ATLANTIC STUDIES ON SOCIETY IN CHANGE NO. 56 Editor-in-Chief: Bela Kiraly Associate Editor-in-Chief: Peter Pastor EAST EUROPEAN MONOGRAPHS NO. CCLV Copyright (c) by Atlantic Research and Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-88033-152-6 LCCN 88-62290 WAR AND SOCIETY IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE VOL. XXVI THE FALL OF THE MEDIEVAL KINGDOM OF HUNGARY: MOHACS 1526 - BUDA 1541 by Geza Perjes Translated by Maria D. Fenyo with a Foreword by Janos M. Bak Social Science Monographs, Boulder, Colorado Atlantic Research and Publications, Highland Lakes, New Jersey Distributed by Columbia University Press 1989 The Fall of The Medieval Kingdom of Hungary: Mohacs 1526 - Buda 1541 TABLE OF CONTENTS • Cover Page • Preface to the Series • About This Book • Preface to the American Edition • Preface to the Hungarian Edition (1977) • PART I STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICSOF THE HUNGARIAN-TURKISH WARS • CHAPTER I METHODOLOGY • The Model of War • Rationality of Ottoman Politics • The Ottoman Leadership and Intelligence • Economic Strategy • Ottoman Diplomacy • CHAPTER II THE MILITARY POWER OF THE OTTOMANSTATE IN THE 1520s • The Makeup and Resources of the State • The Strength of the Ottoman Army in 1526 • Estimates in the Sources and Studies: the Supply Side • Calculation from the 1526 Column of March • Mobilization and Aufmarsch • Provisions and Transport of Foodstuff • Strategy • First Phase: from 1356 to 1453. • Second Phase: from 1463 to 1521 • Third Phase: from the Capture of Belgrade e to the Peace of Adrianople, 1521-1568. • Tactics • CHAPTER III HUNGARYS MILITARY POTENTIAL IN THE JAGELLONIAN PERIOD • The Economic Background • The Army • Supreme Command and Strategy • Branches of Service, Tactics, and Morale • Domestic Affairs and Government • CHAPTER IV SULEYMAN'S PROPOSAL:AN OUTLINE OF OTTOMAN AND HUNGARIAN POLICIES BETWEEN 1520 AND 1541 • Historiography • Suleymans Peace Offer of 1520 and His Attack in 1521 • Suleymans Second Peace Offer, Its Rejection, and the "Punitive Expedition of 1526 • The Apparent Realization of Suleymans Concept in 1529 • Events From Late 1529 to 1538 • The Peace of Nagyvarad • The Death of King John • The Fall of Buda and the Withdrawal of "Suleymans Proposal • Conclusion • PART II THE BATTLE OF MOHACS • CHAPTER V OBJECTIVES AND PLANS OF THE TWO SIDES • Sources • Military Planning.The Question of River Defense in Southern Hungary • Timing and Planning • Plans for an Advance into the Balkans • CHAPTER VI PREPARATIONS ON THE HUNGARIAN SIDE.OTTOMAN ADVANCE • Hungarian Reconnaissance and Assessment of Ottoman Intentions • Peace Plans, the Financial Situation, and Preparations • The Ottoman Armies March Across the Balkans • CHAPTER VII OPERATIONS UP TO THE BATTLE • The Fall of Petervarad and Ujlak.The Ottoman Army Reaches the Drava • Where to Fight the Battle? Conflict between Court and Notability • Strength of the Hungarian Forces on the Eve of the Battle • CHAPTER VIII THE HUNGARIAN BATTLE PLAN AND THEDEPLOYMENT OF THE OTTOMAN FORCES • The Battlefield at Mohacs • Difficulties of the Ottoman Deployment • The Deployment of the Hungarian Army • The Advance of the Ottoman Army to the Battlefield. Disorientation of the Supreme Command • The First Hungarian Attack. Tomoris Battle Plan: A Reconstruction • CHAPTER IX THE BATTLE • The First Phase • The Second Phase and Conclusion • CHAPTER X END OF THE 1526 CAMPAIGN • Ottoman Advance to Buda • The Ottomans Leave the Country • The Death of Louis II • Mohacs from the Ottoman Point of View: Triumph or Failure? • GLOSSARY • GLOSSARY OF PERSONS • REFERENCES • Endnotes ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Atlantic Research and Publications, Inc., conducts research,organizes conferences, and publishes scholarly books in historyand related fields. The Open Society Fund helped us incompleting research and holding conferences. The editorial work for this volume was done by Professor JanosM. Bak with the assistance of Professors Gustav Bayerle andMarjorie Sinel and Dr. Gabriele P. Scardellato. The preparationof the manuscript for publication was administered by PatriciaStracquatanio of Atlantic Research and Publications, Inc. Themaps were prepared by Mrs. Ida Etelka Romann. To all these institutions and persons I wish to express my mostsincere appreciation and thanks. Bela K. Kiraly Highland Lakes, N.J. Professor Emeritus of March 15, 1988 HistoryEditor-in-Chief Preface to the Series The present volume is the twenty-sixth of a series which, whencompleted, will present a comprehensive survey of theinteractions between war and society in East Central Europe fromthe eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. In some cases, andthis volume is a case in point, we reach much farther back intime if and when the exposition of a particular subject seems toadvance our goals. These volumes deal with the peoples whosehomelands lie between the Germans to the west and Adriatic Seasto the south. They constitute a particular civilization, anintegral part of Europe, yet substantially different from theWest. Within the area there are intriguing variations inlanguage, religion, and government; so too, are theredifferences in concepts of national defense, of the charactersof the armed forces, and of ways of waging war. Study of thiscomplex subject demands a multi-disciplinary approach: therefore,we have involved scholars from several disciplines, fromuniversities and other scholarly institutions of the UnitedStates, Canada, and Western Europe, as well as the East CentralEuropean socialist countries and the Soviet Union. Most of the volumes contain papers selected from thosepresented at our twenty international and interdisciplinaryconferences; others, like this volume, are solicited to make theseries as comprehensive as possible. Our investigation focuses on a comparative survey of militarybehavior and organization in these various nations and ethnicgroups, to see what is peculiar to them, what has been sociallyand culturally determined, and what in their conduct of war wasdue to circumstance. Besides making a historical survey, we tryto define different patterns of military behavior, including thedecision making processes, the attitudes and actions of diversesocial classes, and the restraints of them shown in war. We endeavor, in this and future volumes, to presentconsiderable material on social, economic, political, andtechnological changes, and on changes in the sciences and ininternational relations and their effects on the development ofdoctrines of national defense and practices in militaryorganization, command, strategy, and tactics. We present data onthe social origins and mobility of the officer corps of thevarious services, and above all, on the civil-militaryrelationship and the origins of the East Central European brandof militarism. The studies will, we hope, result in a betterunderstanding of the societies, governments, and politics ofEast Central Europe, most of whose peoples are now members ofthe Warsaw Treaty Organization, although one country is a memberof NATO and two are non-aligned. Our methodology takes into account that in the last threedecades the study of war and national defense systems has movedaway from narrow concern with battles, campaigns, and leaders,and has come to concern itself with the evolution of society asa whole. In fact, the interdependence of changes in society andchanges in warfare, and the proposition that militaryinstitutions closely reflect the character of the society ofwhich they are a part have come to be accepted by historians,political scientists, sociologists, philosophers, and otherstudents of war and national defense. Recognition of this factconstitutes one of the central concerns of our approach to thesubject. Works in Western languages adequately cover thediplomatic, political, intellectual, social, and economichistories of these peoples and this area. In contrast, fewsubstantial studies of their national defense systems have yetappeared in Western languages. Similarly, although somesubstantial, comprehensive accounts of the non military aspectsof the history of the whole region have been published in theWest. However, before the present series, nothing had appearedin any Western language on the regions national defense systems.Nor is there any study of mutual effects of the concepts andpractices of national defense in East Central Europe. Thus, ourcomparative study of War and Society in East Central Europe hasbeen a pioneering work. The Editor-in-Chief has, of course, theduty of assuring the comprehensive coverage, cohesion, internalbalance, and scholarly standards of the series he launched. Hecheerfully accepts this responsibility and intends this work tobe neither a justification nor a condemnation of the policies,attitudes, or activities of any of the nations involved. At thesame time, because so many different disciplines, languages,interpretations, and schools of thought are represented, thepolicy in these, past and future volumes has been, and shall be,not to interfere with the contributions of the variousparticipants, but to present them as a sampling of the schoolsof thought and the standards of scholarship in the manycountries to which the contributors belong. Bela Kiraly About This Book As the editor of this series states in his preface, the Englishtranslation of the present monograph is an important steptowards presenting recent Hungarian scholarship to a wideraudience. I might go even further: by publishing Geza Perjes'smonograph, we acquaint the reader with more than one aspect ofcontemporary Hungarian intellectual history simultaneously. Thisbook can be seen as serving several functions