Battle of Pressburg
The Battle of Pressburg[4] (German: Schlacht von Pressburg), or Battle of Pozsony (Hungarian: Pozsonyi csata), or Battle of Bratislava (Slovak: Bitka pri Bratislave) was a three-day-long battle fought between 4 and 6 July 907, during which the East Francian army, consisting mainly of Bavarian troops led by Margrave Luitpold, was annihilated by Hungarian forces.
The exact location of the battle is not known. Contemporary sources say it took place at "Brezalauspurc," but where exactly Brezalauspurc was is unclear. Some specialists place it in the vicinity of Zalavár (Mosapurc); others in a location close to Bratislava (Pressburg), the traditional assumption.
An important result of the Battle of Pressburg was that the Kingdom of East Francia could not regain control over the Carolingian March of Pannonia, including the territory of the later Marchia Orientalis (March of Austria), which was lost in 900.[5]
The most significant result of the Battle of Pressburg is that the Hungarians secured the lands they gained during the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, prevented a German invasion that jeopardized their future, and established the Kingdom of Hungary. This battle is considered one of the most significant battles in the history of Hungary[6] and marks the conclusion of the Hungarian conquest.[3]
Sources[edit]
The Battle of Pressburg is mentioned in several annals, including the Annales iuvavenses, Annales Alamannici,[7] Continuator Reginonis,[8] Annales Augienses,[9] and in the necrologies of important people such as kings, dukes, counts, and spiritual leaders. The most important source for the battle is the 16th-century chronicle of the Bavarian Renaissance humanist, historian, and philologist Johannes Aventinus (Annalium Boiorum VII), (1477–1534), which contains the most comprehensive descriptions. Despite being written 600 years after the events, it is based on manuscripts written at the time of the battle that have since been lost.[10]
The nominal leader of the Bavarian army was Louis the Child, the King of East Francia. Since he was under the age of majority, the actual commander was Luitpold. An experienced military leader, Luitpold successfully fought the Moravians and achieved some military success against raiding Hungarian units, but lost the March of Pannonia to them.[16]
Many historians believe the commander of the Hungarian forces was Árpád, Grand Prince of the Hungarians, but there is no proof of this.[17] It is more likely they were led by the same unknown but brilliant commander who led them during the battles of Brenta, Eisenach, Rednitz, and Augsburg. These battles, part of the Hungarian invasions of Europe, were their greatest triumphs, and they inflicted the heaviest losses on enemy forces, including, in most cases, the enemy commander. This conclusion is supported by an analysis of these battles using existing sources. In these cases, the following principles of warfare were used with great success:
While the Hungarians won many battles against European forces after 910 (915: Eresburg; 919: Püchen, somewhere in Lombardy; 921: Brescia; 926: somewhere in Alsace; 934: W.l.n.d.r.; 937: Orléans; 940: Rome; 949),[23] they killed the enemy commander in only one battle, the Battle of Orléans (937), where Ebbon of Châteauroux was wounded and died after the battle. Despite this feat, some historians claim the Hungarians lost this battle.[24] After 933, it became clear that the Hungarians no longer had a great, unnamed commander. They made serious mistakes, which resulted in defeats, such as the Battle of Riade, when the Hungarians did not learn of Henry the Fowler's military reforms, only finding out in the course of the battle,[25] which was too late. Another example that shows how the previous leadership was lacking is the Battle of Lechfeld (955).[26] The Hungarian commanders, Bulcsú and Lél, did not maintain discipline and order. Thinking they had won the battle, soldiers plundered the German army's supply caravan without noticing the counter-attack led by Duke Conrad, showing that Bulcsú and Lél catastrophically misjudged the course of the battle. After the successful counterattack resulted in their defeat, the commanders could not prevent their troops from fleeing and dispersing. The German troops and inhabitants captured the fleeing Hungarian troops and executed them by hanging them in Regensburg.[27] These defeats were caused by the loss of military discipline and the Hungarian commanders' lack of authority and competence. The commanders resorted to draconian measures to motivate the soldiers to fight; for example, during the Siege of Augsburg in 955, the Hungarian warriors were driven to attack the walls with scourges.[28]
Consequences[edit]
This battle is an excellent example of the advantages associated with light armored, quick-moving nomadic horse archer warfare versus the Central and Western European styles of warfare of the time, as represented by the post-Carolingian Germanic armies, represented by heavy armored, slow-moving cavalry and foot soldiers.
The Hungarian victory shifted the balance of power from the Duchy of Bavaria and the East Francian state in favor of Hungary. The Germans did not attack Hungary for many years.[97] The Hungarian victory forced the new Bavarian prince, Luitpold's son, Arnulf to conclude a peace treaty, according to which the prince recognized the loss of Pannonia (Transdanubia) and Ostmark, river Enns as borderline between the two political entities, paid tribute[98] and agreed to let the Hungarian armies, which went to war against Germany or other countries in Western Europe, to pass through the duchies lands (although this agreement, Arnulf did not feel safe, and strengthened the Bavarian capital, Regensburg, with huge walls, and organized an army which, he hoped, he could defeat the Hungarians,[95] but he never had the courage to turn definitively against them). This brought for the East Francian duchies and West Francia almost 50 years (908–955) of attacks and plunderings, which repeated almost every year, because Bavaria no longer was an impediment to the Hungarian forces .[99]
Although Arnulf concluded peace with the Hungarians, The East Francian king, Louis the Child continued to hope, that he, concentrating all the troops of the duchies of the kingdom (Saxony, Swabia, Franconia, Bavaria, Lotharingia) will defeat the Hungarians, and stop their devastating raids. However, after his defeats in the First Battle of Augsburg and the Battle of Rednitz in 910, he also had to conclude peace and accept to pay tribute to them.[100]
The Battle of Pressburg was a major step toward establishing Hungarian military superiority in Southern, Central and Western Europe, lasting until 933, and enabling raids deep into Europe, from Southern Italy, Northern Germany, France, and to the border with Hispania,[101] and collecting tribute from many of the kingdoms and duchies .[102] Although their defeat in the Battle of Riade in 933 ended the Hungarian military superiority in Northern Germany, the Magyars continued their campaigns in Germany, Italy, Western Europe, and even Spain (942)[103] until 955, when a German force at the Second Battle of Lechfeld near Augsburg, defeated a Hungarian army, and after the battle executed three captured major Hungarian chieftains (Bulcsú, Lehel and Súr), putting an end to the Hungarian incursions into territories west of Hungary. The Germans did not follow up this victory: despite being at the height of their unity and power, after defeating the Hungarians, conquering many territories under Otto I in Southern, Eastern and Western Europe, establishing the Holy Roman Empire, they did not see the victory against the Hungarians from 955 as an opportunity to attack Hungary in order to eliminate or subdue it, until the middle of the XI. century (however this time too without success), because they cleverly didn't over-estimate the importance of this battle, calculating the dangers which an expedition in Hungarian territories could create for the invaders, basing on the frightening and painful memory of the Battle of Pressburg.[104]
In the long run, thanks to their victory at Pressburg, the Principality of Hungary defended itself from the ultimate objective of the East Francian and Bavarian military, political and spiritual leaders: the annihilation, giving a categorical response for those foreign powers who planned to destroy this state and its people. We can say that thanks to this victory, Hungary and the Hungarians today exist as a country and nation, because, in the case of a German victory, even if they wouldn't had kept their promise, sparing the Hungarians from annihilation or expulsion, without an independent state and church, the Magyars would have had little chance to organise themselves as a Christian nation and culture, and probably they would have shared the fate of other nations or tribes which were not Christian when they had been conquered by the Carolingian and its successor, the Holy Roman Empire: the Avars, the Polabian Slavs, or the Old Prussians: disparition, or assimilation in the German or Slavic populations. The Battle of Pressburg created the possibility of an independent Hungarian state, with its own church and culture, the premise of the survival of the Hungarians until this day.