The Battle of Mohács (1526)

In the spring of 1526 Suleiman the Magnificent set out from Istanbul for Hungary with a great army. The young King Louis II hastily raised an army, but not all the country's forces arrived in time. On 29 August 1526 the armies met on the plain of Mohács by the Danube.

The Hungarian heavy cavalry charged, while the Ottoman army held firm in the centre with its guns and Janissaries. The battle lasted about two hours and ended in defeat for the Hungarian army. King Louis II drowned in the Csele stream as he left the field.

After Mohács the kingdom of Hungary was split in three: the west and north went to the Habsburgs, the centre became an Ottoman province, and Transylvania lived on as a separate principality under Ottoman protection. Hungarians remember the battle as a national tragedy, and the memorial park at Mohács is a national monument today. The later story of Ottoman-Hungarian ties is told in the article on Ottoman Hungary.