Louis II to raid the enemy's supply lines arrived at
the battle too late and fled the scene. Suleiman however was not
ready to annex the Kingdom completely into the Ottoman realm and so
John Zapolyai was installed as the vassal King of Hungary.
Meanwhile at the diet of Bratislava Archduke Ferdinand of Austria
was declared King of Hungary. The surviving nobles of Hungary now
had to choose between a native vassal of Suleiman and a Christian
"foreigner" to pledge allegiance to.
Suleiman's victory at Mohacs is considered a great and decisive
battle for the Ottomans. However, even though the Kingdom of
Hungary was knocked out of the war Austria now took on the Ottoman
enemy. This is not to say that Austria alone could bear the full
might of the Ottoman Empire, nor was Ottoman rule in most of
Hungary seriously contested beyond the city of Buda.
After John Szapolya's death (1540)
Hungary was riven into three parts. The north-west (present-day
Slovakia, western Transdanubia and Burgenland, western Croatia and
parts of north-eastern present-day Hungary) remained under Habsburg
rule; although initially independent, later it became a part of the
Habsburg Monarchy under the informal name Royal Hungary. The
Habsburg Emperors would from then on be also crowned as Kings of
Hungary.
The eastern part of the kingdom (Partium and Transylvania) became
at first an independent principality, but gradually was brought
under Turkish rule as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. The
remaining central area (most of present-day Hungary), including the
capital of Buda, became a province of the Ottoman Empire.
Nonetheless Mohacs simply enlarged the borders of the Ottoman realm
thereby increasing exposure to attack, bringing the empire into
later conflict with Poland, Russia, the Cossacks and the
Habsburgs.
Footnotes
-
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/HUNGARY.htm#LajosIdied1382B
-
http://www.archive.org/stream/austriahungarywa00ludwrich/austriahungarywa00ludwrich_djvu.txt
- Sources such as this support this number, other suggest a
smaller number of 60,000
References
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