From Istanbul to the Drava

Hello. I'm Colin Imber. I was a lecturer in Turkish at the University of Manchester,

and I'm going to be talking about the Battle of Mo Hatch in 15

26 which was really among the most significant events of the 16th century.

Now Mo Hatch was a battle fought between the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman,

the first known as the Magnificent in Europe and the King of Hungary.

LaRoche.

Now, before we start,

I think it's important to say Hungary then was not the same as Hungary.

Now

it's comprised, yes, what the area of modern Hungary,

but also Transylvania, which is now the western part of Romania

and also Croatia,

and right down to Dal Misha on the Adriatic coast.

So it's a very large and important and powerful kingdom.

Now

we have to start with Suleiman the magnificent

and the beginning of his reign because,

ah, he came to power in

the autumn of 15 20

and his first major campaign was

fought against Hungary and as a result of which

he captured the very important fortress of Belgrade,

which lay lies on the confluence of two rivers, the River Sava, which flows

to the west from Belgrade and the River Daniel,

which flows to the north from Belgrade.

So anyone who is going to enter and

invade Hungary has to capture Belgrade first.

Well, in 15 21

Sulieman had done this. So the gateway to Hungary lay open to him.

Now,

between that conquest and 15 26 he had

been engaged elsewhere with rebellions in Egypt,

which had to be pacified both militarily and administratively.

But in 15 26 his opportunity seemed to arise because, um,

there was no one the King of Hungary could call on for

an alliance because his most obvious allies would be to the West.

That is the Archduke Ferdinand,

the ruler of Austria,

and his brother Charles, the fifth, who was both the Holy Roman Empire emperor,

effectively emperor of Germany

and King of Spain.

Well, they were fully occupied with first of all,

the chaos caused by the Lutheran upheaval in Germany and Austria,

and also by the Peasants War,

which broke out in Germany in 15 25 so their attention was elsewhere.

Another possibility possible ally would have been Poland,

But Sulieman made a three year truce within a treaty of peace in 15 25.

So Poland was out of the picture,

and so at the time, seemed to exactly right.

Also, the Janet Terry's,

Suleiman's most important Infantry Corps had rebelled in 15 25 and the way

to calm the Janet Terry's one way was to mount a major expedition,

which would keep them away from the capital capital and onto the battlefield.

And where if they were victorious, they could

gain a lot of loot.

So in this in the winter of 15 25 and over the winter and the beginning of 15 26

preparations began with the call up of troops,

most of whom were actually stationed in the provinces and had to come a long

way to the assembly grounds and also ordering a lot of provisions for the army,

which were sent often from

Turkey,

over the Straits and into Europe so that the army could be fed as it proceeded.

And also a war tax was raised from the population.

By the spring of 15 26 everything was ready

on April. The 23rd was the date that the astrologers had declared to be auspicious.

So it was that date that Suleiman set out

and apart from a stop in Edinburgh now on the border between Turkey and Bulgaria,

where he had a palace, he waited for some time

and had a halt and then moved on

under

in pleasant weather, it seems

towards the town of positive which is now now in Bulgaria.

Here he found that plans had gone right.

The troops had all come from Anatolia from Turkey.

They had crossed the straits into Europe and also

the troops from his European provinces had assembled.

And so

the next stage of Sofia,

this really is where the difficulties began.

Its a very rocky where wrote from positive to Sofia

up through the rocky valleys between two mountain ranges.

And so the army was divided into two so that they would not

crowd the difficult passes too much.

But what was worth is the campaign diary written of which the

Ottomans kept said that there were hail the size of rain of hazelnuts

and the rain was continuous.

But the army did march through the rain and on the 29th of of uh,

May it was in Sofia.

The sultan to was in Sofia, where he held a D. Von a council meeting

and prepared to and set off.

That is, after he had sent out men to buy yet more provisions for the army.

Uh, but the going was not easy. On the first of June, the first part of the army set off.

The second part started a few days later,

but we were told that the what had been small streams were now overflowing

and so that the going was extremely hard.

And not only was it hard, it got worse.

The army struggled its way

into Serbia

as far as the River Morava, which is turns

northwards up towards Belgrade,

which was therefore on the army's path and should normally be a quite an easy road.

But it wasn't because it never never stopped raining.

The troops were confused and helpless, the campaign diary tells us

so. The fact between

the 11th and the 21st of June, the army could move only two stages.

So that's two days March out of 10 days because of the flooding,

but eventually move. They did.

The person who went ahead was the grand vizier Ibrahim Pasha,

with the troops who were under his command

and reach Belgrade.

What is perhaps amazing is that before the campaign had been

commands to build a bridge over the river Sava Belgrade,

so that the army could then move into Hungary.

And when the Ibrahim Pasha and then the Sultan reach Belgrade,

it had actually been built despite the the overflowing river.

And so they crossed. Ibrahim held an inspection. He examined all the

all the weaponry. Anyone whose weapons were deficient was in trouble.

And then when the sultan arrived,

Ibrahim was commanded to march up the

river to Hungarian Fortress called Petrova radon,

so that the

the obstacles in getting to know hatch weren't simply

the bad weather and the horrible going underfoot.

There was poor tresses to be overcome,

and the Ibrahim reached

reach. Petrova, radon.

He began the siege he had, first of all, to drive a contingent of the

garrison back into the fortress.

The garrison had come out trying to hinder the preparations for the siege.

Ibrahim sent out his men to gather Timur to build

ladders,

and the

siege began.

It was not easy at all.

The army first captured the town around the around the fortress

and then began to bombard it until in the words of the campaign diary again,

it was hold like a sieve,

but still it didn't.

It didn't collapse until the fleet,

which was coming with more troops and with the weapons up the rivers, uh,

anchored opposite and and, more importantly,

a The miners who have mined under the wall set fire to their mind Wolf.

They walls blew up. And amidst all the

all the smoke, the Ottoman Army entered the fortress.

So that was the first barrier overcome.

The second barrier was the next fortress along the river, called the Lock. That

again a short siege.

And the army could continue but difficult going between the hills on

the left and the marsh lands of the river on the right,

until they came to the town of Aussie Jack on the river driver.