The Unsuccessful Ottoman Siege of Eger – September 4–October 18, 1552

The fall of Buda to the Ottomans provoked
fear and panic in the Austrian and German
provinces of the Empire, quite reasonably concerned
that they would be Suleyman’s next prey.
A 50,000-strong army was assembled, with great
effort, out of German, Austrian and Hungarian
soldiers and moved at snail’s pace towards Buda.
Against an enemy which had had time to prepare,
the campaign ended in humiliating failure,
without even an attempt to take Buda, and only a
half-hearted siege of Pest.

Over the next few years, Suleyman took
devastating advantage of the Christian forces’
powerlessness. He reinforced his route along the
Danube, and set up a defence zone around Buda.
In 1543, he took the castles of Siklós and Pécs
in South Transdanubia, Esztergom, with its commanding
position on the Danube, and then Tata
and Székesfehérvár.

After the fall of the archiepiscopal seat, Archbishop
of Esztergom Pál Várday transferred his
residence to Nagyszombat (Trnava, Slovakia) and
replaced his lost fortress by building Érsekújvár
(“New Archbishop’s Castle", now Nové Zámky)
on the River Nyitra (Nitra). Within a few decades,
it took shape as one of the most advanced
fortresses in the country, and became the seat of
the Captain General.

George Martinuzzi, acting as regent for the
child king John Sigismund, created a new state
out of Transylvania and the counties of Tiszántúl
known as “the Partium" and worked towards a
settlement with King Ferdinand. The treaty assigning Transylvania and the Partium was signed
in 1549, and in June 1551, a royal army of 7000
mercenaries led by Gianbatista Castaldo arrived
to take over Transylvania. Queen Isabella clung
to power, and could only be persuaded by force
of arms to relinquish Transylvania and renounce
her son’s claim to the throne (as John II).

Since George Martinuzzi realised that the military
assistance sent by Ferdinand would be insufficient
to defend the country, he tried to gain
time by misleading the Turks. This was a fatal
mistake. The Turks no longer trusted him, and
Castaldo, regarding his talks with the enemy as
treachery, had him killed in December 1551.

Istanbul would not tolerate the “Viennese
king" getting his hands on its vassal province of
Transylvania, and set out to put a stop, once and
for all, to any attempts to unite the kingdom. In
late spring 1552, the Ottoman armies started an
offensive against the Kingdom of Hungary on
four fronts.

The Buda garrison troops under Hadim Ali
Pasha relieved the castle of Szeged, under siege
by the Hajduks, on the first day of March. In
summer, they took the castle of Veszprém by
siege and in the county of Nógrád took a series
of castles: Buják, Drégely and Szécsény.

The Sultan sent Kara
Ahmed Pasha, the Second
Vizier, with an army some
50-60,000 strong to take
the part of the kingdom
just handed over to Ferdinand,
Transylvania. The
first obstacle was Temesvár
(Timişoara). István Losonczy,
ispán (Comes) of Temes,
defended the fort heroically
with 2300 Hungarian, Spanish
and Czech soldiers. After
holding on for 32 days, their
depleted numbers squeezed
into the inner castle by the
constant artillery fire and
waves of Turkish assaults,
were forced to surrender
on 27 July. The Spanish defenders
of Temesvár fought
tooth and nail for every corner
of the castle, which is
more than can be said for Bernardo Aldana’s soldiers,
who left the well-fortified Lippa (Lipova)
to its fate.

After capturing the Temesköz area, the main
army united at Szolnok with the troops of Ali
Pasha of Buda, and after a brief siege captured
(on 4 September) the castle of Szolnok, with its
command over the second largest waterway of
the country, the River Tisza.

The crowning objective of this successful
campaign was to be the capture of Eger,
the gateway to Upper Hungary. Possession of
this fortress would have divided the Habsburgcontrolled
north and east parts of the country
from each other. For 38 days, the castellan,
István Dobó, with only 2000 defenders, beat
off the enemy assaults. Kara Ahmed Pasha was
ultimately obliged to abandon the siege on 18
October, thus breaking a run of successes by
the Ottoman military which had continued for
a generation.

The heroic defence of Eger in 1552 immediately
became the symbol of heroic resistance at
the time, and the tradition lives on today, made
immortal through Géza Gárdonyi’s novel Egri
Csillagok (Eclipse of the Crescent Moon), telling
the story of István Dobó and his comrades.

The heroic defence of the little castle of
Drégely gained national fame through the ballad
by the frontier troubadour of the time, Sebestyén
Lantos of Tinódi. Three centuries later, the
poems of Ferenc Kölcsey and János Arany made
the heroic deeds of György Szondi and his soldiers
the symbol of self-sacrifice and courage.

Despite the failure to take Eger, the 1552 Turkish
campaign was extremely successful. It completed
the defensive ring of Buda, and the new
vilayet centred on Temesvár ensured control over
John Sigismund, the vassal who was now restored
to rule Transylvania. Although the Porte did not
press further expansion in Hungary owing to the
Persian War, the local Turkish forces did make
expand their conquests in the country.