(2) Hungary: Military History and Notable Events

1241 - Battle of Mohi (All Facts)

• Battle in which Batu Khan and the Mongols defeated King Bela IV of Hungary and his forces during the First Mongol Invasion of Hungary

• Battle in which King Bela IV had been chased across the frozen Danube River into Croatia, while the main invading Mongolian army occupied his country with chilling brutality

• Battle after which Batu Khan and his Mongol forces withdrew from Hungary and Dalmatia, to cross the Carpathian Mountains, and return to the lower Volga River

1366 - 1526 - Hungarian-Ottoman Wars (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts which ended with the Battle of Mohacs

1441 - Battle of Smederevo (All Facts)

• Battle in which Janos Hunyadi and his forces defeated Ishak Bey and the Ottoman Turks in modern-day Serbia during the Hungarian-Ottoman Wars

1442 - Battle of the Iron Gate (All Facts)

• Battle in which Janos Hunyadi and his forces defeated Mezid Bey and the Ottoman Turks in modern-day Romania during the Hungarian-Ottoman Wars

1444 - Battle of Varna (All Facts)

• Battle in which General Janos Hunyadi and King Wladyslaw III and their forces were defeated by Murad II and the Ottoman Turks on the shores of the Black Sea in modern-day Bulgaria during the Hungarian-Ottoman Wars

• Battle which allowed the Ottoman Turks to enter Constantinople and which failed to prevent further Ottoman expansion into the Balkans

• Battle after which King Wladyslaw III vanished

1448 - Battle of Kosovo (All Facts)

• Battle in which Janos Hunyadi and his forces were defeated by Murad II and the Ottoman Turks in modern-day Serbia during the Hungarian-Ottoman Wars

1456 - Siege of Belgrade (All Facts)

• Battle in which Janos Hunyadi and his forces defeated Mohamed II and the Ottoman Turks in modern-day Serbia during the Hungarian-Ottoman Wars

• Battle which took place on the Danube River

• Battle in which Hunyadi and his forces were outnumbered by but nevertheless defeated the larger Ottoman army and navy

• Battle before which Hunyadi gathered some 60K men, mostly volunteers and peasants, and a much smaller fleet

• Battle prior to which Mohammed II was able to prepare in secret and muster some 150K men and 60 ships to blockade the namesake city

• Battle in which the Ottoman Turks had some 300 siege guns, including 27 giant cannons and catapults and other weapons

• Battle in which huge boulders were hurled at the namesake fortress but were ineffective because of a successful warning system employed by the Hungarians involving bells

• Battle in which after Hunyadi’s navy broke the blockade, his troops relieved the namesake fortress and blunted a series of Ottoman attacks until the siege guns were overrun and they stormed to victory

1515 - First Congress of Vienna (All Facts)

• Meeting attended by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian and the Jagiellonian brothers, King Vladislaus II of Hungary and Bohemia, and King Sigismund of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania where they all forged an alliance with one another

• Meeting in which Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian married off his children Ferdinand and Mary to King Vladislaus II of Hungary and Bohemia’s children Louis and Anne

• Meeting in which the Kingdom of Hungary, given its absence of a direct heir to King Louis II, was inherited to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and the House of Habsburg

  • This partially protected them from the Ottoman Empire

• Meeting after which the hereditary territories of the Habsburgs were united amongst Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary

1521 - Siege of Belgrade (All Facts)

• Battle in which Suleiman and his Ottoman forces defeated and conquered the namesake city within the Kingdom of Hungary, during the Hungarian-Ottoman Wars

• Battle before which the Hungarian’s pleas for help from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his forces went unnoticed given the Holy Roman Emperor’s issues in Germany due to the Protestant Reformation

• Battle in which the defenders of the namesake city had no answer to the Ottoman mines and cannon bombardment from an island in the Danube River

• Battle in which the namesake city fell and its Hungarian inhabitants were massacred while its Serb inhabitants were imprisoned in Istanbul

• Battle after which the Danube River became unreliable line of defense for the Kingdom of Hungary and Kingdom of Serbia, exposed to the Ottoman advance

• Battle after which Christian forces tried to regroup against the Ottomans but fell apart

• Battle which forced the Republic of Venice to anxiously negotiate peace with the Ottoman Empire

1526 - Battle of Mohacs (All Facts)

• Battle in which Suleiman and his Ottoman forces defeated King Louis II and his Hungarian forces, ending the Hungarian-Ottoman Wars

• Battle which was one of the bloodiest and most decisive battles in its day, in which King Louis II and 20K of his men died

• Battle which is considered one of the worst tragedies to befall the Hungarians to which they still mourn to this day

• Battle during which the Hungarian forces were subject to internal bitter rivalries and disputes in which

  • no effort was made to hold the line of Drava River

  • the Hungarian nobles rejected all delaying actions which might have enabled reinforcements to arrive

• Battle during which successive frontal assaults by the Hungarian forces were met by heavy artillery fire and superior numbers by the Ottoman forces

• Battle in which any Hungarian survivors that remained were massacred

• Battle after which Hungary split into three parts:

  • Habsburg Hungary, which ruled the west and north

  • Ottoman Hungary, which ruled central Hungary around the city of Buda and was a province of the Ottoman Empire

  • Transylvanian Hungary, which ruled east and southeast Hungary and was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire

• Battle after which the Ottoman forces were just over 100 miles from Vienna (in Austria)

1529 - 1533 - First Habsburg-Ottoman War (All Facts)

• War in which Suleiman and his Ottoman forces defeated Ferdinand and the Habsburgs (Holy Roman Empire and Spain)

• War which saw

  • The Siege of Vienna

  • The Siege of Kőszeg

1531 / 1538 - Treaty of Nagyvárad / Treaty of Grosswardein (All Facts)

• Truce made between Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand and John Zapolya, both claimants to / holders of the Hungarian throne at the time

1532 - Siege of Kőszeg (All Facts)

• Battle in which Hungary and Croatia of the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire defeated Suleiman and his Ottoman forces during the First Habsburg-Ottoman War

1533 - Truce of Constantinople (All Facts)

• Truce made by Suleiman of the Ottoman Empire and Holy Roman Emperor and King Ferdinand of Hungary, which ended the First Habsburg-Ottoman War

• Truce after which Hungarian rule remained divided between Holy Roman Emperor and King Ferdinand and John Zapolya of Transylvania

1540 - 1547 - Third Habsburg-Ottoman War (All Facts)

• War in which Suleiman and his Ottoman forces defeated Ferdinand and the Habsburgs (Holy Roman Empire and Spain)

1541 - Siege of Buda (All Facts)

• Battle in which Suleiman and his Ottoman forces defeated Holy Roman Emperor and Hungarian King Ferdinand in the namesake Hungarian city during the Third Habsburg-Ottoman War

• Battle after which Hungary became a (Turkish) province of the Ottoman Empire

1541 - Treaty of Gyalu (All Facts)

• Treaty signed between John Zapolya’s widow Isabella (of the House of Jagiellon) and Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand, which ceded the Kingdom of Hungary to Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand

1551 - Treaty of Karlsburg (All Facts)

• Treaty which reaffirmed Holy Roman Emperor and Hungarian King Ferdinand’s rights to Hungary and Transylvania

1551 - 1562 - Fourth Habsburg-Ottoman War (All Facts)

• War in which Suleiman and his Ottoman forces defeated the Habsburgs (Holy Roman Empire and Spain)

1558 - 1583 - Livonian War (All Facts)

• War in which Tsar Ivan IV and his Russian forces were defeated by Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Transylvania, and the namesake confederation

• War which Tsar Ivan IV began due to

  • his ambition to transform Russia, which, at the time, had a rudimentary agriculture and little industry; by taking control of the Baltic and its ports, as they had already become, at the time, important centers of international trade and offered the prospect of benefit from the more advanced western countries of the time

• War in which Tsar Ivan IV

  • sent his troops into the namesake kingdom / confederation in a lightning strike designed to secure the Baltic region for Muscovy (Russia) and give it an outlet to the west

• War in which Tsar IV and his Russian forces

  • seized several large towns and fortresses

  • disputed with one another in Moscow and ultimately destroyed their momentum

  • may have overreached themselves during that period of the Tsar’s imperial expansion, but the Baltic region would have been a considerable prize nonetheless

• War which saw

  • The Siege of Narva

  • The Siege of Pskov

• War during which

  • the namesake Order of Knights managed to improve its military and diplomatic posture, still being the area’s main defense force

  • Riga (modern-day Latvia; of the namesake confederation / order) put itself under the protection of Poland

  • the namesake confederation was partitioned as Sweden and Denmark were poised to take over (modern-day) Estonia and Courland

• War which ended when Russia made peace with Poland gave up its claims to the Baltic state of Livonia

1565 - 1568 - Fifth Habsburg-Ottoman War (All Facts)

• War in which Suleiman and his Ottoman forces defeated Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and his Habsburg forces

1581 - 1582 - Siege of Pskov (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Russian forces defeated the Polish-Lithuanian forces during the Livonian War

1591 / 1593 - 1606 - Long Turkish War / Thirteen Years’ War / Fifteen Years’ War / Sixth Habsburg-Ottoman War (All Facts)

• War in which Murad III, Mehmed III, and Ahmed and their Ottoman forces fought against Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and the Habsburgs (Holy Roman Empire and Spain) and their allies; which ended in a stalemate

• War during which Ottoman forces captured the fortress of Raab in Hungary

1595 - Siege of Esztergom (All Facts)

• Battle in which Habsburg forces defeated Ottoman forces during the Long Turkish War Thirteen Years’ War / Fifteen Years’ War / Sixth Habsburg-Ottoman War

1595 - Battle of Giurgiu (All Facts)

• Battle in which Sigismund Bathory and his Habsburg forces defeated Ottoman forces during the Long Turkish War / Thirteen Years’ War / Fifteen Years’ War / Sixth Habsburg-Ottoman War

1596 - Siege of Eger (All Facts)

• Battle in which Mehmed III and his Ottoman forces defeated the Kingdom of Hungary and its Habsburg forces during the Long Turkish War / Thirteen Years’ War / Fifteen Years’ War / Sixth Habsburg-Ottoman War

1596 - Battle of Mezőkeresztes (All Facts)

• Battle in which Mehmed III and his Ottoman forces defeated Sigismund Bathory and his Habsburg forces and allies during the Long Turkish War / Thirteen Years’ War / Fifteen Years’ War / Sixth Habsburg-Ottoman War

• Battle in which Mehmed III

  • was personally responsible for turning the tide of battle, despite a mass desertion by the Ottoman Turkish infantry

  • in one fell swoop, saved a huge swathe of territory for the Ottoman Empire, saving its possessions in Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Hungary despite a string of previous Hungarian military victories

  • tried to follow the “siphahis” when they walked off the battlefield, but his generals held a council of war to persuade him to stay with the rest of his army

• Battle which

  • began badly for the Ottoman forces, when early reverses caused the “sipahis,” the fief-holding backbone of the Ottoman forces, to simply walk off the battlefield

• Battle in which the overconfident Christian Habsburg forces broke rank to plunder the Ottoman Turkish camp, only for the Ottoman cavalry to kill them and take enormous booty including a hundred cannons

• Battle in which 30K Hungarians and Germans died

1606 - Peace of Zsitvatorok (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between Holy Roman Emperor Matthias and Sultan Ahmed of the Ottoman Empire, ending the Long Turkish War / Thirteen Years’ War / Fifteen Years’ War / Sixth Habsburg-Ottoman War

• Peace Treaty signed between equals (unlike previous treaties which were “graciously accorded by the Sultan” to his “vanquished” rival) in the namesake obscure town on the Hungarian frontier, which promised a new era of stability between the two longstanding foes

• Peace Treaty in which Austria was no longer able to pay an annual tribute (to the Ottoman Empire) and a final payment was agreed upon, after which the ambassadors (and rulers) of the two great powers promised to exchange ceremonial gifts every three years

• Peace Treaty in which

  • the Ottoman Empire renounced its claims to Hungary with the exception of two newly-created provinces and the frontier fortresses of Erlau, Gran, and Kanischa

  • Stephen Bocskai and Transylvania gained considerably autonomy under Ottoman rule

• Peace Treaty which would remain in effect (definitively) for the next 20 years

1645 - Peace of Linz (All Facts)

• Issued by George Rákóczi, it

  • guaranteed religious freedom to all Hungarians