The story of Hungary

by Ármin Vámbéry

The discomfited army crept back to their country, bringing with them the news that Hungary was without a king. The uppermost question now was who should be elected king. The plight of Hungary at that time was a sorry one, indeed. The king had left no children behind him, and yet there was an heir to the throne. When Albert of Hapsburg, the predecessor of Uladislaus, died, in 1439, his widow was enceinte, and she afterwards gave birth to a boy. The partisans of the late queen caused this her son, Ladislaus, to be crowned at once. The great majority, however, and Hunyadi with them, wanted on the throne a man who would be able to be their leader in the struggle against the Turks. The result was the election of Uladislaus, the Polish king, in 1440. The widowed queen with her son repaired to the court of the Duke of Austria, and from there she caused Hungary to be devastated by the Bohemian, John Ziska.

It was quite natural that after the death of Uladislaus the whole nation should look to the child Ladislaus as the future king. But the Austrian duke claimed a large sum under the title of the expenses of education of the young prince, a sum which the Hungarians were neither able nor willing to pay. Whilst this matter was being discussed, Hunyadi, being the captain-general of the country, was temporarily entrusted with the conduct of the principal affairs of state. Two years later he was elected governor of the country, with powers that but little differed from those of royalty.

As governor he deemed it his paramount duty to resume hostilities against the Turks. His mind was busy again with the plan to which he had devoted his life and fortune—namely, to attack the Turks and to drive them from Europe. In 1448 the sultan, at the head of an army of 150,000 men, invaded Albania, a country with which Hungary, owing to their community of interests, deeply sympathized. Hunyadi thought this an opportune moment to carry out his plan. From abroad he received again assurances of aid, but in the end they turned out to be, as before, empty promises. Putting his trust in God and himself, he started with 24,000 men. It was his purpose to unite his forces with those of Scanderbeg, the commander-in-chief of the Albanians. But as soon as the news of Hunyadi’s advance reached the sultan, he left the Albanians and marched against his old and most implacable enemy. He offered him peace, but Hunyadi replied by drawing up his army in battle array. The battle was fought with great desperation, the fight continuing for days, and although the Turkish army outnumbered five times the Hungarians, the strategy of Hunyadi rendered the issue doubtful for some time. At the last moment, however, it was decided in favor of the Turks. Treason had turned the scale; the Wallachian vayvode, losing confidence in the wearied troops of Hunyadi, deserted with 8,000 men and joined the sultan. When the Hungarians saw this, they refused to listen any further to their commanders, and, scattering, they fled. Hunyadi himself escaped with great difficulty only. Whilst wandering towards his country on foot, unarmed, and through impassable roads, he fell into the hands of two Turkish marauders. They little knew what a distinguished person they had captured, but there was no mistake about the golden cross on his breast. Luckily for Hunyadi they both coveted the cross and began quarrelling over it, and finally fell to fisticuffs. During their fight Hunyadi suddenly drew the sword of one of them, slaying him with it; the other, on seeing this, took to his heels. He had hardly escaped one danger, when another was in store for him. On his way he had hired a guide, who, instead of taking him to his own country, brought him to Brankovitch, the Servian prince, the man who, since the campaign of 1443, had been constantly crossing his plans. The treacherous Servian, who was licking now the hands of the Hungarians, now of the Turks, entered into negotiations with the Turkish sultan concerning Hunyadi’s head. The latter, however, esteemed, even in his enemy, the pure-minded hero, and refused to entertain so base an offer.

Hunyadi returned to Hungary, and hastened to forget the injury done to him by the Servian prince; but the Turks he did not forget. In his most desperate straits he steadily kept before his eyes—the main object of his life—the ruin of the Turks. In 1453, the child-king, Ladislaus V., began his reign; but, although Hunyadi then relinquished his position as governor of Hungary, he still remained the captain-general of the country, the commander-in-chief of the army, and as such he missed no opportunity to injure his arch-enemy.

This same year, 1453, witnessed a most remarkable event in the history of Europe. Mohammed II., the new sultan, took Constantinople, the capital of the Greek empire and the gate of Europe, and made it the capital of his empire. “There is one God in heaven, and one Lord on earth, and I am that Lord!” exclaimed the sultan on entering Constantinople. All Europe trembled; Hunyadi alone remained calm and prepared for war. After a few minor engagements, Turks and Hungarians stood face to face again near Belgrade in 1456. This fortress was the gate of Hungary, and the great sultan wanted to get possession of it. For this purpose he determined to make a supreme effort, feeling that the seizure of this fortified place would decide the fate of generations to come. He led over 150,000 men under the walls of that famous fortress, and hastened to station his ships on the Danube, on which Belgrade lies, in order to cut off the communication between the Hungarian army and the garrison, and thus to isolate the latter. The Hungarian army itself did not number, even now, over 15,000 men, hardly more than those whom Hunyadi had been able to collect by his own exertions. Only this time, however, the great captain did not stand alone, but received great help from another quarter. A monk of magic eloquence, John Capistrano, who was sent by the pope to the country to preach a crusade, had, by the irresistible power of his appeals, collected 60,000 crusaders to assist Hunyadi. These men were armed with scythes and pole-axes only, and were led by the sound of bells instead of words of military command; but their fanaticism was quite equal to that of the Mohammedan Turk.

With an army composed of such warriors Hunyadi engaged in the great contest. His first effort was directed to the river, in order to relieve the garrison of the fortress. After an engagement of five hours, the great naval squadron of the Turks was scattered by the small galleys which had been the objects of the enemy’s ridicule, but which were led to the attack by fanatic crusaders under the captaincy of Hunyadi. This restored the communication of the Hungarian army with the Hungarian garrison. Still Mohammed looked with scorn at the rabble collected on the opposite bank, the leaders of whom were largely monks, and he swore an oath that in two months’ time, he would plant the proud crescent on the walls of Buda, the capital of Hungary. For eight days and eight nights the Turkish guns roared against Belgrade, and on the ninth day Mohammed ordered a general assault. The assault was renewed three times, and three times were the Turks repulsed. At the last moment, when the strength of the besieged seemed ready to give way, the Hungarian commander ordered the fascines soaked with oil and pitch, which were piled up in the ditches, to be set on fire and to be hurled at the storming men. Confusion seized the assailants, and each sought safety for himself, for he who did not escape met with a miserable death in the flames. Meanwhile the defence was rapidly changing into an attack along the whole line; the crusaders, mad with the excitement of the struggle, rushed forward, while Hunyadi directed an orderly attack against the Turkish camp. The engagement now became general, and the sultan himself received a wound. Dismayed, he took to flight, his troops following. Nothing could keep them longer together; the immense army was scattered to the winds, leaving behind them, under the walls of the famous fortress, 40,000 killed and 300 cannon.

At that most glorious moment of Hunyadi’s life, when the Turks were put to flight by the bare mention of his name, this Christian hero, suddenly and without any premonition, breathed his last. He did not live to hear the panegyrics and felicitations of all Europe, the grateful recognition of his services by his own nation. His mighty frame sank under the weight of the fatigue of war, and, after a brief agony, he expired. His inveterate enemy, the great sultan himself, expressed grief at the news of his death, pronouncing him to be the ablest general in Europe.

Many there were, however, who rejoiced at his death. For, like all great men, he too had enemies against whom he was engaged in a life-and-death struggle as much as against the Turks. He had his envious rivals from the moment he had struggled into fame and had acquired a fortune. These men cared little to remember that he was indebted for both to his talents and courage. Some of the great lords, who were able to trace back their pedigrees to past centuries, looked upon him, the son of a simple noble, as an upstart. When he afterwards became captain-general and governor, they refused to obey him, but he made them obey by force of his arms. They were only silenced, however; in their innermost hearts they both hated and feared him. Among these were Garay, Brankovics, and Czilley, all of them connections of the royal house. The latter, Ulric Czilley, a wily and base man, who, though a foreigner, had pushed himself into the first place near the minor King Ladislaus V., was unremitting in his intrigues against him. He and his companions made the shallow-minded young king believe that Hunyadi and his two sons, who were growing into manhood, were ambitious of the crown, and, under this pretext, but without the king’s knowledge, they laid traps for him. The fearless hero faced all such base machinations with the loftiness of a truly martial spirit. The secret attacks he met with caution and straightforwardness, and the slanderous insinuation that he coveted the throne he refuted by the simplicity of his life. Rich enough to have at any moment ten thousand men at his back, he was always as modest and unselfish as a monk. His detractors reflected on his great wealth, forgetting that his entire income was spent in armaments against the Turks.

He lived and died like a true knight, and in Hungarian history he will live forever as their grandest hero. If he did not achieve his most ardent wish, the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, his will always remain the merit of having made the arms of Hungary respected and feared by the Turks, and they no longer dared to look upon his country as an easy conquest. Over sixty years elapsed before a Turkish sultan again ventured to threaten Belgrade.