Surrender at Világos – August 13, 1849

Even before the spring campaign, there were
some quarters of the Austrian government who
did not think Austria would be capable of dealing
with the Hungarian struggle for independence
alone, and the string of setbacks prompted
Francis Joseph to ask for help from the Tsar.
The Austrians first requested an auxiliary force
of a few tens of thousands, to be put under
Austrian command. Tsar Michael I, however,
wanted the army he sent to be capable of putting
down the revolution by itself. He thus resolved
to send Prince Ivan Fyodorovich Paskevich
with 200,000 of the one million soldiers in his
army. Another 80,000 were put on standby. The
full strength of the imperial army under Field
Marshal Julius Haynau in June 1849 was some
170,000. The approximately 155,000 personnel
in the Hungarian Defence Forces thus had to
contend with enemies numbering a total of
370,000 troops.

The Russian intervention undoubtedly
deprived the Hungarian side of even a mathematical
chance of victory. The War Minister and
commander-in-chief, Artúr Görgey, saw that
the only way open to the Hungarian army was to
deal a decisive blow to the main imperial army
before the slowly-moving Russian forces arrived.
This would have forced Austria to enter talks,
and offer some kind of settlement, with the
Hungarians.

The hopes of reinforcements for the main
army from South Hungary were dashed by Mór
Perczel’s defeat at Káty on 7 June. Consequently,
an attempted Hungarian counter-attack along
the Vág between 16 and 21 June – partly owing
to the intervention of a Russian division –
ended in failure. On 26 June, the Hungarian
government passed Görgey’s proposal of
concentrating the main Hungarian forces at
Komárom, but changed its mind on 29 June
and decided to concentrate on the Tisza-Maros
triangle. Görgey’s main army repelled the main
forces of Field Marshal Haynau at Komárom on
2 July, but after a failed attempt at a breakthrough
in Transdanubia on 11 July, was forced to march
towards Szeged on 12th-13th. The main Russian
army under General Paskevich was waiting for
him at Vác, but Görgey avoided him and reached
the Tisza. Despite being constrained to the outer
line of manoeuvre, he still reached every point
ahead of the Russians, and with one-sixth of the
Hungarian army he tied down one third of the
intervention forces, four times his strength.

The concentration in the Tisza-Maros triangle
finally took place in late July, and given Vetter’s
successes in the south and Görgey’s campaign
in Upper Hungary, the circumstances were
favourable. Jellačić did not dare leave his safe
position in Syrmia and made no attempt to
attack until mid-August. Haynau’s main army
was marching towards Szeged in three columns,
presenting the Hungarians with a prime opportunity
to attack one of them in superior numbers.
The new Hungarian commander-in-chief, Lt.-
Gen Henryk Dembiński, however, declined to
confront Haynau’s numerically smaller force.
He abandoned Szeged and retreated in the
direction of Temesvár, which was in Austrian
hands. Dembiński ignored the government’s
orders to march towards Arad, considering it
more important to secure the route towards
the Turkish border, and retreated towards
Temesvár, which was under Hungarian siege.
Thus was lost the last chance of defeating the
main imperial forces. If Dembiński had marched
to Arad, he could have joined up with Görgey
and the total force of some 80,000 men and 300
ordnance pieces could have confronted Haynau’s
advancing army corps, marching at forced pace
and numbering, after taking Szeged, only 28,000
and 192 ordnance pieces. Görgey’s retreat had
left the Russians 4-5 days behind him, preventing
them from relieving Haynau.

It was not to be. Bem, by then appointed commander-
in-chief, confronted Haynau at Temesvár
on 9 August, but shortage of ammunition
forced him to withdraw from the battle. The
army fell into a panic during the retreat, and only
20,000 of the 45,000-strong force reassembled
at Lugos. This left Görgey, just arriving in Arad,
with the only effective Hungarian force.

Görgey had some 30,000 troops under his
command, but these included some five thousand
unarmed recruits. On 13 August, together
with his staff officers, Görgey surrendered unconditionally
to the Russians at Szőlős, in the field
beside the Világos Castle. In early September, the
Pétervárad fort opened its gates to the imperial
forces, and on 2-4 October, the garrison of
Komárom
Fort surrendered in exchange for free withdrawal
and immunity.

After putting down the War of Independence,
the victorious Austrian government launched
a punitive campaign against the leaders and
participants of the Revolution. Indeed it did not
even wait for the surrender, starting reprisals in
January 1849. After August 1849, it was the turn
of the leaders of the country and the army. The
former Prime Minister, Count Lajos Batthyány,
was executed on 6 October 1849. At Arad on
the same day, three generals and a colonel were
shot, and nine generals hanged. The executions
ended only in summer 1850, by which time some
140 people had been shot or hanged, half of
them former soldiers or people with military
status. Several hundred were imprisoned and
several thousand drafted into the imperial army.