Szigetvar in "History of Hungary and the Magyars" by Godkin, 1854

Source: The History of Hungary and the Magyars: 

From the Earliest Period to the Close of the Late War

Edwin Lawrence Godkin, 1853

page 175

The Siege of Szigetvar

When Maximilian ascended the throne the war was carried on with renewed vigour. John Sigismond was ever active and ever aggressive, and his opponent had at last no resource but to take arms for the defence of his share of the Hungarian territory. His forces under the command of two of the ablest generals of the day, Swendy and Count Salm, after recovering the captured places, reduced Tokay, Kovar, Erdad, and Bathor. Maximilian sent an embassy to Solyman, offering to continue the payment of the tribute, and demanding continuance of the truce concluded with his father. But the conditions proposed by the latter were too imperious to be accepted, and war again broke out with the Turks.

Solyman headed his army in person, and advancing towards the scene of hostilities, he was preparing to ascend the course of the Danube, when the aggressions of the garrison of Zigeth, a town on the frontiers of Sclavonia, who in a sally killed one of his favourite bashaws, induced him to select it as the first object of his vengeance. It lay in the midst of a marsh, and was approachable only by a narrow causeway. The garrison consisting of but 3,000 men, was commanded by Nicholas, Count Zrinyi, the descendant of an illustrious Croat family, who resolved, feeble as were his means, to resist to the last extremity. The attack was commenced on the 6th of August, 1566, and at first was attended with partial success. The Turks went through enormous labour, making roads across the marsh, and erecting huge mounds for the artillery, and succeeded in battering down the greater portion of the outer wall, and after twenty assaults, obtained possession of the old town, and forced the garrison to retire into the fortress.

The number of the defenders were now reduced to six hundred, but such were their valour and fortitude, that they repulsed the Ottomans in a series of bloody combats. Solyman's patience was beginning to be exhausted. He called before him his principal bashaws, reproached them in the bitterest terms with cowardice and incompetency, and threatened that, if they failed to take the citadel in the next attempt, he would cause their heads to be struck off, and march to the assault over their dead bodies. The ungovernable fury of his passion rendered vain both his threats and his promises. He was seized that same night, (Sept. 4, 1566,) by an attack of apoplexy, which carried him off in the forty-sixth year of his reign, after a career of unexampled splendor and prosperity, during which he raised Turkey to a pitch of power and pre-eminence, from which she has ever since been steadily declining.

The death of their leader would have filled the Turkish soldiers with discouragement and consternation, and might perhaps have altogether marred the success of the enterprise, if the grand vizier, acting, it is said, upon his deceased master's instructions, had not taken effectual means to conceal it from them. The physician who attended the sultan in his last moments, and the servants who waited upon him, were all strangled before ever they had quitted the tent, and the inanimate corpse, clothed in the imperial robes, was placed upright upon a throne, the curtains were drawn aside, and the army, defiling before it at a distance, were animated and encouraged by the belief that the eye of their sovereign was upon them.

The artillery, which had been playing upon the castle without intermission, had laid the interior in ruins, and had effected a wide breach in the outer wall. The enemy were preparing to storm it, when a fire broke out which consumed most of the provisions and ammunition, and buried a large number of. the garrison in the ruins of their habitations. Of the six hundred who had survived the repeated attacks of the besiegers, there now remained but one hundred and seventy, exclusive of sick and wounded. There was nothing left for these but death,—the speedier the better. Zrinyi drew them up in the courtyard, and appearing in full uniform, took of each an affectionate farewell, and drawing his sword, led them across the lowered drawbridge, against the enemy. The Turks astonished at the temerity of the small party which they saw advancing, at first hung back fearing a stratagem, but at last became reassured and rushed to the attack.

Zrinyi defended himself with courage and dexterity. A pike thrust in the breast caused him to waver for a moment, but he still fought on, sternly rejecting all offers of quarter. A blow of a sabre in the leg rendered him unable to stand, and he then maintained the combat on his knees, until at length he was laid prostrate by a musket ball passing through his head. All his followers, except four who surrendered, died sword in hand upon the spot, and the Turks entering the fortress found nothing but blackened ruins to reward them for a siege of thirty-four days, and the loss of 20,000 men.

During the greater part of this siege, two of the Austrian armies were encamped within a short distance of Zigeth, and never moved to the assistance of the garrison, one of 10,000 men, under the Archduke Charles, and the other of 100,000, under the emperor himself, composed of volunteers from every country in Europe, and veteran soldiers who had been trained in the wars of Charles V. Maximilian calmly remained upon the defensive, fearing to risk the safety of his forces in a pitched battle, which, if the event proved adverse, might lay Hungary, and perhaps Austria, at the feet of the sultan. He recked little of the fate of the little garrison under Nicholas Zrinyi, but the bashaw of Buda had a better estimate of the loss the Austrian cause had sustained, when in forwarding the Zrinyi's head to Count Salm, he wrote, " As a proof of my generosity, I forward you the head of one of your greatest and bravest generals, whose loss you may long regret ; his remains have been interred with all the honours due to a hero."

The inertness of the Austrian armies led also to the fall of Gyula, defended by Kerecsenyi, and a third of Hungary was soon laid open to the ravages of the Turks, who carried away 80,000 of the inhabitants into captivity. Two diets addressed remonstrances to the emperor upon this deplorable policy, and complained bitterly of the excesses and extortions of Swendy, the Austrian general, and of the violation of the constitution, daily perpetrated, in the appointment of foreigners to the highest offices of the state. Maximilian, however, turned a deaf ear to their complaints, as he relied upon the renewal of the truce by the new sultan Selim. He was not deceived. Negotiations were opened, Selim withdrew his armies, and the result was a treaty of peace, in which it was stipulated that John Sigismond should continue to be the waywode of the sultan and of the emperor in Transylvania ; that a half of Hungary Proper should continue in the possession of Maximilian, and that the other half, with Buda the capital, should be annexed as a dependent province to the Turkish empire.

No sooner did the terms of this infamous bargain become known, than many of the principal magnates protested against it in the only way that the misfortunes of their country had left them—by retiring to their castles, and refusing to take any part in the transaction of public affairs. Others, possessing more fire and energy, passed into Transylvania, to the camp of George Bocksai, and entered into a conspiracy for throwing off the yoke of Maximilian. The plot was discovered and the authors banished, and this failure, united with the intrigues of a confidant of John Sigismond, named Bekessi, who had secretly sold himself to the Austrians, induced Sigismond, at length, to consent to enter into a treaty of peace, by which he agreed to renounce the title of king, and take that of most serene prince ; that Transylvania Proper should become his patrimony, and that portion of the frontier of Hungary which he then occupied should remain in his possession during his lifetime, but at his death should revert to the house of Austria ; and in case the sultan should refuse his consent to an agreement of which ha had no cognizance, and should expel him from his dominions, the castle of Oppelen in Silesia should be his asylum ; and lastly, if he died without male issue, the states of Transylvania should elect a prince dependent upon Austria.