Battle of Mohács
Part of the Ottoman wars in Europe and Ottoman-Hungarian Wars

Battle of Mohacs 1526 by Bertalan Székely
Date August 29, 1526
Location Mohács, Baranya, south of Budapest, Hungary
Result Decisive Ottoman victory; End of Ottoman-Hungarian Wars, Start of Ottoman-Habsburg Wars
Belligerents
 Ottoman Empire Kingdom of Hungary
Croatia
Kingdom of Bohemia
 Holy Roman Empire
Papal States
Kingdom of Poland
Commanders
Suleiman I Louis II of Hungary †
Pál Tomori †
György Zápolya
Strength
~55,000-65,000[1][2]

• 45,000 regulars
• 10,000 irregulars
• 160 cannons[3][4]

~35,000-40,000 (in reality 26,000 arrived) [1][2] cannons (85 initial) and arquebusiers
János Szapolyai[5][6]'s 10,000, Croatian count Frankopan's 5,000 men-strong army and the Bohemian troops all did not arrive to the battlefield in time.
Casualties and losses
1,500[1][2] ~ 14,000 to 20,000[1][2]

The Battle of Mohács (Hungarian: mohácsi csata or mohácsi vész, Turkish: Mohaç savaşı or Mohaç meydan savaşı) was fought on August 29, 1526 near Mohács, Hungary. In the battle, forces of the Kingdom of Hungary led by King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia were defeated by forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

The Ottoman victory led to the partition of Hungary for several decades between the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria, and the Principality of Transylvania. The death of Louis II as he fled the battle marked the end of the Jagiellon dynasty, whose dynastic claims were absorbed by the Habsburgs via the marriage of Louis's sister.

Background

By the early 16th century, the Ottoman Empire became the second most populous state in the world, which opened the door to create the largest armies of the era.

The magnates, who did not want another heavy-handed king, procured the election of Bohemian king Vladislaus II (King: 1490-1516), precisely because of his notorious weakness: he was known as King Dobže, or Dobzse (meaning “Good” or, loosely, “OK”), from his habit of accepting with that word every paper laid before him[7]. Under his reign the central power began to experience severe financial difficulties, largely due to the enlargement of feudal lands at his expense. The magnates also dismantled administration and institute systems of the country. The country's defenses sagged as border guards and castle garrisons went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled.[8]

In 1514, the weakened old King Vladislaus II faced a major peasant rebellion led by György Dózsa, which was ruthlessly crushed by the nobles, led by János Szapolyai. The resulting degradation of order paved the way for Ottoman preeminence. In 1521, the strongest Hungarian fortress in the South, Nándorfehérvár (modern Belgrade) fell to the Turks. The strongest nobles were so busy oppressing the peasants and robbing each other that they failed to heed the agonized calls of the young king against the Turks. The early appearance of protestantism further worsened the relations in the anarchical country.

The Hungarians had long opposed Ottoman expansion in southeastern Europe, but the fall of Nándorfehérvár(hu), (present-day Belgrade, Serbia) and Szabács in 1521 meant that most of southern Hungary was left indefensible. King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia, King of Hungary and Bohemia, entered into marriage with Mary of Habsburg in 1522. The Ottomans saw that growing alliance as a threat to their power in the Balkans and worked to break this alliance. After Suleiman I came to power, the High Porte made the Hungarians at least one and possibly two offers of peace. It is unclear why Louis refused the offer. It is possible that King Louis was well aware of Hungary's situation (especially after the Battle of Chaldiran and Polish-Ottoman peace from 1525) and he believed that war was a better option than peace. Even in peacetime the Ottomans raided Hungarian lands and conquered huge territories (with border castles), but a final battle still offered a glimmer of hope. To such ends, in June 1526, an Ottoman expedition advanced up the Danube River.

European events, and the Franco-Ottoman alliance

French king Francis I of France was defeated at the Battle of Pavia on February 24, 1525, by the troops of Habsburg H.R. Emperor Charles V. After several months in prison, Francis I was forced to sign Treaty of Madrid.

In a watershed moment in European diplomacy, Francis came to an understanding with the Ottoman Empire, which transformed into a Franco-Ottoman alliance. The objective for king Francis I was clearly to find an ally against the powerful Habsburg Emperor Charles V, in the person of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The Ottoman-French strategic and sometimes tactical, alliance lasted for about three centuries.[9] It did however cause quite a scandal in the Christian world.

To relieve the Habsburg pressure on France, Francis asked Suleiman to made war on the Holy Roman Empire. The road from Turkey to the Holy Roman Empire led across Hungary.... The request of the French king nicely corresponded to the ambitions of Suleiman in Europe, and gave him an incentive to attack Hungary in 1526, leading to the Battle of Mohács.[10]

Preparations

The loss of Belgrade (Nandorfehervar) in 1521 caused great alarm in Hungary, but the too-late and too-slowly-recruited 60,000 strong royal army – led by the king - forgot to take food along, so therefore the army disbanded spontaneously under the pressure of hunger and disease without even trying to recapture Belgrade, the Southern key of Hungary, from the newly installed Turkish garrisons.

In 1523 Archbishop Pál Tomori, a valiant priest-soldier, was made Captain of Southern Hungary. The general apathy that had characterized the country forced him to lean on his own bishopric revenues when he started to repair and reinforce the second line of Hungary’s border defense system.

Three years later, a huge Ottoman army set out from Constantinople on April 16 1526, led by Suleiman the Magnificent personally. The Hungarian nobles, who still did not realize the huge dimensions of the approaching danger, did not heed their King's call to the colors. Louis II ordered them to encamp on July 2, but no one reported on that day – not even the King. Only when Louis himself furnished an example with his appearance in the camp did things start to move.

The Hungarian war council – without waiting for their reinforcements only a few days march away – made a serious tactical error by choosing the battlefield near Mohacs, an open but uneven plain with some swampy marshes.

The Hungarian army was divided into three main units: the Transylvanian army under John Zápolya, charged with guarding the passes in the Transylvanian Alps, with between 8,000 and 13,000 men; the main army, led by Louis himself (beside numerous Spanish, German, Czech and Serbian mercenaries); and another smaller force, commanded by the Croatian count Christopher Frankopan, numbering around 5,000 men. Due to geography, the Turkish army's ultimate goal could not be determined until it was crossing the Balkan Mountains. Unfortunately for the Hungarians, by the time the Ottoman army had crossed, the Transylvanian army was further from Buda than the Ottomans were. Contemporary historical records, though sparse, indicate that Louis preferred a plan of retreat, in effect ceding the country to Ottoman advances, rather than directly engaging the Ottoman army in open battle.

The Hungarian forces chose the battlefield, an open but uneven plain with some swampy marshes near Mohács leading down to the Danube. The Ottomans had been allowed to advance almost unopposed. While Louis waited in Buda, they had besieged several towns and crossed the Sava and Drava Rivers. Louis assembled around 25,000 to 28,000 soldiers (with Croatian and Polish contingents and ca. 800-1000 soldier of the Papal States) while the Ottoman army numbered around 50,000 to 65,000.[3][4][11] The Hungarian army was arrayed to take advantage of the terrain and hoped to engage the Ottoman army piecemeal.

The battle

Hungary had an expensive but obsolete army, structured similarly to that of King Francis I at the battle of Pavia.

Like the uncertainty over the number of actual combatants, there is debate over the length of the battle. Its starting time is generally placed between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM, but the endpoint is difficult to ascertain. While some historians have placed the length of the battle at two to three hours, this seems unlikely given several important factors. The Ottoman army did not retreat from the field and enter camp after the battle; instead, they remained on the field all night without food, water, or shelter. Given that the Ottoman historians all note that it was raining, it seems likely that had the battle been short and ended early in the afternoon, by 5:00 PM at the latest, the Sultan would have ordered his army to camp or at least to return to their baggage. The few reliable sources indicate that Louis left the field at twilight and made his escape under cover of darkness; since the sun would not have set until 6:27 PM on August 29, 1526,[12] this would imply that the battle lasted significantly longer than two to three hours (perhaps as long as four or five).

As the first of Suleiman's troops, the Rumelian army, advanced onto the battlefield, they were attacked and routed by Hungarian troops led by Pál Tomori. This attack by the Hungarian right was successful in causing considerable chaos among the Ottoman ranks, but even as the Hungarian attack pressed forward, the Ottomans rallied with the arrival of more Ottoman forces. While the Hungarian right advanced far enough at one time to place Suleiman in danger from Hungarian arrows that struck his cuirass, the superiority of the Ottoman numbers and the timely charge of the Janissaries, the elite troops of the Ottomans, probably overwhelmed the attackers, particularly on the Hungarian left. The Hungarians took serious casualties from the skillfully handled Turkish artillery. The Hungarians could not hold their positions, and those who did not flee were surrounded and killed or captured. The king left the battlefield sometime around twilight but was thrown from his horse in a river at Csele and died, weighed down by his heavy armor. Some 1,000 other Hungarian nobles and leaders were also killed. It is generally accepted that more than 14,000 Hungarian soldiers were killed in the initial battle.[1][2]