🇭🇺 🇹🇷 On this day 500 years ago, one of the most significant battles and tragedies in European history took place: the Battle of Mohács.
The Battle of Mohács was fought between the Hungarian army led by Louis II and the Turkish army led by Suleiman the Magnificent on August 29, 1526. The Ottomans were victorious.
The Hungarians had long opposed Ottoman expansion into southeastern Europe. The marriage of Louis II to Maria of Austria in 1522 brought the kingdom closer to the Habsburgs, and the Turks saw the need to break this alliance. After Louis refused the offer of peace, the Turks decided to use military force. In June 1526, the Ottoman expedition launched an attack across the Danube.
The Hungarian army was divided into three smaller groups: a Transylvanian army under the command of János Zápolya, tasked with defending the pass in the Transylvanian Alps; a main group led by King Louis himself; and another smaller group under the command of Count Krsto Frankopan.
Zápolya's and Frankopan's armies did not arrive in time. Some theories suggest that Zápolya's army simply could not arrive in time, while others say that he played a part in the king's defeat.
The Hungarian forces chose the site of the battle, an open but uneven meadow leading to the Danube, with several marshy areas. The Turks were allowed to advance almost unopposed.
While Louis waited in Buda, the Turks besieged several towns and crossed the Sava and Drava. Louis had mustered about 26,000 men, while the Ottoman army numbered between 50,000 and 65,000.
The Hungarian army formed a line to take advantage of the terrain and hoped to break the Ottoman army into pieces.
The battle itself lasted just over two hours. As Suleiman's first group, the Rumelian army, arrived on the battlefield, it was attacked and surrounded by Hungarian troops led by Pál Tomori.
But when the main Ottoman forces arrived, the situation changed quickly. At one point, Suleiman himself was in danger from Hungarian arrows hitting his armor.
Due to the slowness to consolidate the success on the right wing, the Hungarian advance became vulnerable to attacks. Those who did not flee were surrounded and killed or captured.
Louis left the battlefield, but was thrown from his horse into the river and drowned.
The decisive factor in the battle was the Turkish artillery, which mowed down thousands of Hungarians. More than 14,000 Hungarian soldiers died at the beginning of the battle. Turkish losses were similar. More than a thousand members of the Hungarian nobility were killed.
The plan of the Ottoman commanders was for part of the Ottoman army to attack and then retreat after a while. When the Turkish army retreated, the Hungarian army, carried away by victory, also moved forward.
They were met from behind the hill by a large number of cannons that destroyed most of the Hungarian army.
This was one of the first battles in which cannons played such an important role. The West was astonished that the Turks had managed to use relatively large cannons in open battle, usually used for sieges.
This tactic is believed to have been the idea of Ibrahim Pasha, then Grand Vizier of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.
The rest of the Hungarian army began to retreat, but the Ottoman army left them free passage only towards the river, so the Hungarian soldiers drowned in the water.
Aftermath
The victory did not give the Turks the security they had sought.
The battle marked the end of the Kingdom of Hungary, but the Turkish forces withdrew in September and the territory was fought over by the Habsburg Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria, Louis' brother-in-law and heir apparent under an agreement with King Ladislaus.
While Austria dominated the northern third of the country and parts of present-day Croatia, the Turks gained southwestern Hungary and supreme authority over the vassal Transylvania.
They used these territories to attack independent Hungarian nobles in the east and Austrian possessions in the northwest, beginning the Siege of Vienna.