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.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.