[By Chuck Almdale]
[NOTE: If maps, pictures and legends don’t display properly in your email, go to the blog. Interactive Google maps may not work in your email but will work on the blogsite. There is a link at the bottom to the entire Mongol Empire & Rus’ series.]
Mukachevo on the eastern edge of the northern Great Hungarian Plain, at the bottom of the western slope of the Carpathians. Town and castle have changed over eight centuries, but hill and plain remain the same. Photo: Kiszo.net, Aug. 2020. Source: Wikipedia – Mukachevo
Into Hungary
From Master Rogerius’ Epistle to the Sorrowful Lament upon the Destruction of the Kingdom of Hungary by the Tatars, as quoted in Wikipedia – Denis Tomaj:
[…] news came that the Tatars [Mongols] were devastating the confines of Hungary adjacent to Rus’. When this was confirmed to the king [Béla IV] by messengers, he sent his chief ispán, the palatine [Denis Tomaj], with an army to guard the Russian Gate – called the Mountain Gate [Veretskyi Pass] – through which the road leads to Hungary [….] About the middle of Lent one of the palatine’s men arrived post haste to the king and reported in the name of the count palatine that [the Tatars] had reached the Russian Gate and were destroying the border obstacles, and they were afraid that the palatine would not be able to withstand them unless the king sent help fast. The king, still incredulous, did not have armed warriors with him. While he was tarrying there amidst such anxieties, on the fourth day, the palatine himself arrived, having ridden night and day, and reported that in early March, on the twelfth, he had engaged them at the Gate. Almost all his men were cruelly killed by arrows and swords; he had escaped with a few and come to report what had happened.
The entire Mongol army moved through the pass and down the canyon to the Hungarian plain below. Subutai then sent Shayban, Batu’s younger brother, to lead a force to Pest. They raced through the snows to Pest, about 200 miles west of the pass, there to carry out his risky but essential assignment. Subutai and Batu led the main army some 100 miles downstream along the Tisa River towards its juncture with the Sajó River, midway between the bottom of the pass and the city of Pest. Once they reached the Sajó they knew where to find a forest and a stone bridge that suited their plans very well. Never forget that before becoming Genghis Khan’s best general, Subutai was the Khan’s spymaster. Subutai spared nothing in getting advance information.
Three days later Shayban arrived at Pest on the east bank of the Danube River.
Interactive Google MyMap showing all locations so far mentioned for Polish, Transylvanian and Hungarian invasion 1241 CE, focusing on Pest on the Danube River’s east bank. Click on any marker or line for description. If map doesn’t display properly in your email, go to the blog.
The following is paraphrased from János B. Szabó’s short essay, The Mongol Invasion of 1241 and Pest in Hungary:
King Béla ordered everyone at the council to immediately go home and return with their troops. He ordered all his troops from Esztergom [the political and economic capital of Hungary 30 miles north of Pest] and Székesfehérvár [a large city 40 miles southwest of Pest] to come to the major river crossing at Pest. There he would be waiting on the Danube’s left (east) side in Pest. He then sent messengers to Pope Gregory IX and Western European rulers, requesting help. They mostly turned a deaf ear, with the exception of Béla’s cousin Duke Frederick II of Austria “the Quarrelsome,” who sent a small detachment of knights to Hungary; too small to be of much help. Most of the Hungarian ispáns either disbelieved the urgency of the invasion, or hoped that defeat of the king would strengthen their own power and halt the king’s drive towards the centralization of the Kingdom they thought benefited no one but Béla.
King Béla IV of Hungary, from Chronica Hungarorum (1488).
Source: Wikipedia – King Béla IV
The Hungarian Reaction
It had been centuries since the Hungarians left their nomadic ways and battles of the Central Asian steppes behind them. But some of their knight-warriors may have learned the tactics of the nomadic warriors or had heard how the Mongols were constantly enticing their enemies into lethal blunders. Just as likely King Béla had no intention of getting into battle half-prepared and wanted to gather the maximum fighting force possible. He had hoped the frontier barriers and the Verecke Pass fortifications would hold longer; he wasn’t prepared for battle and it take time to get ready. So on 15 March, when small groups of Mongols began appearing here and there around Pest and environs, threatening and harassing, King Béla ordered his soldiers to not engage with them. Shayban’s troops made quite a nuisance of themselves, but the Hungarians soldiers followed orders and resisted the temptation to pursue them.
Well…most of them did. Ugrin Csák [Csák nembeli Ugrin] the Archbishop of Kalocsa, thought himself sufficiently important and militarily experienced to defy King Béla’s directive. On 17 March, his troops pursued a small group of Mongols and fell into a trap. The Bishop escaped with his head still attached and fled back to Pest with the few of his men who survived.
Ugrin Csák, Archbishop of Kalocsa. Sculpture by Csilla Halassy, 2000, in Kalocsa.
Source: Wikipedia – Ugrin Csák
Around this same time Béla’s cousin, the Austrian Duke Frederick II “the Quarrelsome” of Babenberg (ruled 1230–1246) appeared at Pest with his small troop of knights, all he could gather in a short time. Despite his continuing border disputes with Béla, the Duke was the only European leader to respond to Béla’s plea for help. Eventually their disputes about who owns which counties would be settled. Meanwhile, eager to fight these “Tartars” in person and demonstrate his mettle, he also ignored Béla’s ban on attacking the Mongol raiding parties. Unlike Ugrin Csák he was successful; he personally cut down one Tartar, and captured another one alive, says historian János Szabó. Another source [Wikipedia – Mongol Incursions in Holy Roman Empire] says he claimed to have killed 300, perhaps as many as 700 Tartars, although that was at a later confrontation. However many Tatars the Duke may or may not have slain, his actions had unforeseen consequences; the captured “Tartar” turned out to be a Cuman, not a Mongol. To be fair, central Europeans at that time were not at all clear on the difference—if any—between Cumans, Tartars and Mongols. (Many still aren’t.)
Seal of Frederick II “the Quarrelsome,” Duke of Austria.
Source: Wikipedia – Frederick II
Hungarian–Cuman Friction
Hungarians had disliked and distrusted the Cumans since the second half of the 11th century when the Cumans first appeared on the steppes of Eastern Europe. Sheltering the Cuman chieftain Khan Kotian [Kötöny, Khotyan] with the Mongols at their door made Hungarians very nervous. Tension only increased when Kotian arrived at Óbuda for the council called by the king and Béla IV had him, his family and his top men arrested. When King Béla went to Pest to meet with his vassals and their troops who were presumably assembling for the coming battle, he took Kotian along as hostage.
At that time Pest was full of south German and Austrian settlers who had arrived a few decades earlier and did not understand relations between the Hungarians, the Cumans and Mongols. They probably admired the dashing Austrian “Mongol-killer” Duke Frederick II. When Kotian was summoned to meet with King Béla, he refused to go into the streets without an armed escort to protect him from the angry citizens of Pest gathered outside. When they saw Kotian, the crowd shouted: “Let him die! Let him die! He is the one who tried to bring about the destruction of Hungary!” Others in the increasingly violent mob, writes Rogerius, “started to scold King Béla as well, saying, Let our king fight, since he is the one who brought in the Cumans to incur our hatred!”
Duke Frederick II’s tomb in the Heiligenkreuz chapter hall.
Photo: © C.Stadler/Bwag. Source: Wikipedia: Frederick II
On what happened next, sources differ. Some lie. Either the mob spontaneously grew violent or it was incited by Mongol spies spreading rumors that Cumans had secretly formed an alliance with the Mongols (a bit of propaganda certainly not beyond the foresight of the wily Subutai), or it was incited by the Austrian Duke Frederick “the Quarrelsome” himself. The mob stormed the palace where Kotian was staying and — despite their stout defense — the Cumans were overcome by the crowd who “…wasted no time in cutting their heads off, throwing them to the crowd outside the palace’s windows…,” Kotian’s included.
Béla IV’s failure to keep his word to protect his single most important ally, the Cuman Khan Kotian, was both a crime and a horrible mistake, undermining Hungary’s chance of resistance, not least because Cumans formed a large part of their fighting force. Duke Frederick took this “dissension in the ranks” as a sign to slip back to Austria and spread word of his own astounding bravery. King Béla was probably happy to discontinue the “assistance” of his quarrelsome and trouble-making cousin, and many Cumans — on learning of their leader’s death — left Pest and their assigned lands along the Tisa. Some pillaged and burned their way southeast through Hungary to Bulgaria. Some went elsewhere in Hungary, some may have gone to Austria where they were mistaken for Tartars or Mongols. The German residents of Pest may have been happy to see the backs of the last of the Cumans, but they were soon to unhappily see the faces of the first of the Mongols. Not all “Tartars” were created equal.
The full mobilization was unsuccessful. Many contingents were unable to reach Pest: some were destroyed by Mongols before they arrived, some by renegade Cumans, some never bothered to try. Many nobles refused to take part in the campaign because they hated the king and wanted him gone. Hardly anybody believed that the Mongol attack was a serious threat to the kingdom’s security, and most considered the Cuman defection to be of little importance or even welcome. And it was still early spring.
Cumans arrive in Hungary 1239, from 14th century Chronicum Pictum.
Source: Wikipedia – Köten
Entire Mongol Empire & Rus’ Series: Click Here
First Installment: Why didn’t the Mongols Conquer Europe in the 13th Century?
Previous Installment: The Verecke Pass || Mongol Empire LXXXIX
Next Installment: Pursuit towards the Sajó River || Mongol Empire XCI
This Installment: Tatars in Pest || Mongol Empire XC
Sources
Mongol Invasion of 1241 and Pest in Hungary, The; János B. Szabó; Academia.com. Link to free PDF.
HistoryNet –Mongol Invasions, Battle of Liegnitz
HistoryNet –Mongols on the march & logistics of grass
Quora – How did Bela IV retake his country
Wikipedia – Batu Khan
Wikipedia – Carmen Miserabile
Wikipedia – Central Europe, Mongol Invasion of
Wikipedia – Denis Tomaj
Wikipedia – Holy Roman Empire, Mongol Incursions into
Wikipedia – Hungary, First Mongol Invasion of
Wikipedia – Mohi [Sajó River], Battle of
Wikipedia – Mongol Invasions and Conquests
Wikipedia – Rogerius, Master
Wikipedia – Subutai
ZCMS.Hu – Muhi, Battle of
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