I would like to mention to you all that on a day like today, July
22nd, 1456, the Ottoman army besieging Nandorfehervar (Belgrade) was
decisively defeated by the Christian forces under Hunyadi Janos, Regent of
the Kingdom of Hungary. Today is in fact the 545th anniversary of the big
battle. At the head of an army of between 60,000 and 70,000 men, Sultan
Mehmet II began the siege of the citadel by banks of the Danube on July 4,
1456.(1) For the defense of Nandorfehervar, Hunyadi's Hungarian forces were
joined by a Crusader army of between 25,000-30,000 `peasants, craftsmen and
poor people' from all over Europe who answered the appeals made by the
sermons of the Franciscan St. John of Capistrano to join the Hungarians in
the Crusade against the
Turks.(2)
Sultan Mehmet II was on a streak of military success after his capture
of the city of Constantinople three years earlier in 1453, and probably was
preparing the initial steps for a full-scale invasion of Hungary when he
attempted to capture Belgrade. Being at the very frontier, this citadel was
the linchpin to Hungary's southern security system against the Ottoman
Empire. If the Hungarians would have been defeated there and then, the way
would have become wide open to an invasion of Hungary's interior. Probably
also, with the defeat of the Hungarian army, the Ottomans might have
penetrated the realm almost unopposed. The stakes were high indeed. And
the odds appeared to be in Mehmet II's favour as he brought together with
his army the impressive artillery train which was so decisive in the
breaching of Constantinople's walls in 1453.(3)
Nothwithstanding the might of his army, the Sultan's siege operations
against the city walls were finally defeated on July 21st. The next day on
the 22nd the Ottoman army was routed on the
battlefield.(4) In the words of the historian Engel, such was the disaster
suffered by Mehmet II's army that the Ottomans did not attempt to send
against Hungary a military expedition of the same magnitude as that which
was defeated at Nandorfehervar for the next 65
years.(5) In the end, both Hunyadi and St. John of Capistrano died before
the end of the year as a result of the plague which began in the Christian
camp.(6)
Finally, let those who among us are interested in the significance of
this date remember that sometimes at the greatest hour of need Hungary's
sons managed to win what became their finest hour.
Lajos F. Szaszdi
Notes:
1 Pal Engel, "The Realm of St. Stephen. A History of Medieval Hungary,
895-1526," trans. Tamas Palosfalvi (London: I.B. Tauris, 2001), 296.
2 Ibid.
3 Dominic G. Kosary, "A History of Hungary" (Cleveland: The Benjamin
Franklin Bibliophile Society, 1941), 64. On the Turkish artillery force
against Constantinople, see David Nicolle, "Constantinople 1453. The End of
Byzantium," ed. Lee Johnson, Campaign Series, no. 78 (Oxford: Osprey
Publishing, 2000), 49.
4 Engel, 296.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
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