defence system against ottoman empire in hungary
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TH E
O T TO M A N
EMPIRE
A N D
ITS HERITAGE
Politics; Society
and
conomy
E D I T E D BY
S U R A I Y A
F A R O Q H I A N D H A L I L I N A L C I K
Advisory
Board
Fikret A d a n i r
•
Idris Bostan
•
A x nnon C o h e n
•
C o r n e l l Fleischer
B arbara F lemming
•
A lex ander de Groot
•
Klaus Kreiser
Hans Georg Majer
•
Irene M e l i k o f f
•
A hm et Ya§ar Ocak
A bdel j e l i l
T e m i m i • Gilles Veinstein • E l i zabeth Zachar iadou
V O L U M E
20
O T T O M A N S , HUNGARIANS,
A N D HABSBURGS
IN C EN T RA L EUROPE
The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest
EDITED BY
G É Z A
D Á V I D
A N D P Á L F O D O R
BRILL
L E I D E N
• B O S T O N • K Ö L N
2000
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This book is printed on acid-f rcc paper.
Library
of
Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe : the military confines
in the era of Ottoman conquest / edited by Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor.
p. cm. — (The Ottoman Empire and its heritage, ISSN 1380-6076 ;
v.
20)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9004119078 (alk. paper)
1. Europe, Central—History—To 1500. 2. Europe, Central—History—16th
century. 3. Europe, Central —His tory —1 7th century. 4. Europe, Central—
H i stor y , Mi l i t a ry . I .
Fodor,
Pál. I I.
Dávid, Géza.
II I. Scries.
D A W
1038 .0 88 2000
943—dc21 00-034284
CIP
D ie Deutsche
Bibliothek
-
CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe : the m il itary
confines i n the era of Ottoman conquest / ed. by Gcza Dav i d and Pal Fodor
- Leiden ; Boston ; Köln : Brill, 2000
(The Ottoman Empire and its heritage ; Vol. 20)
ISBN 90-04-11907-8
ISSN
1380-6076
ISBN 90 04 11907 8
€) Copyright
2000
by
Komnklijke
Brill
M i
Leiden, The Netherlands
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Fees are subject to change.
P RI NTE D
IN
T HE N E T H E R L A N D S
CONTENTS
LIST OF MAPS V I I
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND USAGE V I I I
PREF CE
(PÁL FODOR) I X
INTRODUCTION (GÉZA DÁVID and PÁL FODOR) XI
PART ONE: THE H U N G A RI A N- HA BSBURG FRONTIER
GÉZA
PÁLFFY
The Orig ins and Dev elop ment of the Border
Defence System Against the Ottoman Empire in
H u n g a r y (Up to the Early Eighteenth Centu ry) 3
A N D R Á S K U B I N Y I The Battle of Szávaszen tdemeter- Nagy olasz i
(1523).
Ottoman Ad vance and Hungarian Defence
on
the Eve of Mo hács 71
J Ó Z S E F
K E L E N I K The
Mil i tary
Revolutio n in Hun gary 117
PART TW O: THE O T T O M A N FRONTIER
KLÁRA HEGYI The Ot to m an N e t w o r k o f
Fortresses
in Hu ngar y ... 163
GÁBOR
ÁGOSTON Th e Costs of the Ottoman Fortress-System m
Hung ary
in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth
Cen
turies 195
PÁL
FODOR Mak ing
a Living on the Frontiers: Volunteers in
the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman
A r m y
229
GÉZA DÁVID A n Otto man Military Career on the Hungarian
Borders: Kasim Voyvoda, Bey, and Pasha 265
SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY
299
INDEX 315
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LIST OF MA PS
1.
The
castles
of the Croatian and Wendi sh-Bajcsavar c onf ines in
1582 65
2. The
castles
of the Bajcsavar, Kanizsa, and Gy o r co nfine s in 1582 67
3. The
castles
of the
M i n i n g
Town's and Upper
H u n g a r i a n
confines
in 1582 69
4. Southern H u n g a r y at the end of the f i fteenth century 82
5. The battle of Szavasz entd emete r, 1523 106
6. Otto man fortresses i n H u n g a r y 173
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E
O R I G IN S A N D D E V E L O P M E N T OF THE BORD ER DEFENC E
SYSTEM A G A I N S T
TH E
O T T O M A N EMPIRE
I N
H U N G A R Y
UP TO THE EA R L Y E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U R Y )
GÉZA PÁLFFY
"The system o f fortresses is the onl y means by
w h i c h
Your Majes ty
w i l l
be able
to
c onta in
th e
p o w e r a nd
the
adv ance
of the
e n e m y ,
and
be h ind
w hi ch
Your countr ies and peop les
w i l l
be
secure."
1
T his
is
h o w H a b s b u r g
military
l eaders summarized
their
o p i n i o n a b o u t the s ig ni f i cance of the
Hungarian border defence system protect ing
the imp erial ci ty of
V ienna,
the Austrian hered i tary lands , an d the G e r m a n E m p i r e i n 1577. It
w o u l d
be d if f icult to f ind a better expression to de f ine the r o le of the defence
system established
by the
late s ixteenth century
on the f ront i er
z o n e
o f
Hungary
and its
s outhern annexed prov inces (S lav onia
an d
Croatia)
against the Ot t o man E mpire . Ev en t h o u g h the
Hungar ian
defence system
constituted onl y a section of the l ong an d
varied
f ront i er z o n e
w hi ch
stretched f rom Northern A fr i ca
vi a the
Med i terranean is lands , Italy,
and
Hungary
to the Pol ish-Lithuanian and Russian territories an d protec ted
Europe
against the
O t t o m a n
attacks, it is ev id ent that the decis iv e ev ents
of
the
c entury
l ong
O t t o m a n - H a b s b u r g c o n f r o nt at i o n o c c u r r e d
o n the
territory of M e d i e v a l H u n g a r y .
2
On the basis o f recent archival research
and
the achievements o f A ustr i an , Southern Slav, an d
Hungar ian
historiography, this study attempts
to p r o v i d e an
o u t l ine
of the
system
and
its
dev e lopment , concentrat ing
on the
s ixteenth
an d
seventeenth
centuries . To w ard s the end o f the tw en t i e th c entury it is e v e n m o r e t imely
as, w hi l e s ev eral monog raphs hav e been
p ub l i she d
i n
d i f ferent
w o r l d
languages about
the
defence systems
on the
C roat ian
an d
S lav onian
1
Pál
Szegő, Végváraink szervezete a török betelepedésétől a tizenötéves háború kezdetéig
(1541-1593)
[The
Organization
of the
Hungarian Border Fortresses from
the
Establishment
of the Ottoman Rule to the O utbreak of the Fifteen Years' War], Budapest, 1911, 52.
2
Cf. Pál
Fodor, " Ottoman Policy Towards Hungary,
1520-1541," Acta Orientálta
Academiae Scientiarum
Hungancae
45:2-3 (1991) 271-345.
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4
GÉZA PÁLFFY
terri tories,
3
no w e l l documented study has been wr i t t e n about the system
of the H u n g a r i a n defence districts and border fortresses w h i c h played a
m u c h more i m portant role than the above mentioned areas in the whole
s tructure .
4
Earlier investigations have onl y discussed the Croatian-Slavonian
part , that is a special section of the defence system established in the
sixteenth century to resist the Ottoman advance,
w h i c h
was less decisive
f r o m the
p o i n t
of
v i e w
of the whole area, and have treated it s i m pl y as
th e antecedent of the military frontier Militdrgrenze) org anize d at the
b e g i n n i n g
of the eighteenth century.
5
But the development of the defence
3
The most important works in chronological order: Fr[antisek] Vanicek , Specialgeschichte
der Militärgrenze.
I- IV . Wi en, 1875. Jakob Arnstadt,
Die k. k. Militdrgrenze
1522-1881
(mit
einer
Gesamtbibliographie).
(Inaugural-D iss.) Würzb urg, 1969. Gunther
Erich
Rothenberg,
The Austrian
Militari/
Barder in Croatia,
1522-1747.
(Ill inois Studi es in the Social Sciences , 48.) Urbana,
1960, and
idem, The Milttan Border in Croatia 1740-1881: A Study of an Imperial Institution.
Chicago, 1966, and the two volumes
together
in German: Gunther Ejrich] Rothenberg, Die
österreichische Militdrgrenze in Kroatien 1522 bis 18S1.
Wien-München, 1970.
Die k. k. Militär
grenze. Beitrage zu ihrer Geschickte.
(Schriften des Heeresgeschichtlichen Mus eums in Wien,
6.) Wien, 1973. Die österreichische Militärgrenze. Geschichte und Auswirkungen. Ed. by Gerhard
Emst . (Schriftenreihe des Regensburger Osteuropainstituts, 8.) Regensburg, 1982. Vojna Kra
jina. Povijesni pregled-histonografija-rasprave. Ed. by Dragurin Pavlicevic. Zagreb, 1984. Cf
also Winfried Schulze, Landcsdefension und Staatsbildung. Studien zum Kriegswesen des inner
österreichischen Temtorialstaates (1564-1619). (Veröf fentlichungen der Kommissi on für neuere
Geschichte Österreichs, 60.) Wien-Köln-Graz, 1973.
Karl
Käser, Freier Bauer und Soldat. Die
Militarisierung der agrarischen Gesellschaft m der kroatisch-slawonischen Militärgrenze (1535-
1S81).
(Habilitationsschrift) Graz, 1985, and the most
recent
work by Jean Nouzille
(Histoire
de frontières. L Autriche et l Empire ottoman.
Préface par Jean Bérenger. Paris, 1991) w hich is,
however, a
dull
summary of earlier results.
4
So far Kurt Wess ely has been the only one to realize
that
for an understanding of the
whole defence system against the Ottoman Empire it is indispensable to know the history
of the Hungarian border defence zones as
wel l :
Kurt Wessel y, The Develop ment of the
Hungar ian Military Frontier
Until
the Middle of the Eighteenth Century,
Austrian History
Yearbook 9-10 (1973- 1974) 55-110, and idem, Di e Regensburger 'harrige' Reichshilfe 1576,"
in
Die russische Gesandschaft am Regensburger Reichstag 1576. Mit Beiträgen von Ekkehard
Völkl und Kurt Wessely. (Schriftenreihe des Regensburger Osteuropainstituts, 3.) Regens
burg, 1976,
31-55.
Cf. also István Sinkovics, Obrana madarskog pogranienog teritorija od
Turaka u XVI i
X V I I
stoljecu, in Vopna Krajina,
163-174.
The most important H ungari an
monographs: Szegő, op. cit., and Imre Szántó, A végvári rendszer kiépítése és fém/kora Magyar
országon
1541-1593
[The Organization and Golden Age of the Border Defence System in
Hungar y] .
Budapes t, 1980.
5
In Aus trian, German, Croatian—and sometimes even Hungari an—wo rks, the Croa
tian-Slavonian defence zones are called military frontiers (Militärgrenze) already from the
middle of the sixteenth century, which is, in my opinion, a capital mistake. The units of
the defence system of the sixteenthth and seventeenth centuries, the respective
areas
of the
T H E
H U N G A R I A N - H A B S B U R G B O R D E R
D E F E N C E
SY ST E M S
5
line against the Ottomans'
1
can onl y be understood m the knowledge of
the who le—H ung arian and Croatian-Slavo nian—bo rder defence system
and this is true for the history of its subsequ ent peri od s, too . Below this
system w i l l be examined as a w h o l e , v i e w e d f r o m the administrative
centres, that is f r o m Buda
until
1526, then t em porar i l y f r o m Pozsony and
Vienna, and f r o m 1556 up to the
abo l i t i o n
of the military frontier in the
nineteenth century, f r o m the
Imperial City
and—for an intermediary
p
e r
i o d f r o m Graz (1578-1705) respectively. This is the onl y aspect w h i c h
can p r o v i d e us w i t h a more coherent and complete picture about the
strategy of defence of the medieval H ung ar i an K i n g d o m and that of the
Habsburg military leadership, and about how the system was controlled.
THE
PERIODIZATION
O F
THE HISTORY
O F
THE DEFENCE SYSTEM IN
HUNGARY AGAINST THE OTTOMANS
The new approach makes it necessary to establish a new penodization for
the
history of Croatian and Slavonian territories w h i c h defines the most
important
shifts based o n the qualitativ e
changes w i t h i n
the whole system.
The former penodization advanced in 1960 by Fedor Moacanin, and
only
partly
corrected by those wo r k ing on the problem later on, can
hardly
be
used for the Hungarian territories in the narrow sense co nsti tuting the major
and
more decisive part of the defence system.
7
The Croatian author
d iv id e d
the nearly 500-year-old histo ry of the Croatian-Slavonian defence region
into
the fo l lowing two major and some m i n o r periods:
1. p e r io d : From the beginning to 1593, the outbreak of the so-called
'Fifteen Years' War' or ' L ong War'. W i t h i n this, he differentiated three
subperiods:
border fortresses (Grenzgebiet. Grenze, Grenzfestungen) were qualitatively different from the
mil
itary frontiers organized in the early eighteenth century. Another remarkable mistake of
Austrian historiography is to call the Croatian -S lavo nian border territories A ustri an Mi li tarv
Frontiers (österreichische Militärgrenze, see
notes
3 and 25), as in the sixteen th-sev enteenth
centuries it was not
these that
were called Au strian border f ortress zone (österreichische
Grenze),
but the border castles subordinated to Györ. Therefore it is
more accurate
to use
the term 'the Habsburg defence system against the Ottoman Empi re' in the sixteenth- seven
teenth centuries for the imperial-royal border defence system in Hungary. Cf. Kurt Wessely,
"Reply
to Rothenberg's Comments,
Austrian History Yearbook
9-10
(1973-1974)
119.
f
It
is to be noted
that
scholarly works have so far identi fie d the border defence syst em
against the Ottomans with the chain of fortresses, but this
latter
was, besides the mobile
field troops
and soldi ery kept by the counties, etc., onlv one, though decis ive element in
it.
7
Fedor Moacanin, Periodizacija histonje Vojne Krajine (XV -X IX
St .) , "
Historijski zbornik
13
(1960) 111-117.
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6
GÉZA PÁLFFY
1.1. From the outset to 1522, w he n Ferd inand I , Ar ch du ke of Au stria,
sent
an army at his ow n expense to help the
defence
o f the A ustr i an
terri tories threatened by the Ottomans.
1.2. From 1522 to 1578, w hen the adm inistra tion of the Croatian and
Sl av oni an border
fortresses
w as subord i nated to the new l y es tabl ished
Inner A u str i an War C o unc i l
(Innerösterreichischer Hofkriegsrat,
G raz ) ,
sep
arating
them
f r o m
the H ung ar i an
defence
districts .
1.3. Fro m 1578 to 1593.
2. pe rio d: From 1593 to 1881, the el im inatio n of the system o f military
frontiers. W i t h i n th i s per i od M oacani n de f i ned f i v e sm al l er sections, out
o f w h i c h tw o shoul d be m ent i oned i n connect i on w i t h the era d iscussed
in
this paper.
2.1.
From 1593 to 1683, the beg innin g of the so-cal led reco nqu ering
T u r k i s h w a r
(1683-1699).
This w ar made i t po ssible to establ ish the
n e t w o r k
o f b o r d e r
fortresses
an d
military
f ront i er a l ong the Sava, Tisza,
D anube , and M aros .
2.2. Fro m 1683 to 1755, the first re form o f the
m i l i ta r y
frontiers
cons i dered i m po rtant by M oacani n .
8
Tho ug h the authors of mo nog raphs prep ared after 1960 corrected
M oacani n ' s per i od i z at i on i n
some
po i nts/ the ir approach to the bo rder
defence
system shows no real
change
at all. This
state
of affairs can be
ascribed to the fact that, due to language problems and a lack of archival
research,
they knew practical ly nothing about the Hungarian border
defence
system an d therefore neglected it. So the perio diz atio n to be presented
here
is the
first
attempt to define new periods
f r o m
the point of v iew of the whole
defence system in Hungary against the Ottoman Empire, and also appl icable
to the history of the Croatian-Slavonian region. In my o pin ion the f o l l o w ing
three major and several minor periods can be di fferentiated:
Th e
first
one lasted
f r o m
the beginning to 1526, the termination of
t h e m e d i e v a l H u n g a r i a n K i n g d o m . D u r i n g this era, the southern
defence
n e t w o r k
stretching f r o m the Ad riatic Sea to Transylvan ia was an org ani
cal ly coherent
defence
l i ne o f the H ung ar i an K i ng do m .
Th e
second
pe riod began in 1526 (the year o f the battle at M ohác s)
and cont i nued
t i l l
th e
peace
treaty of Karlovi tz in 1699, w h i c h closed the
epoch o f the reconqu er i ng T urk i sh w ars
(1683-1699)
and O ttom an rul e i n
H ung ary . A f ter the
peace
ha d
been
conc l uded i t ag ai n became possible
8
Further periods: 2.3.
1755-1807,
2.4.
1807-1848,
finally 2.5.
1848-1881.
9
See the works cited in note 2.
T H E
H U N G
A RI
A N - H A B S B U R G B O R D E R
D E F E N C E S Y S T E M S
7
to create
a qual i tat i v e l y new
defence
system cal led the
'm i l i ta r y
f ront i er '
(Mditdrgrenze).
In
th e
d e f in i t i o n
of the subperiods of the
th ird
phase (1699-1881),
historians are more or
less
of the same o p i ni o n , so i t is
w o r t h
accepting
the per i od i z at i o n o f M oac ani n and R othenberg .
In th e f o l l o w i n g I w o u l d l i k e to sum m ari z e the dev e l op m ent o f the
border
defence
system up to the organization of the
military
frontiers in
the early eighteenth century.
B y
sho w i ng br i e f l y the subper i od s I
wi l l
make an attempt to analyze the most important
sections
o f the cont i nual l y
changing n etw or k and to evaluate i ts land mark s given the constraints of
time
an d
space.
A t the
same
t ime I
w o u l d
l ike to justi fy the signi fi cant
changes
I have ap pl ie d in the perio diz ation used so far.
1
T H E
D E F E N C E
S Y S T E M
O F T H E
M E D I E V A L
H U N G A R I A N
K I N G D O M
( F R O M
T H E
O U T S E T
T O T H E
B A T T L E
O F M O H A C S I N 1526)
1
1. The origins of the defence
system
against the Ottomans
(late fourteenth century-mid-M70s)
In
the 1360s, th e military and po l i t i ca l l eadership o f the H u ng ar i an
K i n g d o m d id not recogn ize the danger i t faced w i t h the
appearance
o f
the O ttom an troops i n E urope . A l t h o u g h the
conquests
of the g r o w i n g
military state were far away f r o m the borders of the subsidiary provinces
of King L o u i s A n j o u I
(1342-1382),
the consp i cuo us po l i t i ca l and military
expansion of the Ottomans was a clear signal that they w o u l d hard l y
stop on the south-eastern Balkans after gaining the upper hand in the
struggle among the Southern Slav rulers as their auxi l iary troops. Though
L oui s I at tem pted— ev en i f i n a som ew hat unpre pared m anne r— to
contain the conquerors by establ ishing the Bulgarian banate o f
V i d i n
betw een 1365 and 1369 and by placing Hu ng arian soldiers in the
castles
there, the strikes by the Ottomans in the
1370s
an d
1380s
d i rec t l y
threatened the southe rn frontiers of Hun ga ry. The si tuatio n was mad e
worse by the fact that, towards the end of his rule, K i n g L oui s d i d not
pay too m uch at tent i on to the re i nforcem ent o f the southern border
fortresses
a l ong the L ow er D anube , and the confused
years
after his death
further
accentuated the problems of southern
defence.
10
1 0
O n the history of the organization of the defence system
before
1526, cf. Ferenc Szakály,
"Phases of Turco-Hungarian Warfare Before the Battle of Mohács
(1365-1526),"
Acta
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8
GÉZA PÁLFFY
A fter S ig i smund o f Luxe m bur g , t he Hung ar ian K ing (1387-1437)
later H o l y Ro man Emp e r o r
(1410-1437),
experienced the imme diate threat
by the Ottomans on the batt lef ie ld of N i c o p o l (1396) and his western
neighbours d id so by means of the constant attacks," there remai ned
only o ne p o ss ib i l i t y t o d e f e nd Hungar y . I t became imperat ive that thev
lay the fou nd ation of a bo rder defence system capable of com peting
effectively w i t h the enemy at the frontiers in the
l o n g
ru n. Bearing this
purpose in m i n d , Sigismund ordered that the border fortresses along the
L o w e r
Danube sho u ld be g ive n
into
roy al hands, they should be
reinforced,
and that new castles sho u ld be bu i l t between Szörény and
Nándorfehérvár ( for example Szentlászló) . In
ad d i t i o n ,
he started to place
the mobile troops of the southern counties, of the banates exist ing since
the time of the rulers of the Árpád House, and the soldiers serving in
the border fortresses under central control. In the diet of 1397, held in
Temesvár ,
w h i c h
was of crucial importance concerning the defence of the
southern borders, he
tried
to enforce his intention o f
qua l i f y ing
the
Hungarian
military organizat ion for defence purposes by
means
of
several military l a w s .
12
The reforms led to the establishment of the so-called
militia portalis
by wh ic h
the ruler intended to create a l i gh t cavalry of considerable
numbe r
wh ic h
could be deployed on the front iers. In order to increase
the number of sold iers on the borde rs, Serbian refugees w ere mo re and
Orientálta Academiae Scientiaruni Hungancac 33 (1979)
65-111.
Idem, "The Hungarian-Croatian
Border Defense System and Its Collapse," in
From Hunyadi to Rákóczi. War and Society m
late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary. (W ar and Society in Eastern Central Europ e, 3.)
Ed.
by János M. Bak-Béla K. Király. Brooklyn, 1982,
141-158.
Cf. also Leopold Kupelwieser ,
Die Kampfe Ungarns mil den Osmanen bis zur Schlacht b ei Mo hács,
3526.
W i e n ,
1899
2
.
(I used
these
works in presenting all
three
subpenods, so I am not going to
refer
to them separately
below.)
11
For the earliest
attacks
against Hung ary, cf. Bódog M illeker,
A törököknek első betörései
Dél-Magyarországba Zsigmond és Albert királyok idejében és Keve és Krassó vármegyék megszűnése.
1393-1439
(The First Attacks by the Ottomans Against H ung ary in the Time of Kin gs
Sigismund and Albert, and the End of Coun ties Keve and Krass óf T emes vár, 1914. O n the
attacks against Transylvania, cf. Gustav Gundisch, Z»r Überlieferung der Turkenemfallc in
Siebenbürgen.
Kolo zsvár, 1947. O n the first raids in Au strian territories, see Han s Pirchegg er,
" D ie
ersten Türkeneinfálle
(1396,
1415,
1418)," Zeüschnft des Histo nschen Veremes fur
Steierrrmrk
18
(1922) 63-73.
See also the
latest
summary of the Southern Slav literature bv
Vasko Simoniti,
Vojaskn organtzaaja na Slovenskem v 16. sto letju.
Ljub ljan a, 1991, 5- 23.
12 Elemér Mályusz,
Kaiser Sigismund in Ungarn 1387-1437.
Budapest, 1990,
136-166
13
It
meant that
well-to-do noblemen had to field one mounted
archer
for every 20, later,
after 1435, for every 33 peasants. A ndrás Boros y, " Th e Militia Portalts in Hu ngary Before
1526,"
in
From Hunyadi to Rákóczi, 63-80.
T H E
H U N G A R I A N - H A B S B U R G B O R D E R D E F E N C E S Y S T E M S
9
mo r e f r e que nt ly
h i r e d
as l i gh t hussars, b o a t m e n [naszádos) on the Danu be
or more increasingly, thou gh temp orari ly, as peasant soldiers
(vopiiks,
Soidatenbauer) i n return for certain exemptions. The incomes of the
country
d id not render i t possible to m aintain a regular army
p a id
b y
the king protect ing the front iers, apart f r o m the bandérium of the ruler.
In paral le l to the enlargement of the defensive military forces, the
org ani z at i on o f border defence was made more coherent . The military
forces of the counties of the Temesköz were subordinated—though onl y
tem porar i l y , for some major act ions—to the
h igh
sheri f f o f county Temes
(comes
Temesiensis),
w ho , at the
same
t ime, was appointed captain of the
garrison so ld iers, besides he ad ing h is o w n
bandérium.
A s imi lar process
started in the neighbouring
banate
o f Mac só ,
l y i n g
we st o f t he Te me skö z .
14
T h r o u g h p ersonal neg ot iat ion, Sigism und , und er the terms of the treaty
of Tata in 1426, acquired f r o m Djordje Brankovic the castle o f N án
dorfehérvár (Belgrade) , w h i c h was essential for the strengthening of the
defence. Ten years later he attached the
castle
to the banate o f Macsó, and
as a result a defence zone similar to the one in Temesköz came
into
be ing ,
since the ban o f Macsó disposed of the m i l i ta r y forces of the neig hbo urin g
counties of Baranya, Bod rog, Bács, Szerem, and Valkó . The two
ban
o n
the Croat ian-Slavo nian terr itor ies had sim ilar military
authori ty ,
w hat is
mo r e , t he f avo ur ab le na t ur a l e nd o w me n t s we r e f ur t he r e nhanc e d by
re i nforc i ng the fords on the Sava w i t h wo o d e n f o r t s . At t he
same
t ime,
in
the Temesköz, a chain of about twenty fortresses handled by the k ing
secured the defence of the border.
Th e f o r m a t i o n o f the defence n etw or k und er relatively calm
c o nd i t i o ns
w as fac i l i tated by the fact that the Otto ma n state u n d e r w e n t
one of the most cr it ical periods of i ts history d u r i n g the so-called
interregnum betw een 1402 and 1413. The Hu ng arian military leadership ,
however , d id not make use of the
o p p o r t u n i t y
to chase out the Ottomans.
Still, due to the
activ i ty
of the
comes Temesiensis,
P ip ó o f Ozo r a
(F i l ippo
S c o lar i) , w ho im p le m e nt e d t he
military
reforms of Sigismund and the
Thallóczi brothers (Matkó and Frankó) , and o w i n g to the campaigns and
1 4
A t the turn of the
1430s
Sigismund put the Teutonic Order in
charge
of the
bannte
of
Szörény defending the
entrance
at the Lower Dan ube. But his hopes in connection with
this plan soon failed. Erich Joachim, " König S igm und un d der Deutsche Ritterorden in
Ungarn
1429-1432.
Mitteilungen aus dem Staatsarchiv Königsberg,"
Mit teilungen des I nstituts
für Öst erreichische Geschichtsfo rschung
33
(1912) 87-119,
and recently Jenő Glück, " A n émet
lovagrend a XV . század i Bánságban [The Teutonic Order in the Fifteenth-Cen tury Banate],"
Zounuk. A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár Évkönyve
8
(1993) 33-44
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10
GÉZA PÁLFFY
org ani z at i onal act ivity
of János
H u n y a d i
in the 1440-1450s, the medieval
H u n g a r i a n
K i n g d o m managed to
b u i l d
up a system on the southern
terri tories of the country, w h i c h was
still
not coherent enough but
adequate for permanent defence.
1.2. The furination of a
coherent
defence system: the military reforms of
Matthias Corvinus and their aftermath 147ÖS-152V
T h o u g h the foundations of the border defence system were
laid during
S ig i smund ' s reign,
the siege of Nándorfehérvár in 1440 indicated that those
buf fer
states
in the Balkans w h i c h had previously served to protect
H ung ary
w o u l d
soon be r u ine d by the Ottoman advance. In the l o ng run , neither the
so-called w in te r campaign
(1443-1444)
by János H u n y a d i , nor his success in
Nándorfehérvár in 1456, nor even the Bosnian actions by Matthias Corvinus
in
1463-1464 coul d stop the process by w h i c h the
H ung ar i an
military force
was once and for all d r ive n back to the frontiers of the country by the 1460s,
except for the north-western Bosnian fortresses around
Jajca.
The nearly f i f ty years' 'peace-time' starting in the mid-1460s, wh ic h
was characterized by the
clashes
of the r a id ing troops of the contending
parties,
offered an excellent o p p o r t u n i t y for the
H u n g a r i a n
King to unify
an d r e f o r m the defence system co nstructed by his predecessors, that is
to make preparations for permanent defence. The
shi ft
in the foreign
pol i cy of Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490) f r o m the South-East to the West
m i g h t have served the same purposes.
15
Presumably, he intended to create
an Eastern-Central-European great power w i t h material resources to be
able to finance the reorganized defence line and to co mpe te succe ssfully
w i t h the Ottoman Empire that had changed into a European great power
w i t h the capture of Constantinople in 1453.
The reorganization of the defence system was accomplished in the
m i d d l e of the 1470s. The aims of the innovations were to create a more
coherent defence system,
w h i c h
coul d
be controlled
f r o m
the centre and was
no t d iv id e d in to many political, military administrative centres, furthermore
to establish an army that coul d be m obi l i z ed faster and in a more unif ied
w ay to protect the borders. In the southern regions from the Adriatic to the
Eastern-Carpathians, Matthias Corvinus united and integrated under the
c o m m a n d
of three military o fficials the two basic elements of the defence
system: on the one hand, the military forces and the netw ork of the border
1 3
G y u l a
Rázsó, Hu nyad i Mátyás török politikája [The Ottoman Policy of Matthias
C or vinus] , " Hadtörténelmi Közlemények
22
(1975)
305-348.
T H E H U N G A RI A N - H A B S B U R G B O R D ER D E F E N C E SY ST E M S
11
fortresses, and on the other, the bandena, county and noble troops, that is
the military of the areas nei ghb ou ring the frontiers. This was the mo st
decisive and most significant part of his reforms.
A s a first step, in 1476 Matthias
united
the offices of the ban of Croatia-
Dalmatia and Slavorua. His
intention
was to subordinate the commanders of
border fortresses, as we l l as the mobile troops of the counties, barons and
nobles of the area, under the unif ied control of the Croatian-Slavonian ban
(banus Croatuie et Slavoniae) f r o m the sea to the Low er Danube. Thoug h he had
already attempted to unify the tw o offices as early as in the mid-1460s, his
endeavours were frustrated for a decade by the pursuits for independence of
the ban of Macsó, Miklós Újlaki, who was appointed King of Bosnia in 1471. '
After
the occupation of Szabács in 1476 and the death of Újlaki in 1477,
nothing
could prevent him from implementing his
p lan.
A t the same time, he organized
the region of the Lower Danube
into
a
unif ied
border defence system, similar
to the Croatian-Slavonian terntones. To this end he created the office of the
captain-general of the Low er Parts supremus capitenus paiiium regra Hungaruie
inferiorum),
w h i c h
was, w i th a few exceptions,
17
assumed by the
high
sheriffs
of
county Temes. From that time on,
besides
their
bandena
of considerable
numbers,
the captain-generals disposed of the
military
forces of
both
the border
fortresses and the ne i g hbour i ng co unties. A t the same
time,
as h igh sheriffs of
county Temes, they were also respo nsible fo r the
civil administration
of the
area.
Whi l e
the Croatian-Slavonian ban was personally m charge of the military
and
civil administration
of Dalmatia, Old Croatia,
lh
and the Slavonian counties
l
András
Kubinyi,
Di e Fragen des bosnischen König tums von N. Újlaki,
Studui Slavica
Acadermae Scientmrum Hungancae 8
(1958) 373-384
1 7
The captaincy-general of Pál Tomori
(1523-1526),
the Archbishop of Kalocsa, who had
his residence i n Péterv árad and died i n the
battle
of Mohács, has to be ranked among these.
'8 It is appropriate to
note
here
that
Croatia and Slavoni a as admi nis trative and territorial
notions had different meanings during the middle
ages
and in the sixteenth- eighteen th
centuries. Th e medieval ' Ol d' Croatia was situated south-west of the river Sava, and its
territory extended between the Kapel la Mountain and the Adriati c Sea, bordering on
Slavonia
in the north-east Sl avoni a proper was located between the Drav a vall ey and the
Kapela Mountain, extending as far as the river Vrbas in the
east.
The Ottoman advance
created
a completely new situation by the second half of the sixteenth century. By
that
time
the southern parts of Ol d Croatia were lost, its populati on sought refuge i n the north, and
for this reason in the sixteenth- seventeenth centuries the name Croatia des ignated the
areas
stretching f rom the Ad riatic to the Sava, then, in the eigtheenth century, to the Drava, which
was formerly named Slavonia, then Upper Slavonia. For Slavonia proper shrank to the
territory between D rava, Sava, and Cs ázm a by the
1570s.
In the second half of the ei ghteenth
century, however, it included the counties Pozsega, Valkó, and Szerem (the so-called Lower
Slavonia), and from
that
time on, Slavonia meant exclusively
that
territory.
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12
GÉZA PÁLFFY
of Zágráb, Várasd, Kőrös, Verőce, Dubica, Szana, and Orbász, due to the
r e f o r ms
of Matth ias, the captain-ge neral of the Low er Parts had the same
responsibi l i t ies over the six counties of Temesköz (Keve, Krassó, Temes,
Torontál , A r a d , and C sanád) , ov er the neigh bo uring six counties of
B o d r o g ,
Bács, Csongrád, Békés, Zaránd, and Bihar, and over the counties
o f Pozsega, Valkó, and Szerem between the Drava and Sava, that is all
the military and adm inistrat ive du t ies over the terr itor ies cal led the Lower
Parts.'
9
Th e third great u n i t o f the defence l ine was led by the Voivode
o f Tr ansy lvan ia (vajvoda
Transilv aniae/Transilv aniensis)
w i t h the same
autho r i ty .
20
A s a result o f the refo rms of Matthias Corv inus , the
bases
of the
defence system against the Ottoman Empire laid d o w n by Sigismund of
L u x e m b u r g
we r e t r ansf o r me d and c hange d
into
a coherent system. At
the end of the f i f teenth century the Hu nga rian
K i n g d o m
was sur r o und e d
b y a vert ical ly and horiz on tal ly d iv id e d , un i f i e d n etw ork of defence. In
d e p t h it consisted of tw o parallel lines of bord er fortresses. The so uthern
l ine stretched f r o m Szörény via Orsova, Szentlászló , Nándo rfehérvár , Z i -
m o n y ,
Szabács, Szrebernik, Jajca, an d Kn i n up to Skardona and Kiissza,
the second, northern l ine f r o m Lúgos, Karánsebes, and Temesvár via
Pétervárad, the minor castles o f the Szerémség and Dubica,
Kr up a ,
and
Bihács to Zengg on the Dalmatian coast. Th e same system was d ivided
into three sections v ertical ly together w i th the Transy lv anian territories:
the Croat ian-Slavonian part w i t h Bihács as its headquarters, the
area
east
of i t ranging to Wallachia w i t h the centre of Tem esv ár called Lo w er Parts
an d the Transylv anian bord er area. A ll three parts had the
function
of
serv i ng and sup po rt ing the bo rder fortresses, in w h i c h there w ere several
t ho usand
Sou thern Slav and Hu nga rian garrison soldiers, bo atmen, and
'« For the history of the captaincy -gen eral of the Lowe r Parts, see recently L ászl ó Fenyv esi,
" A
temesközi-szörénységi végvárvidék funkcióváltozásai
(1365-1718)
[The Changes in
Function of the Border Fortress A rea of the Teme sköz and Sz örény ség] ," in Végvárak és
régiók a
XVI-XVII.
században.
(Studia Agriensia, 14.) Eger, 1993, 238-246.
2 0
The only debatable element of the reform is why Nándorfehérvár did not
become
the
seat
of the newly nom inated captain-general of the Lower Parts. A ll this might be in
connection with the devaluated office of the ban of Macsó held by Lőrinc, the son of Miklós
Újlaki. Thou gh it might have seemed wiser to send the captain-general of the Lowe r
Parts
to Nándorfehérvár, the events afterwards justified the decision by Matthias Corvinus as the
office with the seat in Temesvár survived the fall of Nándorfe hérvár in 1521, and continued
to function until 1556 with different
centres
as
will
be discussed later on. Cf. the different
opinion by Ferenc Szakály,
A mohácsi csata
[The Battle of M ohá csi (Sorsdö ntő történelmi
napok, 2.) Budapest,
1977,
55-56.
T H E
H U N G A R I A N - H A B S B L ' R G B O R D E R
D E F E N C E
SY ST E M S
13
peasant soldiers
p a id
by the k i n g .
2
' So in case o f danger , the captain-
generals of the bord er territories, as the leaders of the m ore secure
interior
counties, d isposed of a signif icant number of
banderia,
c o unt y and no b le
troops,
and unanim ou sly con trol led bo th the bord er fortresses and the
mobi le f ie ld troops. Their concrete tasks we r e d e t e r mine d by t he
ruler ,
w n 0
— w i t h o u t hav in g an ind e p e nd e nt bo d y
c o n t r o l l ing
the military
affairs—arrived
at decisions on the defence of the cou ntry af ter con sul
tation
w i t h t he Ro ya l Co unc i l (consilium regis/regni) resid ing in Buda.
3.3.
The fall of the defence
system
of the
medieval
Hungarian Kingdom
(1521-1526)
Before the
loss
o f Nándorfehérvár , the key fortress of the Danube
line,
in 1521,
22
the system o f bo rder defence di d not
seem
to
d i f f e r
m u c h
f r o m
the netw ork that came into being af ter the reform s of Matthias Co rvin us.
While one element of the defence, however , the chain of fortresses
still
existed, though in a bad state of repair, the other
ma in
c o mp o ne nt , t he
mobi le troop s of the neighb ou ring and inne r parts of the co untry became
practically unusable . So in the disastrous economic , soc ial , and polit ical
conditions
o f H ung ary in the Jagel lon-era (1490-1526), the defence system
became
mut i la te d
already before the fall o f Nándorfehérvár . The loss o f
the most important castle then launched a process that culminated in
total
collapse. Given the lack of a f ie ld a r my t hat c o u ld be mo ve d and
control led qu i c k ly
and c o he r e nt ly , N ánd o r f e hé r vár c o u ld
o n l y
have been
replaced by a castle o f similar size and signif icance along the Danube. A
stronghold
o f such strength, however , was to be
f o und o n ly
several
hundred ki lometers further north, in the centre of the country, in Buda.
The fall o f Nándorfehérvár resulted in a huge breach in the defence
line and brought about the loss of several neig hbo urin g fortresses:
Z i m o n y
and Szabács were captured in the same year , Orsova,
Kn i n ,
and Skardona
one year later, Szörény, the other b u l w a r k o f t he Lo w e r Danube ,
fell
in to
Ottoman hands in 1524. The p e r d i t i o n of the
castles
entailed the loss o f
21
Cf. András K ubi nyi 's article in the present vo lum e
2 2
Ferenc Szakály has dealt with the reasons and circumstances of the loss of the key
fortress in several studies, which obtains very useful points of reference Ferenc Szakály,
"N ándorfehérvár, 1521: The Beginning of the End of the M ediev al Hu ngarian K in gdo m, "
•n
Hungarian-Ott oman Military and Diplomatic Relations in the Age of
Suleyman
the
Magnificent.
Ed.
by Gé za Dávi d and Pál Fodor Budapes t, 1994,
47-76.
Idem, A mohácsi csata,
56-58,
and
'áem, "N ánd orf ehér vár
1521-es
ostromához. Egy királyi adománylevél köztörténeti tanulsá
gai [On the Siege of Nán dorfeh érvár in 1521. T he Histo rical Lesson to Be D rawn From a
Royal
Deed of
Gift ] , "
Hadtörténelmi Kö zlemények 25
(1978) 484-499.
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GÉZA PÁLFFY
those vi l lages wh ose inhab itants had prev io usly served as peasant
soldiers fo r a pay of some m onths and for d i f fere nt exemp tions. So
Süleym an the Magn if icen t , the new su ltan (1520-1566), ext inguished the
southern
line of the frontier fortresses—except for Jajca and Ki i ssza— w it h
in
a period of some years. These
castles
served as stepping-stones for him
to d o a w a y w i t h the last remnants of the second line as
w e l l ,
except for
some Croatian fortresses, in the decades after the battle of Mohács in
1526.
W i t h the collapse o f the southern chain of fortresses, the Hu ng aria n
mil i ta r y leadership lost the zone that was to have defended the whole
k i n g d o m .
The second, northern l ine in the
interior
o f the country was not
facilitated b y the natural surro und ings to such an extent as the previo us
one that was situated almost ent irely along mountains and r ivers. There
was a threat that if the gaps could not be f i l led very fast, Pétervárad,
w h i c h
was chosen to subst itute Nándorfehérvár , could not be reinforced,
an d
no mo b i l e t r o o p s we r e
f i e ld e d ,
t he who le
interior
p la in area of the
c o u n t r y w o u l d so o n fall. A l t h o u g h so me measures w ere taken by the
palatínus István Báthorv an d the captain- gen eral of the Lo w er Parts Pál
T o m o r i
a ime d a t b r i n g i n g the fortresses of the second l ine into a
d e f e ns ib l e c o n d i t i o n and a t r e in f o r c ing t he m w i t h p a id i n f a n t r y m e n
an d
bandena,
these
failed one after the other, due to the modest incomes
of the country. As a result , the ent ire southern defence system inevitably
collap sed i n 1526, w he n the last uni ts of the mo bil e f ie ld troops and the
major border fortresses perished. The death of Louis II (1516-1526) at the
same t ime brought about the
fall
o f t he me d ie va l Hungar ian
K i n g d o m .
Before the col lapse of the mediev al bo rder defence sy stem, a change
t o o k p lace whose ef fects could not be
felt
in the 1520s, b u t w h i c h p r o v e d
v ery imp o r t ant in the l o ng run. Already in the early 1500s, K ings
V l ad i s l av
II (1490-1516) and Lo uis II and the Croat ian barons and nobles
turned
t o Emp e r o r
M a x i m i l i a n
1 (1493-1519) for help to
j o intly
avert the
danger threatening the
Austrian
provinces as w e l l . Bu t d u r i n g the rule
o f M a x i m i l i a n 1, the external military support assist ing the
ban
of Croatia
r e maine d
o n l y
a p lan . H ow ev er , af ter the
fall
of the first chain of
fortresses, A rch du ke Ferdinand I, assessing the danger threatening the
Aus t r ian p r o v inc e s go ve r ne d by h i m — m a i n ly Car n io la (Krain), Carinthia
(Kamten),
and Styria
(Steiermark)
—resigned him self to a sign ifican t step.
D u r i n g the
siege
o f Nándorfehérvár in 1521 he summoned his estates for
a special mee t ing and , at the request of his bro ther- in - law , Louis II , he
T H E H L' N C A Rl
A N - H A B S B U R G B O R D E R
D E F E N C E
SY ST E M S
15
p r o p o se d t o send se ve ra l t ho usand Ge r m an in f ant r ym e n t o sup p o r t
H u n g a r y .
On the
basis
of the documents at our disposal, it can be stated
that abo ut 2,000 infan trym en set of f for Hu ng ary, and this was the first
time w he n there was an actual attemp t by the Aus t r ian p r o vmc e s t o assist
in
the defence of the Hungarian
K i n g d o m . -
3
From 1522 to the defeat at
Mo hac s mo r e and mo r e f r e que nt ly d i d field troops arr ive f r o m the
nei g hbour i ng
Aus t r ian
provinces to the area co ntrol led by the Cro at ian
ban,
but they were not p laced
into
the border fortresses as constant
garrisons yet .
34
Tho ugh t he r e gu lar
Aus t r ian mi l i ta r y
aid seemingly
strengthened the defence in this section of the border, in fact it dissolved
the unif ied leadership of the military force that had been commanded by
the
ban
up to this
t ime.
The captain-generals
(Obnstcr Feldhauptmann der
nwderoblermchischen Landc) of the troo ps sent by the
Aus t r ian
estates we r e
appoi nted by the latter and were not subordinated to the
ban,
though the
consequences of this
d ua l i t y
d id not manifest themselves in these years,
but only
after the fall o f t he Hungar ian
K i n g d o m
i n 1526. A s the mo st
decisive element of the defence system, the chain of fortresses still
remained
under the control o f the ban at that time.
23
Lajos Thallóczy-A ntal H odinka, Magijarország melléktartomány ainak oklevéltára
(Codex
Diplomáticas Partium Regno Hungurtae
Adnexarum).
Vo l . 1 A horvát véghelyek oklevéltára.
1490-1527
[A rchives of the Croatian Border Fortresses
1490-1527).
(Monu menta H unganae
Histórica I. Diplomataria, XXXI.) Budapest. 1903,
34-38:
Nos . XXXV and
LXU-LXXII1:
Nos.
1-10 Th e year 1521 whi ch
I
propose to start a new period, is both appropriate for marki ng
the collapse of the first chain of fortresses and for referring to the
date
when Ferdinand,
Archdu ke of Austria began to support the defence system of the medieval Hungarian
Kin gdom w ith his financial and military power. That is why the year 1522 in Rothenberg's
monograph
(The Austrian M ilitary
Border) is worth modi fyin g to 1521.
; j
In connection w ith this, see Gunthe r E. Rothenberg, " The Ori gins of the Aus trian
Mil
itary Frontier in Croatia and the Alleged Treaty of 22 December
1522," Slavonic and East
European Review
38 (1960) 493-498. Cf. also Winfried Schulze, " Di e österreichische M ilitar-
grenze," Militärgeschichtliche Mitt eilungen 9
(1971) 191-192
Though Rothenberg proved in
his study published in 1960 that the alleged treaty of December 22, 1522 betwee n Lo uis II
and Ferdinand, A rchduke of A ustria is merely the result of a mistake by Frantisek V anicek
(F. Vanicek,
op.
of., 5-6) wh o misinte rpreted the talks at the Impe rial Diet
(Reichstag)
of
Regensburg in
1522-1523,
he (Rothen berg) was not the first to realiz e this. Lajos Thall óczy ,
in his introdu ction to the above quoted collection of documents had already
corrected
the
mistake (L. Thalloczy-A. Hodinka, op. at., Nos .
LV1II-LX
and
LVLII:
n. 1). Ro thenb erg's
merit is
that
he again drew attention to the problem, as Thallóczy's results were often
ignored even by Hungarian scholars. Pal Szegó, op. at., 13 and 32. Cf. recently G erha rd
Rill. Fürst und Hof in Österreich von den habsburgischen Teüungsverträgen bis zur Schlacht vo n
Moliács
(7523/22
bis
3526).
Bd. 1. Außenpolitik und Diplomatie. (Forschungen zur Europäischen
und Vergleichenden Rechtsgeschichte, 7.) W ien- Köln -W eimar, 1993,
42-43:
n. 17.
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16
GÉZA PÁLFFY
2. THE DEFENCE SYSTEM AGAINST THE OTTOMANS IN THE SIXTEENTH
AN D SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
The defeat at Mohäcs opened up a new era in the history of Hungary
The co un try lost not only its ruler, but almo st the wh ol e of its southern
defence
system, i nc l ud i ng both the network of border
fortresses
and the
ne ighbo ur ing
parts supp ort in g them
w i t h
their f ie ld troop s. A ll this
resulted i n the establ ishment o f Ottom an rule in Hung ary , the coronations
of John Szapolyai I
(1526-1540)
and Ferdinand I
(1526-1564)
as kings of
H u n g a r y , and the d i v i s i on of the country into three parts. Though the
sovereign ty and ind ependence of the country di d not ent irely d isappear
in the
f o l l o w i n g
centuries, its terri tory became the batt leground of two
great powers, the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire. In 1526, however ,
the quest ion was whether Hungary w o u l d be able to organize a new
defence
system or whether i t w o u l d
share
the fate of w hat had
been
its
vassal states in the Balkans. A nd if the cou ntry was to
succeed,
in which
part
of i t , in what frame w ork , and under who se leadership w o u l d the
ne w
defence
system come into being.
2.1.a.
One and a half decades of confusion: the period of the commanders-
in-chief of the
royal
army
paid
by Ferdinand I of Habsburg
The fifteen
years
after 1526 remind us of the events at the turn o f middle
of the fifteenth century. Only the performers of the Christian party had
changed: no w the Aus tr ian prov inces were in the
same
situation as the
me d ie va l
H u n g a r i a n K i n g d o m h a d
been
earlier. The question was the
same:
w o u l d
they manage to stop the enemy in f ront of the borders, on
the terr itor ies of Hu ng ary und er the authority of Ferdinand 1, crowned
the king of this country, or, as the Croatian-Slavonian
ban
Tamäs Nädasdy
expressed
it in his letter to Ferdinand in the summer of 1539: "If Your
H o l y Majestv
does
not support this country
w i t h
your other provinces it
w i l l
certainly happen that, due to the
loss
of this country, the other
p r o v inc e s o f Yo ur H o l y Majesty w i l l be lost ."
25
But the extent of the
danger was not adequately assessed in Vienna at the end of the
1520s.
To put it more accurately: even if they recognized the Ottoman threat,
they d id not have the po w er to act against it effectiv ely. For the
35 "Nisi Vestra Sacratissima Maiestas alicunde ex aliis regnis suis huic
regno
provident,
actum erit de eo, et ex amissione huius regni
amittentur
alia etiam
regna
V estrae Sacra-
tissimae Maiestatis." Wien, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv [hereinafter ÖStA], Haus-, Hof- und
Staatsarchiv
[hereinafter
H H S t A ] , Ungarische Akten (Hungarica)
[hereinafter
Hunganca),
Allgemeine Akten
[hereinafter
A A ] , Fase. 39. Konv. F. 1539. Juni-Juli fols. 36-37.
THE HUNGARIAN-HABSBURG BORDER DEFENCE SYSTEMS
17
rganization of a new defence system—as h ad been implemented on the
southern front iers of H ung ary in Matthias Corv inus' - t ime—there was a
need for a longer period of
peace,
for the appro priate econom ic and
financial
backgro und and po l it ical sup po rt , for a d ip lom acy that was
aware of the Ottoman's customs and methods, for an appropriate ap
paratus to organize and control the system, and last but not
least
for a
thorough
know ledg e of local Hu ng arian c ircumstances. N one of
these
conditions were met at that time.
The conf l ict between the tw o rulers of Hu ngary bro ught about c ivil w ar
conditions in the country and its annexed provinces (Slavonia and Croatia).
To save his territories, John I was forced to coop erate w i t h the Ottomans,
while
they advanced capturing more and more
fortresses
in the
Szeremseg
and
Croatia.
26
But
these
southern territories of Hungary
seemed
far away
enough
from
Vienna, not to mention the
palace
of emperor Charles V
^51 9-1556) in Toledo, for w h o m the Hun gari an theatre of w ar was
overshadowed by the Mediterranean and Italian provinces
also
threatened
by
the Ottomans.
A l thoug h
i t was obvious to those
k n o w i n g
the
geographical situation of Hungary that if the castles of Buda and the plain
areas
cou ld not stop the Ottom ans, they w o u l d get several hundred
kilometers nearer the centre of the Austnan provinces. In vain d id the
siege
of Vienna in 1529
cause
a shock, the Habsburg military leadership w as
unable to perform the
tasks
of
defence
against the Ottomans.
27
T h o u g h
among those Aust nan c o mmand e r s who kne w little about the conditions in
Hungary
there were
some
w ho realized the
severe consequences
o f d e lay ,
28
26
Gabor Barta, " A Forgotten
Theatre
of War 1526-1528 (Historical Events Preceding
the Ottoman-Hungarian Alliance of 1528)," in Hungarian-O ttoman
Military and
Diplomatic
Relations.
93-130.
2 7
Christine Turetschek, Die Türkenpolitik Ferdinands I. von 1529 bis 1532. (Dissertationen
der Universität Wi en, 10.) Wien , 1968.
2S
After the royal troops led by Hans Katzianer captured the castle of Szepesvär, the
residence
of the family Szapolyai, Ulrich Leysser chief field
armoury
officer (Obrist-Feldzeug-
meister) suggested to his ruler on M arch 28, 1528, that the artillery arsenal here and in other
places should be
transported
to the southern
border fortresses
and the ruined cannon should
be
cast
again with the
same
purpose: "Euer Kuni gliche M ajestät etc.
hetten
solh Geschucz,
klain vnd groß behaltenn, vnd die ortflegkhen
gegen
dem Turgkhenn damit versechenn ...
hetten
Euer Kunigliche Majestät etc. new geschuez giessen vnnd die Turgkhisch Gräniczen
damit versechen lassenn." ÖStA Kriegsarchiv [hereinafter KA ] Alte Feldakten [hereinafter A F A ]
'528/3/16 c. It is not a coincidence that it was Leysser who made these proposals as he had
already taken part in the
recruitment
of the auxiliary troops
commanded
to Croatia from 1522
so he was
among
those who rightly
assessed
the real
degTee
of the
Ottoman
threat (see L.
Thaüdczy-A. Hodinka, op. at..
145-147:
No. XCI and
148-149:
No. XCOI).
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18
GÉZA PÁLF-FY
Fe r d inand ' s polit ical , economic , and mi l i t a r y resources a l l o we d t w
th i ng s
in this
p e r i o d .
On the one hand, w i t h h is troop s sent to Hun gary
he grad ually broke the po w er of his r iva l king, and on the other hand'
w i t h the help of the most endangered pro vinc es of Carniola, Carinthia '
an d Styria, he started to reorg anize u nd er his ow n co ntrol the Croatian
b o r d e r
defence system coordinated by the ban.
2v
The t w o
processes
too k place in a similar f rame w ork and were
accom panied by sim ilar prob lems. In order to strengthen his pow er both
in
Hu ng ary and in Croat ia and Slavonia, Ferdin and sent considerable
numb e r s o f f o r e ign ( ma in ly Ge r man) t r o o p s .
These
were supplemented
by the p a id so ld iers of the Hun gari an and C roat ian nobles suppo rt ing
the Habsb urgs, and by the units of the counties and insurgent f ielded
u n d e r the law s of he cou ntry. The coo perat ion o f the German and
H u n g a r i a n
troop s was not unc lou ded . The quest ion of control caused
serious conf l icts
f r o m
the moment the
first
l.nmisknecht set foot on
Hungar ian s o i l ,
as the comm ande r- in-ch ief o f the troo ps serving in
H u n g a r y
or Croat ia
(Obnster
Feldhauptmann
der
mederosterreichischen Lande
in Ungarn/n Kroatwn) at the cost o f t he ' Lo we r Aus t r ian estates' (at that
time still c o m p o s e d o f L o w e r
Austria,
Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria)
tried
to extend his
authority
b oth ov er the Hu ng arian and Croatian
contingents. But according to the so-called palatínus' artic les of 1485, the
d e p u t y c o m m a n d i n g
these
troops in the absence of the k ing was the
palatínus regni Hungáriáé.
3
The situat ion was further complicated by the
fact that this office had not been f i l led since 1530 and the governor
(locumtenens
regni Hungarme), the leader of the go verno rship
{locumtenentta
regia), c reated to replace the palatínus, d id h i s best to keep control over
t he Hu ngar ian t ro o p s .
31
There was a similar conflict between the Croatian
^ T hou gh in the summer of 1528 M artin Fleugaus, the armoury officer of Ferdinand in
Carniola (Zeugwart in Kram), mustered the border fortresses (Szeged, Temesvár, Csanád,
and Lip pa) in Tem esk öz wi th the aim of checki ng how they co uld be strengthened to serve
the purpose of defence against the Ottomans, they could not prevent them from getting
into the hands of John I. ÖStA K A A FA
1528/7/6.
See also ÖStA HHStA Hunganca AA.
Fasc. 8. Konv . 1. 1528. Jan.-Juni fols
175-176.
3« Magyar torvénytár. (Corpus juris Hungária) 1000-1526. évi törvényczikkek (Articles of
1000-1526).
Explained and referenced by Dezső Márkus. Budapest, 1899,
398-399:
article No 4.
3 1
István R.
Kiss,
A
magyar
hely tartót anács l. Ferdinánd korában és
1549-1551.
évi
leveles
könyve
(The Hungarian Locumtenentia unde r Ferdinan d I and its Letter Book from 1549 to 1551).
Budapest, 1908, and G yőző Emb er, " A helytartói hivatal történetéhez a XV I. században [To
the History of the
Locumtenentia
in the Sixteenth Century]," in Emlékkönyv Szentpétery
Imre
születésének
hatvanadik
évfordulójának ünnepére. Budapest, 1938,
142-156.
T H E H U N G A RI A N - H A B S B U R G
BO RD E R
D E F E N C E SY ST E M S
19
m
and the
Austrian
c o mmand e r - in - c h i e f . We c an assume that the parties
'"ere perfectly aware of the
h igh
stakes in the struggle for the sphere of
thority
Th e
p o i n t
w as that the w inn er co uld take charge o f the
Hungarian
and Croat ian
mi l i t a r y
af fairs and simultaneously the control
f the border defence system. So in the next fifteen years the Habsburg
litary leadership mad e an attemp t at w hat Sigismu nd of Lux em bu rg
"n d his
successors
could not achieve. They tried to ensure their power
b campaigns led outside the
Aus t r ian
provinces and by
taking
control
of
the mil itary affairs and border defence in such areas they sought to
stop the Ottoman advance. For this purpose the economic and mil itary
pow er
of the
Austrian
p rov inces suf f iced even i f Charles V was reluctant
to
g i
v e
supp ort . For Hun ga ry to preserve i ts sovereign ty and
territory
to
some extent, it seemed that i t had to pay an enormous price in return.
The Hungarian m i l i ta r y - p o l i t i c a l o f f iceholders and the estates
f o r me r ly
controlling
the country and its defence had to renounce their posit ions
in
leading the mil itary. There was
har d ly
any reassuring w ay o ut of the
dead end.
Up
to the peace of Várad in 1538 made w i th John Szapolyai, the
foreign
troops led to Hungary by the
Austrian
c o mmand e r s - in - c h i e f
secured—if not quite sat isfactor i ly—the territory o n w h i c h the new
defence system could be organized later on. A l t h o u g h Kassa, the key to
Upper H ung ary remained in the hands of John 1, and then passed to his
son, John Sigism und betw een 1536 and 1552, an adequate co un terp oi nt
was created by
s u p p l y i n g
the castle of Sáros w i th a signif icant Habsburg
garrison.
The fortresses pro tect ing Vienna (Komárom , Esztergo m, Tnta,
and
Győr) were
s imi la r ly p r o v id e d
w i t h so ld iers of various nat ional ity
(i.e.
Germans and Spaniards)
p a id
b y k ing Fe r d inand .
These mil itary
decisions, how eve r, lacked any
k ind
of strategy aimed at the f o r mat io n
of
a coherent defence sy stem. Practically , they we re decision s m ade in
an emergency situation.
Between 1526 and 1541, the mil itary af fairs of Hungary and the
annexed areas were almost exclusiv ely control led by the above me ntioned
Austrian
c o mmand e r s - in - c h i e f o f Fe r d inand .
A f t e r
the battle of Mohács
the only e f f ic ient army was const ituted by the German troops and by the
cavalry units p a id also f r o m abro ad but led by Hu ng arian and Southern
Slav captains (Bálint Török, Lajos Pekry, and Pál Bakics). As the payment
of
these troops was covered by the ruler f r o m hi s
Aus t r ian
provinces, his
right to command them could not be debated. So in these confused t imes
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20
GÉZA PÁLFFY
the 'task' of the governors (locumtenens
regni Hungáriáé)
in Pozsony w as
only to consult the comm anders- in-chief no t wel l -v ersed in the Hu ng arian
conditions and to quarrel about the spheres of author i ty . The real military
assistants o f t he c o mmand e r - in - c h i e f we r e t he f i e ld m a r s h a l s (Feld-
marschall) com manded to help him and the w ar counci l lo rs (verordnete
Knegsrdte)
e ither staying beside h im or in Vi enn a— inc lud ing a war
secretary (Knegssckretdr):'' So in this pe rio d a new military ad m in i st r a ti ve
organization came
into
being, wh ic h , tho ug h subject to changes in its
personnel, showed some signs of stability and became o f great s ignif i
cance
as the precedent of the A u l i c War Co unc i l
(W iener Hofknegsrat).
In Croatia the changes in the military ad min i st r a t i o n and bo r d e r
defence were similar and even faster than in H un ga ry . John I, after the
death
of his captain-general and
ban*
Kristóf Frangep án in Septembe r
1527, had less power to support his fo l lowers there. After the resignation
in
1528 of
Ferenc
Batthyány, the Croatian-Slavonian ban w h o h a d s u p
ported Ferdinand, the vacancy of the office offered an excellent oppor
tunity to curtail the sphere of
authori ty
of the
ban,
and the locumtenens
in Pozsony had hardly any w o r d in the direct ion of these r e mo t e terri
tories. At the
same
time, the Ottomans—as in the next one and a half
centuries—regarded this territory as a seco ndary theatre of w ar besides
the
main
Hungarian front in its narrow
sense.
In spite of this fact, the
Austrian
provinces were mostly threatened in these areas in this per i od ,
and therefore the estates o f Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria soon manag ed
to transfer control of this section of the defence system of the medieval
Hungarian
K i ng dom
to Archd uke Ferdinand and reo rganize i t for their
o w n
protection.
34
Thus the Habsburg military adm inistrat ion started to f o r m the first
unit of the new defence system against the Ottomans in the Croatian
border area. It has already been me ntion ed as a preced ent th at after 1521
field
troops
paid
by the
Austrian
estates
regularly marched to Croat ia,
» On the war councillo rs, see the Hungarica collection of OS tA HH StA (A A . Fase 2 -Fase.
70. passen) from the period 1526-1550
"Cnstoforus de Frangepanibus rcgnorum Dalm aciae, Croaciae et Sclav oni ae banus
ac capitaneus regius generalis" (Vehke. Augus t 27, 1527) OS tA H HS tA Hun garica A A Fasc.
7. Kon v. 3. 1527. fol. 38. Cf . Gábor Barta,
La route qui mène à Istanbul 1526-1528.
(Studia
Histórica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 195.) Bud apest, 1994, 12-13 and 86.
» On the help given by the Styrian
estates:
Günther Burkert, Ferdinand
I. und die
stemschen
Stande Dargestellt
anhand
der
stemschen
Lmdlagc
1526-1541. (Inaugural-Di ss.) G raz, 1976,
57-173.
T H E H U N G A R 1 A N - H A B S B U R G
BO RD E R D E F E N CE
SY ST E M S
21
b ut i t d id not entai l—and it could not
w i t h i n
t he me d ie va l Hu ng ar ian
K i n g d o m — t h e
transformation of the defence system. H ow eve r , Ferdinand
m his capacity as King o f Hungary and Croat ia, sent troops
paid
by his
Aus t r ian
estates to the
castles
of Zengg and Kiissza in 1527 and to Bihács
after the resignation of
Ferenc
Batthyány in
1528.
35
In ad d i t i o n to
taking
charge of the major border fortresses, more and more field troops also
arr i v ed in the Sava region to stop the Ottoman raids, and their
commanders- in-chief (Miklós Jurisics, Hans Katzianer) began to organize
the border fortresses under
roy al
ad min i st r a t i o n into a coherent system.
A s a first step, in 1538 they set up the post of the captain- gen eral w ho se
respons i b i l i ty
encomp assed the region called the Ol d Croat ian con f ines
(alte
krabatische/kroatische
Grenze) in later sources. In the last day s of
A p r i l ,
w h e n the
ban
Péter Keglevich, defending Bihács again, renounced his
c o n t r o l over the
castles
he had been in charge of , Ferdinand appointed
Er asm vo n
T h u r n
the captain-genera of Zeng g, Bihács, Ripacs, and
Otocsác , and the minor fortresses belonging to them, that is o f the Old
C roat i an c o n f ine s .
36
W i t h the appointment of Thur n the construct ion of
the western sect ion of the Croat ian borde r defence system ex tending f r o m
the Una to the
Ad r ia t i c
Sea actually started, and the
w o r k
was c o nt inue d
by
the commanders- in-chief in Croat ia and Slavonia (Obnstcr Feldhaupt-
mann
windischer und
krabatischer/kroatischer
Lande)
ap po inted af ter 1540,
f irst ly b y H a n s U n g n a d .
3
' In accordance w i t h the practice f o l l o w e d in the
case o f the com mand ers- in-chief in Hu ng ary they were also assisted by
35
L . Thal l c k zy -A . Hod ink a ,
op. at.,
671: N o
D X X IV ,
672-674:
N o.
D X X V I
and
677-686:
Nos . DX XXU -D XXX V and LV11.
3 6
"Pro conservandis partium istarum ad confinia Tu rcharum iacentium locis ... in
Capitaneum assumpsimus et constituimus il l ique Castrorum et Op pido rum nostrorum
Bihigij et Repatz, Civitatisque
nostrae
Segmensi s et Ottoschutz cum omni bus eorund em
attinentiis curam administrationemque demandavim us" , and "i n supremum Capitaneum
univ ersorum regni nostri Croatiae locorum fi nimo rum simul et gentium ib idem nostrorum,
nec non Civitatis
nostrae
Segnensis et Attatschvz ac
praeterea
et opp ido rum n ostrorum
Bihigij
et Repath assumpsimus ct constituimus." Ö StA H HS tA Hungarica A A . Fasc. 35
K onv .
1. 1538. A pr. fols.
94-95.
Cf .
ibid.,
fols
86-87,
89, 93 and
96-99.
1 7
Budapest, Mag yar Országos Levéltár [hereinafter MO L] E 144, M agyar kincstári levél
tárak, M agyar Kam ara Archívu ma [hereinafter
M K A j
Történelmi emlékek. Belügy box 1
fols.
63-64.
January 12, 1540. Wi thout place The Bestallung of Ferdinand I for Han s Un gnad
"O berister Veldhawb tman vnnserer Funff Niderosterrcichischen, Wi ndischen v nd Crabati-
schen Lannde". Cf. Bernd Zimm ermann, "Landeshauptmann Hans Ungnad von Sonnegg
(1493-1564).
Ein Beitrag zu seiner Biographie," in
Siedlung, Macht und W irtschaft. Festschrift
Fritz Posch zum 70. Geburtstag.
(Veröffen tlichungen des Steiermärkischen Landesarchi vs, 12.)
Ed . by Gerhard Pferschy. G raz, 1981, 210.
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22 GÉZ A PÁLFFY
w ar
c o u nc i l l o r s d e l e ga te d by ne ighb o ur ing p r o v inc e s .
3
" In parallel to this
the settlement of and
o f f e r ing
o f pr ivi leges to the Vlachs
(Valaclu)
and
U sko ks
(Uscoci)
started in the Cro atian-Slav on ian
areas,
whose certain
g r o u p s
later on p laye d an imp ortan t role in the defence of bo rder
fortresses and then f r o m the eighteenth century in thé m i l i ta r y f ront iers.*
In the period last ing f r o m the battle of Mohács to the
fall
of Buda
the
f o r m a t i o n
o f a new d efence system was init iated by the Habsburg
military leadership
o n l y
in the Croat ian border area be t we e n Ze ngg and
Bihács. Ferdinand I took the necessary steps
o n ly
in the territories mostly
threatened by the Ottomans and even i f he recognized the real nature of
this danger (namely that Vienna was also menaced) he was unable to
create a coherent defence system to avoid i t . W i t h his troops regularly
sent to Croat ia-Slavonia and Hungary each year, he
o n ly
spontaneously
retorted
hi s r iva l king John I; at the
same t ime ,
he c o mmiss i o ne d
commanders- in-chief to take charge of the
military
af fairs and border
d e f e nce in Hu nga r y . A nd t ho ug h he d id no t
seek
to organize a new
defence system in these far away
areas
o f H ung ary, that is he was not
energet ical ly i n v o l v e d against the Ottomans, w i t h these steps he
still
ensured those regions where later on the new chain of fortresses could
be b u i l t up as the basis for the org anizat ion of the new defence system.
H e
could also benef it f r o m the ser ious m istakes com mitted by the Ottom an
military leadership; in 1529 and 1532, Süleyman I w i t h d r e w his troops
to the l ine of the Low er Danube and Drav a and d id not retain those
fortresses
w h i c h
af terward s faced him as the bu lw arks of the new defence
n e t w o r k a n d c o u l d
o n l y
be regained at the expense o f
severe
losses.
2.1.b. The first attempts to organize a new defence system (1541-1556)
Th e fall of Buda in 1541 and of the fortresses of Siklós, Pécs, Székesfehér
vár , Tata, Nóg rád, H atvan , then of Esztergom on the Danube, and the
loss
o f Valpó and
A ty ina
in Slavonia
d u r i n g
the
1543-1544
c amp a ign
justif ied
those few w ho were of the
o p i n i o n
already in the
1530s
that
these fortresses w o u l d have to be reinforced and a new defence system
c o v e r i n g
the who le country organiz ed. The repeated advance o f the
Ottom ans created a com pletely new situat ion. W hile up to this p o i n t the
creat ion of the new sys tem —w ith the except ion of the mo st endang ered
3« Schulze, Landesdefension,
60-61.
3^
Kaser, op. at.,
60-79.
Catherine Wen dy Bracewell, The Uskoks of Sen/. Piracy, Banditry,
and Holy War in the
Sixteenth-Century
Adriatic. Ithaca-London, 1992.
T H E
H U N G A R 1 A N - H A B S B U R G B O R D E R
D E F E N C E
SY ST E M S
23
Croatian
areas—could be postponed, now there was no further possibi l i ty
f
delay due to the threat to Styria, Lo w er
Aus t r ia (Niederösterreich),
and
Vienna.
Imm ediate action was needed in the Slavonian parts, in Hu ng ary ,
and particularly
in the foreground of Vienna,
w h i c h
the Ottomans had
already menaced by marching to the
Aus t r ian
f ront iers. The pattern and
the metho ds w ere given : bo rder defence regions had to be form ed that
were similar to those w h i c h used to protect the southern borders of the
m edi ev al H u n g a r i a n K i n g d o m ; the basis had already been establ ished in
the Croat ian border zone. This was no
easy
t a sk— no t
o n ly
for f inancial
or military reasons. Whi l e t he military leaders of the
estates
o f Carniola,
Carinthia, and Styria in the Croatian territories already had a certain
k n o w l e d g e of the place and some practice in the
basics
o f ho w t o create
a defence
l ine,
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