The Battle of Pákozd (or Battle of Sukoró) was a battle in the Hungarian war of Independence of 1848–1849, fought on the 29 September 1848 in the Pákozd – Sukoró – Pátka triangle. It was the first and one of the most important major battles of the war of independence, in which the Hungarian revolutionary army led by Lieutenant-General János Móga stopped the troops of the Croatian Ban Josip Jelačić, who, in accordance with the Habsburg plans, was marching towards Pest to occupy it and chase out the Hungarian national government. After the battle Lieutenant General Josip Jelačić concluded an armistice with the Hungarians, but then retreated towards Vienna. Thanks to this victory Hungary repulsed the first attempt of the Habsburg empire to put down the autonomous Hungarian government, and to restore its full control over the country. The Battle of Pákozd is one of the most remembered battles in Hungarian history, which was undoubtedly due to the fact that between 1951 and 1991 the anniversary of this battle was the day of the Hungarian Army.
Background
After the Ottoman–Hungarian wars ended and the whole territory of the Kingdom of Hungary in personal union with Croatia was liberated from the Ottoman rule, between 1683 and 1699 by the coalition led by the Habsburgs Croatian (later Croatian-Slavonian) Ban represented the Habsburg monarch in this area ruling over Croat and Slavonian feudal counties. The Ban, who belonged to the highest ranking barons of the county, possessed his own jurisdiction and the institution of the Croat feudal Sabor.
developed from his judicial meetings. After the anti-Ottoman wars, the Military Border was established on most of the parts of Croat and Slavonian territories under military administration. However, not only did the Ban hold political supremacy over Croatian counties, but as head of the Zagreb (Hung. Zágráb) Generalkommando, he was also the commander-in-chief of the Military Border of the Ban, and that of Varaždin (Hung. Varasd), and Karlovac (Hung. Károlyváros).
Serious political, religious, and ethnic tensions had strained Hungarian-Croatian relationships even before 1848. The idea of Illyrism influenced an important part of the Croatian public. These ideas, the Croat version of Pan-Slavism, justly alarmed the Hungarian public which had been struggling with a vision of national death by drowning within a Slavic sea. Croatian public opinion, on the other hand, was irritated by Hungarian ambitions which included extending the use of the Hungarian language over all the major areas of legislation and of public administration. The purely catholic Croatia also protested against the equality of other Christian churches, propagated by the Hungarian liberals, who were in the head of the reform, and revolutionary movements of 1848, which aggravated all the above issues. Finally, Croatia's representatives at most of the reform parliamentary sessions supported the conservative government.
After March 1848 the Croat liberals had two essential demands: to unite Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, the Hungarian Littoral (Rijeka and Bakar), and the Hungarian and Slavonian Military Frontier into the Triune Kingdom and to establish the right to communicate in Croatian with the Hungarian authorities. The office of the Ban had been empty since 1845, but the Hungarian revolution of 15 March 1848 and the appointment as Hungarian prime minister of the liberal Lajos Batthyány forced the Austrian authorities to appoint a Croatian Ban loyal to them. Baron Franz (Franjo) Kulmer proposed to the newly appointed Austrian Prime Minister that Baron Josip Jelačić, colonel of the 1st Border Guard Regiment of the Ban, be commissioned to this post. Austrian Prime Minister Kollowrat himself considered it important that a forceful, popular person loyal to the Empire should be appointed to this post before the independent Hungarian government, responsible to the parliament, would be appointed. The Emperor appointed Jelačić as Croatian Ban on March 23. The following day the new Ban was promoted to major-general and head of Zágráb Generalkommando. On April 8 he was promoted to lieutenant general. Because of his paternal nature, Jelačić enjoyed great popularity among his subordinates. His excellent organizing ability and charisma soon won over a major part of the Croat public to his cause.
On April 19 the Hungarian government called Jelačić to Pest to discuss the details of his inauguration and questions about the Croatian provincial assembly; Jelačić declined. What is more, after arriving in Zágráb he severed all the connections between Hungary and Croatia. On April 25 he declared martial law and announced that civilian administration in Croatia, Slavonia, and on the Hungarian Littoral were under his jurisdiction. He tried to turn Croatian public opinion against the ongoing Hungarian socio-political transformation by referring to Croatian national injustices and by using national slogans. He announced the abolition of serfdom under his jurisdiction as if the April Laws of 1848 were not valid in Croatia. The Ban did not respond to Hungarian initiatives to negotiate. When, on the 10th of June the Emperor, at Hungarian demands, suspended him as Ban, Jelačić threw aside the monarch's decree
saying that it could not have been His Majesty's act or the Emperor must have done it under duress. The Hungarian government offered Croatia the option of a personal union with Hungary and then even secession, but all in vain since Jelačić and the Croatian Sabor demanded the same thing as Vienna—the surrender of independent Hungarian finances, defense, and trade to the imperial government. So the Ban expressed what the Habsburg Camarilla wanted to do with Hungary, plans which were kept in secret by Vienna until the open break up with the revolutionary government in September–October, which aimed the returning of the country to the pre-revolution situation, unacceptable for the Batthyány Government and for Hungary. This showed that Jelačić did not want any compromise with Hungary and that his primary objective was not the status of Croatia, but the reinstallation in Hungary of the pre-1848 Habsburg oppression. This The only positive outcome of the meeting was that Batthyány and Jelačić agreed that he would withdraw his troops from the Dráva River. László Csány, government commissioner of Vas, Zala, Veszprém, and Sopron counties, sent numerous reports about Illyrist agent provocateurs on territories bordering Croatia who incited former serfs against the noblemen and they also fomented propaganda for annexing the Muraköz to Croatia. In return Minister of the Interior Bertalan Szemere appointed Csány as royal commissioner of Zala, Somogy, Baranya, and Tolna counties and instructed him to keep an eye on the other side of the river with the help of the deployed regular army of 4,000 soldiers and the county national guardsmen of 14,000 men. During mobilization
in July a 29,000 strong army, was sent to the Dráva area. The regular army on the defensive line contained four infantry battalions, a honvéd battalion, a regiment of cuirassiers, two companies of light cavalry (Chevau-légers), and six companies of hussars. The artillery contained four batteries (24 guns altogether). The actual number probably was beyond 35,000. This army remained significant in size until the end of July when two regular battalions and thousands of national guardsmen were detached and sent to the Bácska operational theatre. Later on new hussar companies, a honvéd battalion, and two companies of volunteers arrived to strengthen the line. Altogether the numbers were reduced by 10,000 from the mid-July figures. A bigger problem, however, came to light concerning recruits of non-Hungarian origin—they proved to be unreliable. Early in August Commander of the Dráva guarding line, Major-General Ferenc Ottinger, instructed his soldiers not to resist but rather to retreat without fighting in case the Croats occupied Muraköz. Royal commissioner Csányi had not been informed about the order and, consequently, resigned from his post in protest, although he had not even dispatched his letter of resignation when Ottinger
himself resigned.
Until early August Jelačić did not seriously consider launching an attack against Hungary. He deployed only a few battalions at the border and occupied Varasd early June. Most of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the border guard regiments were in Italy and serious officer and armament shortages appeared in the rest of the battalions. In July Jelačić went on a tour of Slavonia and the Szerémség and won over the border guard regiments one after the other. Between August 8 and 10, after his return to Croatia, his troops occupied Virovitica County (Verőce) and then Szerém county in mid-August. According to the recollections of one of his generals, by then, Jelačić had decided to be the first to attack, before the Hungarians would. On August 9 Jelačić sent to Major-General Roth, commander of the Bród Border Guard Regiment, orders relating both to Roth's border guard regiments and to details of preparations for a general attack. Between August 17 and 20 the Ban visited all the borderlands under his command and prompted 28,576 people to rise against the Hungarians. General Neustadter was sent to Slavonia to make preparations there. In the second half of August the Slavonian– Szerémség border guard regiments formally declared that they intended to follow Jelačić's commands.9 On August 21 Jelačić instructed Roth and his troops to push forward to the Dráva River and to occupy Eszék.
After Ottinger's departure the Hungarian side of the Dráva line was left without a commander for a while. In his appeal of August 25 Batthyány informed the Transdanubian authorities that “we ought to expect a factual violation of our country’s borders any minute.” On August 31 the Eszék garrison announced that in case the expected Hungarian-Croatian conflict occurred they would remain neutral and keep the fortress for His Majesty, Ferdinand V. This dealt a disadvantage to both the Hungarians and the Croats since, according to the Eszék declaration, the Croats were forbidden from using the crossing over the Dráva River at Eszék. Because of troop deployments to other areas, only the following Hungarian units were stationed along the Dráva line: two regular infantry battalions, one honvéd battalion, ten hussar companies, two companies of light cavalry, and a regiment of cuirassiers. One more honvéd battalion was expected to arrive soon. The majority of county national guard battalions—except for Vas county's national guard regiment of three battalions—were waiting for relief in order to return home. However, due to the organization of the Volunteer Mobile National Guard it was doubtful whether the relevant counties would send new battalions to protect the Dráva line. Although at the end of August Adám Teleki moved his army closer to the Dráva River and occupied Muraköz, he did not expect to be able to mount a successful defense once the Croats attacked.
War preparations on all sides accelerated after Radetzky’s victory at Custozza. The Serbian Metropolitan of Karlovci Josif Rajačić, the spiritual leader of the Serbian insurgents against Hungary, prodded Jelačić, fearing that Hungarian troops concentrated in Bácska would quash the Serbian uprising. On August 23 he reprimanded Jelačić for abandoning the Serbs.
On August 26 Jelačić was notified from Vienna that the Imperial Court endorsed the justice of the Croatian and Serbian issues saying that “very soon the Court will declare it.” He was also promised that, as soon as he set out for the battlefield the June 10th “disparaging manifesto (the suspension of him as Ban of Croatia) would be withdrawn.” Jelačić, in turn, notified Rajačić about all the above and about the impending attack on August 28. But before this attack, his troops occupied Fiume, considered by Hungary as its own port to the Adriatic Sea on August 31. This meant that the Croatian troops entered in Hungarian territory, thus the war had begun.
On September 4, with reference to Jelačić's loyalty and devotion the Emperor revoked his June 10 suspension and declared that Jelačić “is expected to operate for the benefit of the whole Monarchy, for the maintenance of the Hungarian Crown’s integrity, and for the beneficial development of the relationships of the Hungarian associated countries.”