Hungarian Heritage Review, 1991 (20. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1991-09-01 / 9. szám
Hungarian-American Calendar Hungary's Own "Masada" THE SIEGE OF SZIGETVAR One of the bloodiest examples, but also one of the most heroic and self-sacrificing episodes in the military history of Hungary, occurred425years ago this month on September 8th, 1566, and, by a very strange coincidence indeed, on the 40th anniversary of the tragic Battle of Mohács. Stranger yet as a coincidence is that, neither the Battle of Mohács nor the Siege of Szigetvar, would have been disasters if it had not been for despicable treachery. Be this as it may, however, even though all of the 2,500 heroic Hungarian and Croatian defenders of the fortress of Szigetvar were completely annihilated, they did succeed in exacting bloody vengeance for what had happened at Mohács in 1526. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the victor of the Battle of Mohács, dropped dead from a heart attack brought on by frustration, 25,000 of his elite troops were killed, and the time-table for the Turkish conquest of Christian Europe was ripped asunder. During his 50-year-reign, Suleiman had made several attempts to realize his dream of conquest of europe, and had conquered and occupied the Balkan Peninsula and about onethird of Hungary. What blocked him from advancing upon Vienna and breaking through into the rest of Europe were the fierce pockets of resistance of the Hungarian fortresses along the border. Finally in August of 1566, he mustered an army of90,000men and launched another attempt to reach his target. But the fortress of Szigetvar under the command of his arch-enemy, Count Miklós Zrínyi, the Ban of Croatia, stood in the Sultan's way. Laying siege to the fortress of Szigetvar for five long weeks and losing thousands of his finest troops in the attempt, Suleiman suffered a fatal heart attack. His officers then ordered a devastating bombardment against the stubbornly defended, Hungarian stronghold. This reduced Szigetvar to flaming rubble. Realizing that he could not hold out any longer, Count Miklós Zrínyi gathered together the 3Ö0 men he had left, ordered the gates of the stronghold to be opened, and, at the head of his small force, charged the Turks. Before the gallant 300 were cut down, they almost succeeded in routing the besiegers. While some of the Turk survivors of the Hungarian and Croatian last-ditch-charge stormed the fortress, they as well as the stronghold were blown up by the women and wounded who remained behind. It was a massacre which did not have to happen. For during the five-week-long, Siege of Szigetvar, the Habsburgian Emperor-King of Hungary, Maximilian, was encamped with 60,000 wellarmed troops only a few miles away . When Count Miklós Zrínyi dispatched an appeal for help to the Emperor-King, the Habsburgian's reply was to hold out until the end of the hunting season and that "the Imperial Court could not interrupt their yearly duck-hunting"! Forty years before this happened and in 1526, the Battle of Mohács was lost in much the same way. Except for the fact that at that time it was a Hungarian aspiring to the throne of Hungary who held back his troops from going to the aid of King Louis II! 20 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW SEPTEMBER 1991
