Editing Battle of Mohács (section)

==Background==
[[File:Battle of Mohács 1526.png|thumb|300px|Johann Schreier: Battle of Mohács (1555) It depicts in detail the Hungarian Wagon fort and the Christian infantry, the Hungarian heavy cavalry and artillery, the Serbian hussars (the only Christian light cavalry units in the battle)]]

===Decline of the royal power in Hungary (1490–1526)===
After the death of the [[Absolute monarchy|absolutist]] King [[Matthias Corvinus]] in 1490, the Hungarian [[magnate#Hungary|magnate]]s, who did not want another heavy-handed king, procured the accession of the notoriously weak-willed King [[Vladislaus II of Hungary|Vladislaus]] of [[Bohemia]], who reigned as King Vladislaus II of Hungary from 1490 to 1516. He was known as King Dobře (or ''Dobzse'' in Hungarian orthography), meaning "all right", for his habit of accepting, without question, every petition and document laid before him.<ref name="britannica1">{{cite encyclopedia|url= https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/276730/Hungary#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=Hungary%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encyclopedia |title= Hungary|encyclopedia= Britannica Online Encyclopedia |access-date= 21 November 2008| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081227020406/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/276730/Hungary | archive-date= 27 December 2008 | url-status = live}}</ref> The freshly-elected King Vladislaus II donated most of the Hungarian royal estates, [[régale]]s, and [[royalties]] to the nobility. Thus the king tried to stabilize his new reign and preserve his popularity among the magnates.

Given the naive fiscal and land policy of the royal court, the central power began to experience severe financial difficulties, largely due to the enlargement of feudal lands at royal expense. The noble estate of the parliament succeeded in reducing their tax burden by 70–80%, at the expense of the country's ability to defend itself.<ref>Francis Fukuyama: Origins of Political Order: From Pre-Human Times to the French Revolution</ref> Vladislaus became the [[magnate]]s' helpless "prisoner"; he could make no decision without their consent.

Europe's largest standing mercenary army (the [[Black Army of Hungary|Black Army]]) of Matthias Corvinus was dissolved by the aristocracy. The magnates also dismantled the national administration systems and bureaucracy throughout 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.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/hutoc.html |archive-url= https://archive.today/20120708070759/http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/hutoc.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= 8 July 2012 |title= A Country Study: Hungary |publisher= Geography.about.com |access-date= 29 August 2010 }}</ref> Hungary's international role declined, its political stability shaken; social progress was deadlocked. The arrival of [[Protestantism]] further worsened internal relations in the country.

In 1514, the weakened and old King Vladislaus II faced a major peasant rebellion led by [[György Dózsa]], which was ruthlessly crushed by the [[Nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary|nobles]], led by [[John Zápolya]]. After the Dózsa Rebellion, the brutal suppression of the peasants greatly aided the 1526 Turkish invasion as the Hungarians were no longer a politically united people. The resulting degradation of order paved the way for Ottoman pre-eminence.

===Jagiellonian-Habsburg attempt to organize defence against the Ottomans===
King Louis II of Hungary married [[Mary of Habsburg]] in 1522. The Ottomans saw this Jagiellonian–Habsburg marital alliance as a threat to their power in the [[Balkans]] and worked to break it. After [[Suleiman the Magnificent|Suleiman I]] came to power in Constantinople in 1520, the [[High Porte]] made the Hungarians at least one and possibly two offers of peace. For unclear reasons, Louis refused. It is possible that Louis was well aware of Hungary's situation (especially after the Ottomans defeated Persia in the [[Battle of Chaldiran]] (1514) and the Polish-Ottoman peace from 1525) and believed that war was a better option than peace. Even in peacetime, the Ottomans raided Hungarian lands and conquered small territories (with border castles), but a final battle still offered Louis a glimmer of hope. Accordingly, another [[Ottoman-Hungarian wars|Ottoman–Hungarian war]] ensued, and in June 1526 an Ottoman expedition advanced up the [[Danube]].<ref>Tamás Pálosfalvi, ''From Nicopolis to Mohács: A History of Ottoman–Hungarian Warfare, 1389–1526'' (Brill, 2018)</ref>

In the early 1500s, Vladislav II (ruled 1490–1516), Louis II and Croatian nobles repeatedly asked Holy Roman Emperor [[Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor|Maximilian I]] for help, but during Maximilian's reign, assistance for Hungary remained a plan. After the first chain of fortresses fell however, assessing the threat to his own provinces, Archduke Ferdinand (later Holy Roman Emperor [[Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor|Ferdinand I]]) made a significant effort to help his brother-in-law. When Nándorfehérvár was being besieged, he summoned his estates and proposed sending troops to Hungary. In the end, 2,000 German infantry troops were sent. From 1522 to the 1526 defeat at Mohács, field troops from Austria frequently arrived but were not placed into fortresses at the border as regular garrisons yet. Even though this military aid purportedly strengthened this area of the border, it had the undesired effect of dissolving the unified leadership that the ''ban'' had held until that time.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fodor |first1=Pál |last2=David |first2=Geza |title=Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest |year= 2021 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-49229-5 |page=15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DYxFEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 |access-date=17 December 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

[[:de:Alfred Kohler (Historiker)|Alfred Kohler]] opines that the coordination effort attempted by Ferdinand, Mary and Louis failed because the young Hungarian king showed a lack of vigour, which was also recognized by Hungarian nobles. Mary, on the other hand, was much more decisive and vigorous, but the non-Hungarian advisors she relied on created distrust.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hamann |first1=Brigitte |title=Die Habsburger: ein biographisches Lexikon |date=1988 |publisher=Piper |isbn=978-3-492-03163-9 |page=284 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jKdnAAAAMAAJ |access-date=15 December 2021 |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kohler |first1=Alfred |title=Ferdinand I., 1503–1564: Fürst, König und Kaiser |date=2003 |publisher=C.H. Beck |isbn=978-3-406-50278-1 |page=110 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1cVR2wbob0AC&pg=PA110 |access-date=15 December 2021 |language=de}}</ref>

===The loss of Belgrade===
[[File:Lajos II.jpg|thumb|[[Louis II of Hungary]], who died at the Battle of Mohács, painted by [[Titian]]]]

The Hungarians had long opposed Ottoman expansion in southeastern Europe, but in 1521 the Turks advanced up the Danube River and took [[Nándorfehérvár]] (present-day [[Belgrade]], [[Serbia]]) – the strongest Hungarian fortress on the Danube – and Szabács (now [[Šabac]], Serbia). This left most of southern Hungary indefensible.

The loss of Nándorfehérvár caused great alarm in Hungary.

On 18 October 1523, the Hungarian aristocrats united for the recapture of Belgrade, pledging funds that would support an army of 60,000 troops and 100 cannons—an undertaking that was an unprecedentedly huge and costly military force by contemporary European standards.

{{Blockquote|The opinion of the papal legate in the Hungarian royal court, January of 1524<br><br>
I note that by raising an army of 60,000, the Hungarian government effectively scored an 'own goal', losing numerous financial supporters from Western Europe. Even the papal legate, by the end of January 1524, denied the disbursement of the aid funds he had brought, arguing that:<br><br> ''"if the Hungarians were capable of assembling such an enormous force, then they had no need for the money."''<ref>András Kubinyi (2006) (Hungarian): "The Magnates of Hungary and the Turkish Threat in the Jagiellonian Era (1490-1526)." In *Central Europe's Struggle Against the Turks in the First Half of the 16th Century*, edited by István Zombori. Budapest, 2006, pp. 127-130.[https://catalog.library.hnm.hu/en/record/-/record/withLayout/MNMKVT74375/solr?p_auth=Lg51kQFd]</ref>}}

The huge 60,000-strong royal army – led by the king, but recruited too late and too slowly – neglected to take food along and bad organization of logistics.  Therefore, the army disbanded spontaneously under pressure from hunger and disease without even trying to recapture Belgrade from the newly installed Turkish garrisons. In 1523, Archbishop [[Pál Tomori]], a valiant priest-soldier, was made captain of Southern Hungary.

===European events, and the Franco-Ottoman alliance===
In Europe, especially in Germany, negative trends had started to unfold. The Fuggers, who had taken control of the finances, "by around 1503 had a veritable monopoly of 'favoritism' in Germany, Hungary, Poland and Scandinavia, to the extent that any priest who wanted to get access to even the most modest parish had to turn to the merchants of Augsburg."

The [[Fugger family]] controlled the distribution of the Roman Catholic Church's [[indulgence]]s, which, among other reasons, soon led to an international scandal and then to strong social unrest. After 1517, European public opinion became increasingly preoccupied and divided by the Reformation launched by Martin Luther. The religious upheaval was compounded by the German Peasants' War of 1524–1526, which mobilised considerable forces and, in addition to the material damage, caused more than 100,000 deaths.

Between 1521 and 1526, the Western European powers were preoccupied with the current episode of the Italian wars (which lasted from 1494 to 1559, with minor interruptions). France first sought allies in Eastern Europe against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. French envoy Antonio Rincon visited Poland and Hungary several times between 1522 and 1525. After the Battle of Bicocca (1522), King Francis I of France tried – unsuccessfully – to ally himself with King [[Sigismund I the Old|Sigismund I of Poland]]. The Hungarian royal court also rejected the French offer. However, John Zápolya, the [[Voivode of Transylvania]], showed a willingness to cooperate with the French, although the formal treaty was not signed until 1528.

King [[Francis I of France]] was defeated at the [[Battle of Pavia]] on 24 February 1525 by the troops of the [[Habsburg]] Holy Roman Emperor, [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V]]. After several months in prison, Francis I was forced to sign the [[Treaty of Madrid (1526)|Treaty of Madrid]].

In a watershed moment in European diplomacy, Francis formed a formal [[Franco-Ottoman alliance]] with Sultan [[Suleiman the Magnificent]] as an ally against Charles V. The French-Ottoman strategic, and sometimes tactical, alliance lasted for about three centuries.<ref name="Merriman, p.132">Merriman, p. 132</ref>

To relieve the Habsburg pressure on France, in 1525 Francis asked Suleiman to make war on the Holy Roman Empire, and the road from Turkey to the Holy Roman Empire led across Hungary. The request of the French king coincided well with the ambitions of Suleiman in Europe and gave him an incentive to attack Hungary in 1526, leading to the Battle of Mohács.<ref name="Merriman, p.132"/>

At the news of the war, the young King Louis II of Hungary appealed to the European princes for help, but only King [[Henry VIII]] of England offered aid (which arrived only in 1527 to Queen Mary of Hungary in Pozsony) and the Pope offered 50,000 gold pieces, while neither Charles V nor Ferdinand Habsburg (Archduke of Austria, the Hungarian king's brother-in-law) did anything. The fact was that the Habsburgs' armies were still on the battlefields of Italy.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}