Battle on the Marchfeld
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (August 2011) |
Battle on the Marchfeld | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Great Interregnum and the War of the Babenberg Succession | |||||||
The Meeting of King Ladislas IV and Rudolph of Habsburg on the Battlefield of Marchfeld | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Mercenaries:
|
Mercenaries:
| ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
18,000 men and cavalry 2,000 men |
6,000 cavalry 1,000 heavy cavalry 5,000 light cavalry | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Less than the Bohemians | Heavy; greater than Rudolf's |
The Battle on the Marchfeld (i.e.
King Ottokar II of Bohemia expanded his territories considerably from 1250 to 1273, but suffered a devastating defeat in November 1276, when the newly elected German king
Ottokar abandoned his
The battle marked the beginning of the ascendancy of the House of Habsburg in Austria and Central Europe. The influence of the Přemyslid kings of Bohemia was diminished and restricted to their inheritance in Bohemia and Moravia.
Background
The deposition of Emperor
In 1253, Ottokar II became Bohemian king upon the death of his father; the concentration of power on the western Hungarian border was viewed with suspicion by King Béla IV, who campaigned against Austria and Styria but was finally defeated at the 1260
Prelude
As the election had taken place in his absence, Ottokar did not acknowledge Rudolph as King. Rudolph himself had promised to regain the "alienated" territories which had to be conferred by the Imperial power with consent of the Prince-electors. He claimed the Austrian and Carinthian territories for the Empire and summoned Ottokar to the 1275 Reichstag at Würzburg. By not appearing before the Diet, Ottokar set the events of his demise in motion. He was placed under the Imperial ban and had all his territorial rights revoked, including even his Bohemian inheritance.[2]
Meanwhile, Rudolph was gathering allies and preparing for battle. He achieved two of these alliances through the classic Habsburg style – marriage. First, he married his son
Rudolph, so strengthened, besieged Ottokar at the Austrian capital Vienna in 1276. Ottokar was forced to surrender and to renounce all his acquisitions, receiving only Bohemia and Moravia as a fief from King Rudolph. Heavily deprived by this, he was determined to regain his territories and contracted an alliance with the Ascanian Margraves of Brandenburg and the Polish princes. In 1278 he campaigned against Austria, supported by Duke Henry I of Lower Bavaria, who had switched sides. Ottokar first laid siege to the towns of Drosendorf and Laa an der Thaya near the Austrian border, while Rudolph decided to leave Vienna and to face the Bohemian army in open battle in the Morava basin north of the capital, where the Cuman cavalry of King Ladislaus could easily join his forces.[3]
Opposing forces
Ottakar fielded 6,000 cavalry, of which 1,000 were heavily armed and armored and 5,000 lightly equipped riders.
Battle
Surprised by Rudolph's maneuver, Ottokar quickly abandoned the siege at Laa, marched southwards, and on August 26 met the united German and Hungarian forces near Dürnkrut.[3] When he arrived his enemies had already taken the opportunity to explore the topography of the future battleground.[3] From the early morning, the left wing of the advancing Bohemian troops were embroiled in impetuous attacks by the Cuman forces, which the heavily armed knights could not ward off.[3] Nevertheless, as the main armies collided and the battle wore on, Ottokar's outnumbering cavalry seemed to gain the upper hand, when even Rudolph's horse was stabbed under him and the 60-year-old narrowly escaped with his life, rescued by his liensmen.[3]
After three hours of continuous fighting on a hot summer day, Ottokar's knights in their heavy armour were suffering from heat exhaustion and were not able to move. At noon Rudolph ordered a fresh heavy cavalry regiment he had concealed behind nearby hills and woods to attack the right flank of Ottokar's troops.[4] Such ambushes were indeed commonly regarded as dishonourable in medieval warfare and Rudolph's commander Ulrich von Kapellen apologized to his own men in advance.[4] Nevertheless, the attack prevailed in splitting and stampeding the Bohemian troops. Ottokar realized the surprise attack and tried to lead a remaining reserve contingent in the rear of von Kapellen's troops, a maneuver that was misinterpreted as a rout by the Bohemian forces. The following collapse resulted in a complete victory of Rudolph and his allies.[4] Ottokar's camp was plundered, and he himself was found slain on the battlefield.[5][4]
Aftermath
Rudolph, to demonstrate his victory, had Ottokar's body displayed in Vienna. The "poor count" from Swabian
Ottokar's son, the young king Wenceslaus II of Bohemia, turned out to be a capable ruler. In 1291 he acquired the Polish Seniorate Province at Kraków and was crowned King of Poland in 1300. He was even able to secure the Hungarian crown for his son Wenceslaus III, still a minor, who nevertheless was murdered in 1306, one year after his father's death, whereby the Přemyslid dynasty became extinct.
Casualties
No exact data on casualties is available, but Ottokar's losses were considerably higher than Rudolf's.[4]
In art and popular culture
The battle was depicted in art especially during the rise of nationalism in the 19th century, when it was viewed as the example of a traditional co-operation between the Habsburg dynasty (Austria) and the Kingdom of Hungary, from one side, and the traditional tension between the Habsburg dynasty and Bohemia, from the Czech side.
The tragedy
The opera The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana in 1863, was inspired by the battle and the following events.
See also
- Battle of Kressenbrunn
- List of battles 601–1400
- Battle of Rozgony
Citations
References
- Clauss, M. (2010). Rogers, Clifford J. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology: Volume I. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195334036.
- Schmitt, Richard; Strasser Peter (2004). Rot-weiß-rote Schicksalstage: Entscheidungsschlachten um Österreich (Red-White-Red Fatal Days: The Decisive Battles in Austria) (in German). St. Pölten: NP Buchverlag. ISBN 3-85326-354-2.
- Andreas Kusternig: 700 Jahre Schlacht bei Duernkrut und Jedenspeigen. Wien 1978.
- Kofránková, Václava (2006). 26. 8. 1278 – Moravské pole: poslední boj Zlatého krále (Marchfeld: The Last Fight of Golden King) (in Czech). Praha: Havran. ISBN 80-86515-71-0.
- Pavlac, Brian A. (2001). "Battle of Marchfeld (August 26, 1276)". In Jeep, John M. (ed.). Routledge Revivals: Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia. Routledge.
- Žemlička, Josef (1998). Století posledních Přemyslovců (The Century of the Last Přemyslids) (in Czech). Praha: Melantrich. ISBN 80-7023-281-1.
- Mika, Norbert (2008). Walka o spadek po Babenbergach 1246–1278 (War of the Babenbergian Succession) (in Polish). Racibórz: WAW Grzegorz Wawoczny. ISBN 978-83-919765-4-8.