The Battle of Mohács – August 29, 1526

The victory at Szávaszentdemeter (Sremska
Mitrovica, Serbia) merely gave the Hungarian
border defence forces a little breathing space.
The main Turkish forces did not attack over
the next two years, but there were several
minor incursions. The Hungarians came
through these with a mixed balance sheet.
Klissza (Klis, Croatia), the most southerly
of the border fortresses, was successfully
defended twice (1522, 1524), and there was
also a successful relief expedition to Jajca
(Jajce, Bosnia-Hercegovina) in 1525. At the
other end of the defensive line, however,
they lost two castles on the left bank of the
Danube, Orsova and Szörény.

Although the military situation had not
deteriorated dramatically since 1523, Hungary
had become fatally isolated politically. One
of the powers which might have been looked
to for assistance, the empire of Charles V,
was preoccupied with a war against France,
and insofar as it was concerned with defence
against the Ottomans, it concentrated its
efforts on the Mediterranean. The contest
between France and the Habsburg Empire had
a tragic consequence for Hungary: the French
court directly asked the Ottoman Empire for
support against the Emperor, thus involving
the Sultan in the European diplomatic arena.
The struggle against the Ottomans was
close to the heart of the Emperor’s younger
brother Archduke Ferdinand, who ruled the
hereditary lands of Austria, but his resources
were for the moment sufficient only for the
defence of the most-threatened province,
Krajna. Venice had recently signed a truce with
the Ottomans, and provided Hungary with
no further support except a minor financial
subvention. Poland, threatened by the Tartars,
acted similarly and King Sigismund pressed
his nephew Louis II to settle with the Sultan.
Only the Pope sent regular financial aid, and
his legates in Hungary strictly supervised its
use.

The Ottomans launched the decisive
campaign in 1526. The offensive was the
logical continuation of the campaign five
years previously, and was clearly directed at
crushing the Hungarian defence. Accordingly,
the Sultan set off from Istanbul at the head
of his army in the last week of April. The
Anatolian army crossed the Bosphorus
at Gallipoli and arrived in Philippopolis
(Plovdiv) two days after the Sultan, on 21
May. Here, the Ottoman army split in two:
the Janissary infantry, the artillery and the
baggage proceeded along the most common
route, through the Traianus Gate (Derbent
Pass) towards Sofia, and the Anatolian and
Rumelian cavalry via the Slatica Pass, known
from Hunyadi’s campaign. The victualling of
the army was organised with the usual care,
as far as possible sparing the population of
the towns on the marching route. In Sofia,
Suleyman held a review of his army and sent
Grand Vizier Ibrahim at the head of the
Rumelian army, reinforced with Janissaries,
to secure the crossing of the River Sava.
When the Sultan arrived at Nándorfehérvár
(Belgrade) on 30 June, the bridge was ready;
the Hungarian forces had made no attempt to
disrupt its construction work.

Although alarming news reached Hungary
continuously from February 1526 onwards,
the court was paralysed by lack of funds. The
Captain-in-Chief of the border forts, Pál
Tomori (Archbishop of Kalocsa), attempted
to obtain money in Buda in March, but to no
avail. At the end of the month, he and the
border fortress commanders tendered their
resignation. In the event, he stayed in his post,
but still received no aid. At the end of April,
a Diet was held in Rákos, where the Turkish
attack was initially not even mentioned. The
Diet did ultimately call for a tax to be levied
for defence of the realm, but without hope
of it being collected. In June, the King’s
government sent out orders for mobilisation.
In the light of events five years previously,
this meant that the whole Hungarian army
would not muster before September. The
King requested cannon and infantry from the
towns, and the counties called on the nobles to
muster. In the southern counties, the order had
already gone out for the peasants to present
for military service after the harvest. Because
of the difficulties of mobilisation, by the time
the Ottoman army was already crossing the
Sava at the end of June, only Tomori’s border
fortress troops, the militias of some southern
barons and prelates, and the Archbishop of
Esztergom’s contingent serving in the south,
no more than a few thousand men in all, were
in a combat-ready state.

At Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade, Serbia),
the Ottoman army was joined by troops
of the Sanjak of Bosnia, the Akindjis of
the border country and the Black Sea fleet.
Sultan Suleyman held a review of his armies
as they crossed the Sava bridge; the crossing
took a whole week. On 13 July, Grand Vizier
Ibrahim, supported by the river flotilla, put the
last major Hungarian border fortress on the
Danube, Pétervárad (Petrovaradin, Serbia),
under siege. The defenders surrendered two
weeks later. Tomori, leading an army only a
few thousand strong and suffering difficulties
of supply, could not even attempt the relief
of this key fort. On 1 August, Ibrahim’s army
started the siege of Újlak (Ilok, Croatia),
weaker than Pétervárad, and it fell within a
week. As the siege of Újlak progressed, the
Ottoman army captured the smaller forts in
Syrmia, completing the neutralisation of the
south-eastern stretch of the Hungarian border
fortress line. On 14 August, the Turks were at
the Drava.

On 20 July, King Louis set off from Buda
with intention, following the customary
procedure, of gathering troops from various
places as he marched. From 6 August he
camped at Tolna for two weeks, but the army
swelled in number only very slowly. By that
time the noble levée had been proclaimed
in every county, the bloody sword had gone
its round, the signal for mobilisation of a
section of the tenant peasantry. At the King’s
command, Tomori threatened shirkers with the
rope. Mobilisation was delayed by the harvest
and the long distances, and most of all by the
long-standing inertia and internal divisions of
the Jagiello government. This explains why the
Croatian forces and some of the Bohemian
and Moravian infantry did not come to the
Mohács camp at all, and Ferenc Batthyány,
Ban of Croatia–Slavonia, arrived only on
the morning of the battle, with one-third of
his promised strength, some 4000 men. It is
telling that, having received the command to
mobilise on 23 June, the Slavonian estates only
gathered at the beginning of August, and set
off in the middle of the month. The Voivode
of Transylvania, János Szapolyai, was sent
contradictory instructions: he first received
an order to exploit the absence of the Sultan’s
army to invade Ottoman territory together
with the Voivode of Wallachia, but when the
magnitude of the peril became apparent, he
was instructed to join the King’s army. He set
off with an army, but only reached Szeged.
Given the example of the Slavonians, it is
more than probable that Szapolyai would not
have managed to arrive in Mohács before the
end of August even if he had received clear
orders.

On 15 August, the Turks started to build a
bridge at Eszék (Osijek, Croatia), and finished
it on the 19th. Although Tomori had quite
rightly realised that defence of the Osijek
crossing point was their only chance to hold
up the Ottoman army, neither he nor Palatine
Báthori, who had been specifically ordered to
do so, acted in time. After the fall of Pétervárad,
Tomori retreated to his archiepiscopal seat
of Bács, crossed the Danube, and took up
a position north of the Drava. King Louis
sent from his camp at Tolna the Palatine and
former Lord Chief Justice Ambrus Sárkány, at
the head of the Pápa infantry and the county
levée, to defend Eszék Castle and prevent
the river crossing, but they either did not go
at all, or turned back on the way, so that the
Ottoman army crossed the Drava unimpeded
between 21 and 23 August, burning the bridge
behind them. The causeways through the
marshes to the north of the Drava offered the
last chance of stopping the Ottoman advance
in circumstances unfavourable to them.
The Hungarian military leadership made no
attempt at this, indeed Tomori ordered his
troops back to the royal camp.

In the end, according to the eye-witness
Chancellor Brodarics, some 25,000 men
gathered at Mohács. Although some historians
calculate the strength of the Hungarian army
at 50-60,000, in view of the difficulties of
mobilisation there is no reason to doubt
Brodarics’ figure. Even if we take the number
as 50,000 and add Szapolyai’s Transylvanian
and Krsto Frankapan’s Croatian armies
and the German and Bohemian auxiliaries,
putting the potential size of the Hungarian
army at 80,000, this strength, together with
the adverse terrain and other conditions
would not have justified engaging in battle
at Mohács. Furthermore, since the regular
units of the Ottoman army numbered no
more than 60,000, a Hungarian army of
similar size, even considering the undoubted
difference in quality, would not have suffered
such a catastrophic defeat. The Hungarian
army comprised about 15,000 cavalry, most
of them armoured, and about 10,000 infantry,
mostly Bohemian, Moravian and German.
The highest combat-value formations were
the border fortress companies, the banderia
(militias) who had served extended terms in
the south, and foreign mercenaries.

One of the main questions surrounding the
Battle of Mohács is the choice of battlefield.
Why that particular location? The logical
option of retreating, building up strength, and
only then taking up battle, is one which arose
at the council of war. Considering that on the
day of the battle Szapolyai was in Szeged, the
Bohemian auxiliaries at Székesfehérvár, and
Frankapan’s cavalry at Zagreb, retreat must
surely have been advisable given what was
at stake, even at the expense of some losses.
According to Brodarics, the King himself
argued for this: “If the enemy were to seize the
land between Mohács and Pozsony, and even
to lay it waste, Hungary would suffer less harm
than if such a great army, and with it the King
and so many dignitaries and soldiers, were to
be destroyed in a single battle." A proposition
which would have handed over to the enemy
the most densely-populated counties of the
country, and may have required temporary
evacuation of the capital, Buda, was not likely
to arouse much enthusiasm, but in the event
it was not such rational arguments which
decided the issue so much as desperationinduced
indiscipline. Upon learning of the
generals’ hesitation, Tomori’s border fortress
men, the best soldiers in the army, threatened
to turn against the royal camp if battle was
not immediately joined.

Another difficulty was the choice of
commander-in-chief. No Hungarian army
had engaged either an Ottoman or any other
major army in regular battle since 1448. As
a result, there was not a single soldier in the
kingdom who had experience of commanding
such a large body of several tens of thousands
of men. There were generals who had led –
and defended against – many border raids,
and had besieged minor forts, including
Palatine Báthori (who was suffering from
gout), Szapolyai and Tomori himself. But
they knew from Hunyadi’s example that these
capabilities were inadequate against Ottoman
armies toughened in battle in the east. Báthori
declined leadership because of his illness, and
Lord Chief Justice János Drágffy, who had
military experience as ispán (comes) of Temes,
was not considered, for reasons unknown.
He was given the flag of the kingdom, and
his spurs were loosened so that he could not
run away. Ultimately, the matter went to an
unprecedented vote, and the choice fell on the
Voivode’s younger brother György Szapolyai
and the reluctant Tomori. Szapolyai had no
experience of command at all, and Tomori’s
military exploits had been accomplished at the
head of cavalry formations no more than a
few hundred strong. An interesting figure was
the Polish officer Lenart Gnoinski, appointed
chief of the general staff. He interestingly cited
the lessons of the Turkish–Hungarian wars of
the 1440s. His main proposal, that a fortified
wagon fort be set up as Hunyadi had done at
Kosovo Polje, went unheeded. He also argued
the importance of the personal defence of
the King, and here he found agreement: Louis
II’s protection was entrusted to three highlycapable
cavalry captains, Gáspár Ráskai, János
Vitéz of Kálla and Bálint Török.

The Hungarian army took up battle order
on a field to the south of Mohács on 29
August 1526. The field was bounded to the
east by the marshy flood plain of the Danube,
and to the south and west by a 25-30 metre
high terrace, whose exact gradient is hotly
disputed by historians. What is certain is that
this terrace was crucial to the course of the
battle. The Borza stream runs through the
field, and it was to the south of this stream
that King Louis and his army took up their
position. The Hungarians most probably
stood some 2-2.5 km from the terrace. The
area in between was described by the eyewitness
Brodarics as a plain, but in reality it
was divided by small ridges and valleys which
hampered the clear view of the battlefield.
There was a village at the foot of the terrace,
usually identified by historians as Földvár. The
choice of battlefield suggests that Tomori
wanted to engage with the Ottoman army at
the foot of the terrace and – in view of the
lower numerical strength of the Hungarian
army – drew up an offensive battle plan.
There is no definite evidence, however, for
the historian’s hypothesis that the Hungarian
Louis II holds a council of war near Mohács. commanders envisaged an attack on the
Turks as they came down from the terrace
out of their battle order. It is interesting, if
not astonishing, that Tomori did not prepare
for the option of an orderly retreat, the same
mistake Hunyadi had made at Kosovo Polje in
1448. Once again, the Hungarian tactics were
based on a single, devastating charge.

The Hungarian army lined up in two
echelons parallel with the terrace, in the
north-west/south-east direction, at dawn
on 29 August. Most of the ten thousand
or so infantry stood in the centre of the
front echelon, making up a front about one
kilometre long. On the right wing stood Ban
Ferenc Batthyány of Slavonia with his heavy
cavalry, and on the left Péter Perényi, whose
troops were also mainly heavy cavalry. The
most reliable expert on the Battle of Mohács,
Géza Perjés, has estimated the first echelon
to have extended along a front of 4 km. The
two commanders, Tomori and Szapolyai, were
also in the front echelon, ready to intervene
anywhere as became necessary. The King
stood in the second echelon with some three
thousand heavy cavalry, arranged in the centre.
The light cavalry units protecting Louis were
also in the second echelon, as were a small
number of infantry. The Hungarian army as
a whole was not structured in depth, and the
second echelon was not strong enough to
follow up a successful charge. This implies
that anything short of complete success by the
charge would seal the fate of the Hungarian
army. Tomori distributed the Hungarian
artillery along the line of the first echelon.
On the morning of 29 August, the Ottoman
army, having camped on the north bank of the
Karassó stream, set out, in battle formation,
towards what was to become the battlefield.
Somewhat before this, Grand Vizier Ibrahim
left camp with the Rumelian corps and his
Janissaries and artillery.

Since they took nearly seven hours to
complete the distance of not more than
12 km to the terrace (according to Suleyman’s
diary the Turks arrived at Mohács field at
around two in the afternoon), the Ottoman
army must clearly have maintained battle
order throughout. This must have been true
even in what must have been difficult going,
over land soaked by the very heavy rain which
is known to have fallen. It can be established
quite definitely from the sources that when
the Ottoman generals came to the edge of the
terrace, they got a clear view of the Hungarian
army and its battle order, and so had a good
basis for choosing their tactics.

Despite countless reconstructions, the
course of the battle has not been satisfactorily
determined. Géza Perjés has clearly established
that the battle order of the Hungarian army
was “good for nothing except a desperate
charge." The Turks also saw it that way: the
Bey of Nándorfehérvár advised the Grand
Vizier not to stand up to the charge but to avert
it. The Ottoman army was certainly ready for
battle, the Sultan having issued the command
the day before. They held a council of war
at the edge of the terrace in full knowledge
of the Hungarian battle order, and then the
Rumelian corps started the descent to the foot
of the terrace. At the same time, the Grand
Vizier sent the light cavalry of Bali Bey and
Khosrev Bey to the flanks of the Hungarian
army. The purpose was clearly to distract the
Hungarians while the main Turkish army
made the descent. Tomori sent against them
the cavalry assigned to guarding the King, a
move that has generated much argument since.
The view that this was a tragic and irreparable
mistake seems to stand up to scrutiny.

Later events make clear that the Rumelian
corps descended to the foot of the terrace
unopposed, and even had time to set up their
cannon in the customary batteries, defended
by stakes. It is not known where the Sultan
and the Porte mercenaries, or the Anatolian
corps, were at that time. It is generally assumed
that they only came to the terrace after the
Hungarian charge. Géza Perjés, who carried
out the most thorough calculations, estimated
a 5-6 km lag. He also established, however,
that the Anatolian corps only had to march
6-8 km on the day of battle, which would
mean they had not even started out from camp
before noon, and this is utterly inconceivable.
Much more likely is that when the Rumelian
corps started their descent, the whole
Ottoman army was standing on the edge of
the terrace, and could not even have been very
tired, because a 6-8 km march even in battle
order does not take too much out of soldiers.

When the Rumelian corps reached the
foot of the terrace, the Sultan nonetheless
unexpectedly commanded them to pitch
camp. Similar preparations were being made
on the Hungarian side. Some take the view
that the Hungarians saw that the Turks did
not want to join battle that day. According to
Brodarics, “the sun was already heading west",
so that the afternoon was well advanced. The
catch is that the return to camp was, according
to the Chancellor, proposed by the barons
close to the King, who – as Brodarics himself
– could not see what was happening with the
Rumelian corps because of the battle line in
front of them and the undulating land. What
probably happened was that both the Sultan’s
council and King Louis’ retinue judged that it
was too late for starting a battle, and wanted
to postpone it to the next day. It should be
remembered that the Hungarian army had
been standing in battle order since dawn, and
so must have been at least as tired as the Turks
forming up from the march.

Nonetheless, Tomori, in the front echelon,
ordered the charge sometime between 3 and
4 in the afternoon. For this, however, he had
to ride back to the King to convince him it
was the right action to take. He then returned
to his place and ordered the right wing, led
by Batthyány, and the central infantry, to
charge. His plan must have been to rout the
Rumelian corps before the Sultan’s central
army had formed up. The Hungarian heavy
cavalry could in principle have made the one-and-a-half or two kilometre distance in a few
minutes without their battle order breaking up.
It had to take account, however, of its infantry,
which had to arrive in time at the gap opened
up by the cavalry. The infantry needed at least
half an hour to approach the Turks. This was
more than enough time for the Turkish cavalry
to take up battle order again and execute the
partition proposed by Bali Bey. Not for the
first time, this practised movement by the
Spahis was interpreted by the Hungarian
commanders as victory. Tomori also fell for it,
and gave the command for the second echelon
to charge.

In the meantime, the Rumelian corps’s
artillery went into action, but the balls flew
above the heads of the charging Hungarians.
Not so the volleys of the Janissaries; the cavalry
came to a halt in front of the Turkish infantry
guarding the cannon, and were forced to
move to the side, taking serious losses as they
did so. It seems that by the time the infantry
and the second echelon cavalry arrived, the
Turkish central army and the Anatolian corps
had formed up in battle order at the foot of
the terrace, giving the Turks an overwhelming
superiority. In the melee, Tomori lost contact
with Perényi’s corps and central command of
the army slipped away. Tomori was trying to
stop the retreating cavalry when he was cut
down. It is not sure when the King was taken
out of the fray; all that we know is that unlike
the barons and bishops in the second echelon,
he did not fall on the battlefield but in flight,
drowning in the marsh.

After the remaining cavalry has fled, the
infantry were left to themselves to fight for
their lives. The Turkish numerical superiority
now prevailed to the full extent, and the
infantry had no option but to fight to the end
of their strength, the Turkish light cavalry
standing ready to cut off any attempt at retreat.
The experienced, and largely non-Hungarian,
mercenaries managed to assume some kind of
order, and held out for longer. In the hand-to-hand fighting, firearms naturally played no
part, and the bloody close-quarters combat
practically ended in the complete destruction
of the Christian infantry. At a cautious
estimate, ten thousand infantrymen lay dead
on the field.

Tomori’s unexpected charge had left
Perényi’s left wing unable to exert any effective
influence on the battle. Neither is it clear
whether Perényi received the order to charge
from Tomori or decided himself to rush at the
Anatolian corps. What is certain is that when
the heavy cavalry of the left wing started their
offensive, the Janissaries of the Anatolian corps
were already standing in battle order at the foot
of the terrace and received the Hungarians
with withering musket fire. A series of volleys
severely thinned out Perényi’s division, whose
lack of follow-on infantry doomed his attack
to failure in any case. According to the Turkish
sources, the Hungarian cavalry thrown back by
the volleys regrouped several times, but were
incapable of breaking through the solid wall
of Janissaries. Finally, like the remnants of the
right wing led by Batthyány, they were obliged
to give up the hopeless struggle.

In the words of Géza Perjés, the Battle of
Mohács ended with “the total destruction of
the Hungarian army." The casualties numbered
ten thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry
(one third of the total), seven prelates, twenty-eight
barons and the flower of the Hungarian
nobility. The real catastrophe, however, as
at Varna, was the death of the King and the
ensuing consequences. Unlike that 1444
defeat, when the Hungarian army was fighting
far from the borders of the kingdom and
the Sultan was not strong enough to invade,
Suleyman in August 1526 had an open road
to the capital. When the news of the Mohács
catastrophe reached Buda on 30 August,
Queen Mary and her retinue immediately
abandoned the city, followed by the German
and Hungarian burghers.

The Sultan reached Buda on 11 September.
After inspecting the city and plundering the
castle, he ordered Buda to be burned. The
same fate befell Pest. The flames which raged
for several days in these two wealthy cities
symbolised the fall of the medieval Kingdom
of Hungary. The country still had some
armed strength, but the nearly 150 year-long
first stage of the Turkish–Hungarian struggle
had come to an end. It was no reprieve for
the kingdom that Suleyman did not intend
to leave a garrison in the capital at that
point. The Ottomans built a bridge over the
Danube, and their whole army crossed it to
leave Hungary in two columns through the
land between the Danube and the Tisza. The
Sultan entered Nándorfehérvár, the former
gateway to Hungary, on 10 October. This, too,
was symbolic: both Hunyadi’s Long Campaign,
which had given new momentum to the fight
against the Ottomans, and the 1526 campaign
marking the collapse of the Kingdom of
Hungary, ended at Nándorfehérvár.