The Fall of The Medieval Kingdom of Hungary: Mohacs 1526 - Buda 1541

PART I

STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE HUNGARIAN-TURKISH WARS

CHAPTER I
METHODOLOGY

The Model of War

One of the reasons why the debates about Mohacs continue livelier than ever is the lack of sufficient sources. Because of the terribledestruction of the country's archives, particularly during the TurkishWars, few of the Hungarian records have survived, while those ofOttoman provenance, if they did survive, are just now becomingavailable. To a large extent we must rely on foreign sources todetermine how the situation was viewed from both the Hungarianand Turkish sides: what considerations led the governments to optfor war; how they intended to wage it; even the course of eventsthemselves. The reliability of these sources is often debatable. Theirauthors--ambassadors, statesmen, or soldiers--being foreigners,cannot be expected to be properly acquainted with the inner springsof action, while several among them approach the subject withoutright bias.

Analysis of the few available sources has been hampered by theemotionally heated atmosphere in Hungary: the shock of the collapse of the great and strong medieval kingdom of Hungary in thespace of a few hours as the result of a single battle has been felt eversince 1526. Since Hungarian public awareness could never acceptthat the defeat had become inevitable because of the fateful conjunctionof historical circumstances, the only acceptable explanation wasthat it had resulted from human weakness and from sinful omissions.Once this answer had been formulated in the "collectivememory", it no longer seemed necessary to examine systematicallyand objectively the few available sources.

In cases where the lack of sources is compounded by confusion ininterpretation, constructing models to define the possible frameworkfor human action becomes especially important. Models providethe frame of reference for such objective factors as the economic,social, political, and military parameters while excluding subjectiveand moralizing judgments. By fulfilling this function, they providea structure for interpreting historical situations and events which can accommodate the individual data and allow the historian to fillthe gaps.

Since, in the case of Mohacs, we are dealing primarily withmilitary events, the task is to construct a model for late medievaland early modern wars, including those between Hungary and theOttoman Empire. In doing this we can build upon the findings of thebehavioral sciences which have shed new light on many aspects ofhuman behavior and on the decision-making process.[5]

The starting point for the behavioral sciences is the observationthat human beings, on the whole, behave in a rational manner, inparticular where important and fundamental issues are concerned.Scientists have also concluded that human beings base their decisionson their inner image of the environment and simulate theiralternatives within that image. Equally important is the observationthat rational behavior and decision-making are possible onlywithin the framework of some type of organization. Finally, studentsof human behavior have found that rationality is not total, butlimited, because the image of the environment which we create isnever complete - because our information is incomplete - and we areunable to assess accurately even the incomplete data that are availableto us. Human beings are not capable of optimum decisions, butat best of satisfactory ones. Human rationality consists to a considerableextent of the fact that this limitation is recognized and the compromise accepted.

These insights can be also applied to historical research. If primitiveorganisms are capable of forming a model of their environmentand of storing the data in form of images--and biological researchhas proven that this is the case--we have no reason to believe thatit would not have always been so with human beings. We may ratherassume that men and women reached decisions in the course ofhistory on the basis of an image, and by simulating the data containedin it, they have harmonized the goals with the means. Inother words, humans have behaved rationally. I emphasize thehistoricity of these facts, because rationality is quite often viewed asa function of scientific and technological development, and humanbeings regarded as being unable to behave rationally in former timessince they lacked necessary knowledge.[6]

In such a project as this, the first task is, therefore, to reconstructthat environment and model in which the historical activity underreview occurred. The chances for a successful reconstruction of thistype happen to be very good for military history. It may be assumeda priori that because war is a serious business, politicians andsoldiers have established accurately the model of war in their image.We have argued that in serious matters human beings are likely todecide rationally. Therefore, data that have survived of militaryplans and other documents related to war may be regarded as solidfacets of a model. Furthermore, it is relatively easy to assemble thefactors for the model of war, even for the past, because they arelimited in number and can be fairly easily established. (This is farfrom being the case when it comes to models of decision-making inpolitical, social, or economic matters. In those cases the number offactors to be considered is large, far more difficult to determine, andtheir interrelationship extremely complex.)

In military decisions, three factors must be included in our model:forces (or ratio of forces), terrain, and timing. As to the forces, theantagonists usually have a fairly accurate picture of the militarypotential of their own country and of the power of their army, as wellas a reasonable estimate of how these compared with those of theiropponent. Generally speaking, even the terrain (the theater of operationsand the battleground) is well known to both sides. As for thetiming, it is a matter of simple calculation made on the basis of forceand terrain which seeks to determine when the hostilities shouldbegin, how much time is needed to unite the forces for the decisivestrike, and whether the time available for the purpose is sufficient.

Thanks to early works in military science we can conclude thatthe evaluation of a military situation has always focused on theassessment of these three factors. Giles of Rome, in his thirteenthcentury work De regimine principum asked: "What factors must wetake into consideration if we are to engage in open battle?" In hisreply he lists the forces of the enemy, one's own forces, the terrain,the advantages of the position, and so forth.[7] In Le rozier des guerresof the fifteenth century, the commander is instructed to weigh thefollowing factors:

1) the number of enemy troops;2) their preparedness:3) their valor; 4) their stamina;5) their cleverness and dedication;6) the means of putting them to flight;7) the state of their horses;8) their weapons;9) their food supply;10) the direction of the wind and the position of the sun;11) the location of the enemy's positions;12) and the support the enemy may expect.

After listing all these factors the author comments: "It is difficult todefeat the one who knows how to assess correctly his own and hisenemy's forces."[8] Machiavelli repeated this enumeration almostverbatim[9] while Savorgnano, in the sixteenth century, provided anear-complete system for the assessment of the situation in his Artemilitare.[10] Montecuccoli also published a detailed list of factors andtheir order of importance[11] and in Hungary Count Miklos Zrinyi gavean account of the pertinent factors in his Vitez hadnagy [The BraveCommander]. In this work he analyzed the decision-making processfrom the moment of assessment of the situation, through the decisionitself, to the planning and execution stage.[12] Modern behavioralscience identifies these same phases in the decision-making process.[13]

Thus research in military history may attempt to establish withgreater confidence than any other branch of history a model of itsspecific concern - that of war. At the same time it can rely on anassumption of rationality: on the fact that politicians and soldiershave acted rationally in the assessment of the objectives of wars andof the means at their disposal; of the sacrifices worth making toattain their goal; the inherent risk, and the three classical factorsdiscussed above - the forces, the terrain, and the timing. This assumptionsimplifies matters considerably because, in a given situation,the number of possible rational decisions is limited - optimallyreduced to a single one - whenever the intentions and strengthof the enemy forces are exactly known. Irrational decisions,the number of which may be infinite, can be excluded from an interpretation from the start, particularly since a rich store of datahas accumulated regarding the inner workings of armies of the past.In contrast, economic historians, for example, can reconstruct theoperations of agricultural and industrial enterprises, of mines, or ofcommercial firms of the past only at the cost of extremely detailedand laborious work on the basis of scattered data. Artisans, miners,and merchants rarely wrote books about how their enterprises functioned and illiterate peasants wrote none at all. On the other hand,complete and coherent works have survived describing the innerworkings of armies. Moreover, a good many descriptions have beenproduced on the course of specific wars. After all, wars were consideredat one time the most interesting, the most worthwhile, the mostnoble human activity; hence they were front-page news in papers aswell as in historical analysis.

With this wealth of sources we can establish the model of war withconsiderable accuracy for practically any period and thereby fix theparameters of military operations. For instance, we have fairly gooddata on the methods for placing armies on a war-footing, theirorganization, training, strength, morale, equipment, and tactics. Wehave accurate knowledge of the rights and duties of officers and men,of the system of rewards and punishments. There is practically noproblem in determining the range, accuracy, and impact of specifickinds of arrows, firearms, or cannons. On the basis of our knowledgeof the food and fodder requirements of soldiers, riding horses, anddraft animals, we can calculate what would be the requirements invictuals and fodder for a given number of men and horse for a day, amonth, or a year. Similarly, we can determine how much storagespace and what means of transportation were needed to carry andstore these supplies. Knowing the rate of advance of the infantry, thecavalry, and artillery, one can compute the distance an army is ableto cover in one or several days. If we happen to know where a givenarmy was on a certain day, we can establish with high probabilitythe spot reached on the following day. There are so many good bookson the science of building fortifications and of the technique ofsieges, that if we know the system used in constructing a particularcastle and the size of its garrison and artillery, we can predict to theday how long it would withstand a siege. All told, it is hardlynecessary to emphasize how many useful points of reference thismethodical approach offers for analyzing a particular war and forinterpreting even fragmentary evidence.

The knowledge of the logic and structure of war is especiallyhelpful when we are not familiar with the political conceptions of the governments concerned. Since war is an instrument of politics, thereis a close relationship between political objectives and militarystrategy. The most important consideration in the choice of meansin all walks of life, is whether they are appropriate for attaining thedesired goal and, if so, whether they are worth the sacrifices andrisks they entail. It is the same in the relationship between politicsand war: in order to attain their political objectives states resort toarms--assuming it is not the enemy that has compelled them toresort to it--if they are certain of victory. Whether the price whichmust be paid for victory is in proportion with the political objectivebecomes the object of special evaluation. If the price appears to behigh, the leadership may give up the military solution or will look fora cheaper version, such as not waging an all-out war, but merely onewith limited objectives. Thus the political aims directly determinethe character of war: for the sake of great, essential political endsgreat military efforts must be made--after all, the enemy is alsolikely to increase its efforts, precisely because the stakes are high.Such considerations explain why so many different kinds of warhave been waged in the course of history, from total war to armedobservation, even though the logic of war has always been the same.And, in turn, because the political objective determines war sodirectly, the study of a particular war permits us to infer with highprobability its political aims.

These reflections on war and politics are of prime significance forresearch on Mohacs, because we have no reliable information on theexact political ends that had prompted the Ottomans to launch a waragainst Hungary in 1526. Being familiar with the course of the warhelps us draw inferences regarding its military goals; another stepand we may become acquainted with the political objective of thewar as well. One main purpose of this book is to take that step. It willbe assumed that the Ottoman imperial leadership acted according tothe logic of war, and that its decisions, in general, were based onrational assessments. If this assumption is mistaken then our entireprocedure and all the results obtained become highly debatable.However, there are many historians who do assume that the Turkishleadership was irrational; therefore, my first task is to argue thevalidity of my assumption about the rational character of Ottomanleadership.

Rationality of Ottoman Politics

As a typical statement about the lack of rationality of Ottomanpolicy, let me quote the British historian Paul Coles:

The empire of the Ottoman sultan was organized for plundering and itsubsisted on plunder. The resources which sustained the growth ofConstantinople into a great metropolis could only be obtained by raidingacross the frontiers.... A retreat behind stable frontiers would leadinevitably to the disintegration of the central authority as a result of itsinability to remain in control of the instruments of war and conquestwhich it had called into existence.... Even when the empire becameanchored to Constantinople it was sustained by booty...of the border-lands. The perpetual search, in Gibbon's phrase, for "new enemies andnew subjects" was not a policy, weighed against alternatives; it was alaw of life, the principle which animated what had now become a largeand complex society.[14]

This opinion immediately elicits contradiction. First of all onemight ask: how could a world empire come about, and how could itsurvive for several centuries, if it was merely instinct, excluding theweighing of alternatives, that was at work? And even if we happenedto be ignorant of the extensive and well-organized commercial net-work that ensured the supply of the cities of the Ottoman empire,particularly Constantinople, we would still have to query: is itpossible to believe that the supply of masses in the order of millions,and over centuries, was secured merely by plunder?[15] Even theassertion that the increase in the number of land-grant recipientsserving in the cavalry (timars) required further conquests of lands isquestionable because in several provinces targeted for conquest thissystem was not applied (Egypt, Baghdad, Basra, etc.)[16] Finally, ifexpansion was the raison d'etre of the Ottoman Empire, it becomesdifficult to understand how it could survive for centuries once theperiod of conquests had come to a close towards the end of thesixteenth century. Therefore, I find it very difficult to accept Coles'opinion; but, instead of merely rejecting his assertions, let me try toidentify some of the rational elements of Ottoman policies. I shalldemonstrate my point on the conscious gathering of intelligence by the sultans, on the systematic economic strategies underlying Ottomanexpansion, and the skillful diplomacy of the Sublime Porte.

The Fall of The Medieval Kingdom of Hungary: Mohacs 1526 - Buda 1541