The Second Battle of Komárom, also known as the Battle of Ács, took place on 2 July 1849 between the Hungarian Revolutionary Army (led by General Artúr Görgei) and the Imperial Austrian Army of the Austrian Empire (led by Supreme Commander Field Marshal Julius von Haynau); a contingent of almost 12,000 Russian Empire troops was led by Lieutenant General Fyodor Sergeyevich Panyutyin. The Austrian army outnumbered the Hungarian troops two to one, and had a multitude of infantry (landwehr, grenadiers, seressaner, and kaiserjägers), light infantry (uhlans, dragoons, cossacks, and chevau-léger), heavy cavalry (cuirassiers), and better weapons. The Hungarians, except for the Landwehr (Hungarian: Honvéd) and the hussars, had few types of military units. Other problems also negatively impacted the Hungarian army. The Lajos Kossuth government decided to withdraw the Hungarian troops from Komárom to southern Hungary without consulting Görgei, the war minister, the only one authorised to make a military decision. Görgei grudgingly agreed to the decision, fixing the date of departure for southern Hungary to 3 July. Uncertainty and conflicts existed among the Hungarian officers and soldiers before the attack. Kossuth sent Lieutenant General Lázár Mészáros to Komárom to relieve Görgei of leadership and send him to Pest. When Mészáros approached Komárom by steamboat on 2 July, however, he heard gunfire from the battle and returned to Pest.
Austrian Supreme Commander Field Marshal Julius Jacob von Haynau planned to force the Hungarian troops to retreat to the fortress of Komárom; Haynau would besiege it from the south, opening the road toward Buda and Pest. After accomplishing this, most of Haynau's troops would advance east and occupy the Hungarian capitals before his allies (the Russian troops led by Ivan Paskevich) arrived. The battle began in the early morning of 2 July with an attack by the imperial I Corps (led by General Franz Schlick) from the direction of Ács, chasing the Hungarians from the Ács forest, pushing them into the fortifications south of Komárom, and capturing the Monostor trenches; this threatened to encircle the Hungarian troops. Görgei did not expect a major attack that day. Foreseeing that he would be dismissed and aware of the political animosity against him, he wrote a letter that night and early morning explaining his military decisions and attributing the military and political problems to Kossuth. Görgei stopped writing when he heard gunfire from the battle. He rushed to the battlefield and found the Hungarian VIII Corps in flight, leaving the fortress's western trenches and some fortifications in Austrian hands. Görgei halted the retreat with grapeshot and volley fire and ordered the troops to regroup and, with the support of II and VII Corps, chase Schlick's troops from the fortifications and the Ács forest. The Hungarian counter-attack, supported from the southern Herkály grange by VII Corps cavalry led by General Ernő Poeltenberg, threatened Schlick's left flank with separation from the rest of the imperial army. The imperial army was saved by the Russian division (led by Lieutenant General Fyodor Panyutyin) and the Austrian I Corps Simbschen-Brigade; Poeltenberg retreated to escape encirclement, stopping the Hungarian advance.
The Austrian IV Corps reserve brigade, led by General Lajos Benedek, occupied Ószőny and opened the route toward Buda and Pest. Hungarian III Corps General György Klapka ordered several counter-attacks to reoccupy the strategic position but, despite initial success, his troops were forced to retreat. Haynau was unaware of the battlefield situation and, believing his troops were victorious, ordered his center (IV Corps) to withdraw; this put his army in danger from a Hungarian attack. Görgei saw the opportunity, and intended to concentrate his cavalry and artillery units in the center. Haynau's brigade commanders (Simbschen, Ludwig, and Lederer) and Panyutyin recognized the danger and closed the gap. Görgei, wanting to retake Ószőny, decided to force the Austrians to send reinforcements from the flanks to the center with a cavalry and artillery attack. Klapka sent the III Corps cavalry to help him, hoping that this would force Benedek to withdraw his troops from Ószőny and send reinforcements to the center. The Hungarian hussar charge was commanded by Görgei and Poeltenberg, repelling Austrian cavalry units. Its artillery (which followed the cavalry) launched cannon fire which struck the Austrian headquarters in Csém from which Franz Joseph I of Austria was observing the battle, forcing Haynau, the headquarters and the emperor to retreat to Bana. The Hungarian cavalry attack, in which 24 hussar companies (3,000 riders) participated – the largest Hungarian cavalry charge of the revolution – achieved its objective, and Klapka recaptured Ószőny. Görgei, leading the hussars, was severely injured in the head by cannon fire. Bleeding, he tried to send orders to his troops until he fainted at the end of the battle.
The reinforced Austrian cavalry and artillery pushed the Hungarian cavalry back until both armies retreated from the battlefield at about 8:00 p.m. The battle may be regarded as a Hungarian victory; Haynau's plans to encircle the Hungarian troops in Komárom and occupy the Hungarian capitals failed, and his troops were forced to retreat from the strategic positions occupied by them during the battle. The destruction of the imperial army was prevented by Haynau's subordinates, who filled its gap before the Hungarian cavalry arrived. The day after the battle, the Hungarian generals learned about Kossuth's removal of Görgei from command; their protests forced the governor-president to allow Görgei to continue leading the Army of the Upper Danube. Görgei fought his way eastward in mid-July through northern Hungary against the five-times-larger Russian army, led by Ivan Paskevich.
The Second Battle of Komárom, also known as the Battle of Ács, took place on 2 July 1849 between the Hungarian Revolutionary Army (led by General Artúr Görgei) and the Imperial Austrian Army of the Austrian Empire (led by Supreme Commander Field Marshal Julius von Haynau); a contingent of almost 12,000 Russian Empire troops was led by Lieutenant General Fyodor Sergeyevich Panyutyin. The Austrian army outnumbered the Hungarian troops two to one, and had a multitude of infantry (landwehr, grenadiers, seressaner, and kaiserjägers), light infantry (uhlans, dragoons, cossacks, and chevau-léger), heavy cavalry (cuirassiers), and better weapons. The Hungarians, except for the Landwehr (Hungarian: Honvéd) and the hussars, had few types of military units. Other problems also negatively impacted the Hungarian army. The Lajos Kossuth government decided to withdraw the Hungarian troops from Komárom to southern Hungary without consulting Görgei, the war minister, the only one authorised to make a military decision. Görgei grudgingly agreed to the decision, fixing the date of departure for southern Hungary to 3 July. Uncertainty and conflicts existed among the Hungarian officers and soldiers before the attack. Kossuth sent Lieutenant General Lázár Mészáros to Komárom to relieve Görgei of leadership and send him to Pest. When Mészáros approached Komárom by steamboat on 2 July, however, he heard gunfire from the battle and returned to Pest.
Austrian Supreme Commander Field Marshal Julius Jacob von Haynau planned to force the Hungarian troops to retreat to the fortress of Komárom; Haynau would besiege it from the south, opening the road toward Buda and Pest. After accomplishing this, most of Haynau's troops would advance east and occupy the Hungarian capitals before his allies (the Russian troops led by Ivan Paskevich) arrived. The battle began in the early morning of 2 July with an attack by the imperial I Corps (led by General Franz Schlick) from the direction of Ács, chasing the Hungarians from the Ács forest, pushing them into the fortifications south of Komárom, and capturing the Monostor trenches; this threatened to encircle the Hungarian troops. Görgei did not expect a major attack that day. Foreseeing that he would be dismissed and aware of the political animosity against him, he wrote a letter that night and early morning explaining his military decisions and attributing the military and political problems to Kossuth. Görgei stopped writing when he heard gunfire from the battle. He rushed to the battlefield and found the Hungarian VIII Corps in flight, leaving the fortress's western trenches and some fortifications in Austrian hands. Görgei halted the retreat with grapeshot and volley fire and ordered the troops to regroup and, with the support of II and VII Corps, chase Schlick's troops from the fortifications and the Ács forest. The Hungarian counter-attack, supported from the southern Herkály grange by VII Corps cavalry led by General Ernő Poeltenberg, threatened Schlick's left flank with separation from the rest of the imperial army. The imperial army was saved by the Russian division (led by Lieutenant General Fyodor Panyutyin) and the Austrian I Corps Simbschen-Brigade; Poeltenberg retreated to escape encirclement, stopping the Hungarian advance.
The Austrian IV Corps reserve brigade, led by General Lajos Benedek, occupied Ószőny and opened the route toward Buda and Pest. Hungarian III Corps General György Klapka ordered several counter-attacks to reoccupy the strategic position but, despite initial success, his troops were forced to retreat. Haynau was unaware of the battlefield situation and, believing his troops were victorious, ordered his center (IV Corps) to withdraw; this put his army in danger from a Hungarian attack. Görgei saw the opportunity, and intended to concentrate his cavalry and artillery units in the center. Haynau's brigade commanders (Simbschen, Ludwig, and Lederer) and Panyutyin recognized the danger and closed the gap. Görgei, wanting to retake Ószőny, decided to force the Austrians to send reinforcements from the flanks to the center with a cavalry and artillery attack. Klapka sent the III Corps cavalry to help him, hoping that this would force Benedek to withdraw his troops from Ószőny and send reinforcements to the center. The Hungarian hussar charge was commanded by Görgei and Poeltenberg, repelling Austrian cavalry units. Its artillery (which followed the cavalry) launched cannon fire which struck the Austrian headquarters in Csém from which Franz Joseph I of Austria was observing the battle, forcing Haynau, the headquarters and the emperor to retreat to Bana. The Hungarian cavalry attack, in which 24 hussar companies (3,000 riders) participated – the largest Hungarian cavalry charge of the revolution – achieved its objective, and Klapka recaptured Ószőny. Görgei, leading the hussars, was severely injured in the head by cannon fire. Bleeding, he tried to send orders to his troops until he fainted at the end of the battle.
The reinforced Austrian cavalry and artillery pushed the Hungarian cavalry back until both armies retreated from the battlefield at about 8:00 p.m. The battle may be regarded as a Hungarian victory; Haynau's plans to encircle the Hungarian troops in Komárom and occupy the Hungarian capitals failed, and his troops were forced to retreat from the strategic positions occupied by them during the battle. The destruction of the imperial army was prevented by Haynau's subordinates, who filled its gap before the Hungarian cavalry arrived. The day after the battle, the Hungarian generals learned about Kossuth's removal of Görgei from command; their protests forced the governor-president to allow Görgei to continue leading the Army of the Upper Danube. Görgei fought his way eastward in mid-July through northern Hungary against the five-times-larger Russian army, led by Ivan Paskevich.
Background
Retreat to Komárom
The Hungarian army retreated to the Komárom fortress, one of the most powerful and modern fortifications of the Habsburg monarchy, after the 1849 Battle of Győr. Colonel József Bayer, Görgei's Hungarian Operational Office chief, and government commissioner János Ludvigh wrote to Lajos Kossuth in Pest about the lost battle. They wrote that the Austrians might soon arrive in the vicinity of the Hungarian capital, and advised him to move with the Bertalan Szemere government to Nagyvárad under the protection of General Józef Bem's army; Görgei wanted to remain at Komárom and lead a decisive attack against the Austrians before the arrival of the Russian army. Kossuth did not initially want to leave Pest, telling Bayer that the government would leave the capitals only with the Hungarian army. Görgei wrote to Kossuth on 30 June, summarizing his plans: "For our nearest future I have a simple operational plan: here, under the protection of Komárom['s walls] to concentrate all our forces, except Bem's, Vetter's and [Lajos] Kazinczy's [troops], and to attack the Austrians decisively."
Görgei's plan
Görgei planned to put all his eggs in one basket because the military situation, and Hungary's fate, were in grave danger. Because Austria asked from Tsar Nicholas I of Russia for help in mid-June 1849, Hungary was invaded by a Russian army of 200,000 soldiers – which, combined with 170,000 Austrian soldiers already in Hungary, outnumbered the 170,000 Hungarian soldiers. The Russians also put 80,000 soldiers on standby near the Carpathian Mountains to intervene if necessary. There were tens of thousands of Romanian insurgents in the Western Carpathians of Transylvania, in addition to Serbian insurgents and Croatian troops from Délvidék and Syrmia. The Austro-Russian troops had superior weaponry, and the Hungarians had shortages of weapons and ammunition. Among rifles used by the Hungarians were flintlocks, hunting and ceremonial rifles, percussion rifles and muskets. The Austrian armies had 1,354 cannons, compared with the Hungarians' 857.
At the end of June 1849, Hungary's military situation worsened. Russian troops led by Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich, who had come from the north on 15 June, were approaching Debrecen; south-eastern and eastern Transylvania was invaded by two Austrian armies led by General Alexander von Lüders. In southern Hungary, Austrian and Croatian troops led by Lieutenant Field Marshal Josip Jelačić were advancing towards Szeged; the main Austrian army, led by Julius Jacob von Haynau and reinforced by a Russian division commanded by Lieutenant General Feodor Sergeyevich Panyutyin from the west, pushed Görgei's troops towards Komárom. The Hungarian political and military leaders came to believe that victory was impossible, and the only solution was a compromise. The army's role was to buy time, with successful military operations, for Hungarian politicians to bring the emperor to the negotiating table.
Görgei also believed that it would be impossible to defeat such powerful enemies; the only chance to salvage some Hungarian independence would be to decisively defeat the Austrian troops led by Haynau before the arrival of the Russian forces in the Hungarian capitals and Komárom. He hoped that by commanding a concentrated Hungarian force, he could force the Habsburgs to forge an agreement with Hungary instead of relying on Russian troops to defeat the Hungarians; this would diminish Austrian prestige in Europe. Görgei hoped that if he defeated the Austrian army, the Habsburgs would accept the 1848 Hungarian April Laws (revoked the following year by Franz Joseph I in the March Constitution); Hungary would renounce its 14 April 1849 Declaration of Independence, recognizing Franz Joseph as the Hungarian king. Under Paskevich's command since mid-June, the main Russian army of 120,000 soldiers advanced south in northern Hungary. Only the 8,000-man Hungarian IX Corps, under General Józef Wysocki, tried to stop them. From Transylvania, Józef Bem reported that Russian troops had also invaded the province.
Proposal to the government
Görgei, the Hungarian army's main commander and minister of war, discussed the military situation with the Hungarian government on 24 June after his defeat in the Battle of Győr. He blamed his subordinates for defeats around the Vág, their inaccurate reconnaissance, and the intervention of Russian troops at Győr and in the Battle of Pered, and believed that he could impose his will on the Austrians with a decisive attack against Haynau's army. On 25 June, the Hungarian government received news from General Józef Wysocki about Russian intervention in northern Hungary. The following day, the Council of Ministers reassembled in Budapest to discuss the situation and determine a strategy. Görgei, realizing that the Hungarian army was not powerful enough to fight on several fronts, proposed to gather it into two major groups. One, with troops from Bácska and Bánság, the Transylvanian Army (led by General Józef Bem) and Colonel Kazinczy Lajos' division, mobilized in eastern Hungary to defend the Tisza River; its headquarters was in Nagyvárad. The other group, led by Görgei as the main army, remained around Komárom. It consisted of the I, II, III and VII Corps, VIII Corps brigades to defend the Komárom fortress, György Kmety's division, and columns led by Ármin Görgey, János Horváth and Lajos Beniczky; Wysocki's IX Corps would hinder a Russian advance from the north. Görgei asked Kossuth to come, with the Szemere government, to Komárom under the protection of his army. Kossuth refused, but the Council of Ministers accepted Görgei's plans to concentrate the armies in two major groups and attack the Austrian army. Hungarian historian Tamás Csikány writes that Kossuth's refusal to go to Komárom was wrong; his visit to the Hungarian troops, given his popularity, would have lifted morale. Franz Joseph I visited Haynau's troops. Görgei then left Budapest for the front after learning about Austrian preparations to attack Győr.
Council of Ministers disputes
Görgei arrived in Győr on 28 June, near the end of the battle, and saw the overwhelming Austrian superiority (69,350 Austrians versus 17,480 Hungarians). He ordered a retreat, which was also carried out by General Ernő Poeltenberg.
On 27 June, Wysocki sent a letter indicating his inability to hold his line against the Russian army and the need to retreat. News about the defeat at Győr arrived in Budapest two days later. Görgei wrote a letter after the battle saying that the government "is weak, and without defense in Budapest", advising them to leave the capital and move east under the protection of Bem's army, retaining the plan for his army to remain at Komárom and defeat the Austrians. Kossuth summoned the Council of Ministers, which decided – in Görgei's absence – to retreat from Komárom and concentrate under Józef Bem in south-eastern Hungary. Szeged would be the government's new headquarters, leaving only 15,000 soldiers in Komárom. Kossuth believed that Lieutenant-General Bem could defeat the Russian armies which had invaded Transylvania; Lieutenant-General Antal Vetter would defeat Josip Jelačić's troops in southern Hungary, and both armies would come northwards to defeat Paskevich's Russian army.
According to Hungarian historians Róbert Hermann and Tamás Csikány, Kossuth was wrong and should have stuck to Görgei's plan. Csikány writes that the plan to retreat from Komárom meant surrendering the more-developed part of Hungary to the Austrians, enabling them to unite their forces. Its main purpose was to remove Görgei, who was envied by Kossuth and other political and military leaders. Hermann believes that Görgei's plan was correct because Komárom was one of the Habsburg Monarchy's best fortifications, and Haynau's troops could not move toward Budapest until it was unoccupied or neutralized; an army garrisoned in Komárom could attack Vienna. Troops in Komárom could supply themselves from the rich Danube region and be moved on the Szolnok-Pest-Vác railroad, Hungary's only railroad at the time.
The Council of Ministers decision contravened Görgei's plan for dual troop concentrations, and he was ordered to retreat from Komárom to south-eastern Hungary. Their plan was made by Lieutenant-General Henryk Dembiński, a rival, although Görgei was Minister of War and head of the army. Kossuth, the politicians and his officers knew that this could enrage Görgei; Kossuth decided to convey the decision by three carefully-chosen people: Görgei's old friend General Lajos Aulich, Minister of Public Works and Transport László Csány (respected by Görgei) and Lieutenant-General Ernő Kiss, Görgei's superior and authorized by Kossuth to take over leadership of the army and lead it to southern Hungary.
After meeting with the delegation from Budapest and a discussion with József Bayer, Görgei said that the Council of Ministers plan was wrong; the region had no food resources due to months of fighting, and the two south Hungarian strongholds (Temesvár and Arad) were in Austrian hands. However, Görgei sent Kossuth a letter agreeing to retreat from Komárom toward south Hungary on 3 July after assembling his troops (which would take several days). Before the arrival of the Council of Ministers delegation with the order to retreat from Komárom, Görgei sent a letter to Kossuth about remaining in the fortress and criticized the government's proposed scorched earth policy: "I never fought for the government, but for the people, and if today I was convinced that the people would feel better, I would be the first to put my weapons down". This letter was accidentally given to Kossuth after he read Görgei's letter agreeing to obey the Council of Ministers order. As a result of the misunderstanding, Kossuth replaced Görgei with Lieutenant General Lázár Mészáros as army leader and summoned him to Budapest as war minister. Neither Görgei nor his officers learned about this until after the battle, because Mészáros retreated to Budapest when he heard cannon fire from Dunaalmás.
After the Austrian victory at Győr on 28 June, Haynau gave the order to move toward Komárom. I Corps moved toward Lovad and Ács, IV Corps toward Nagyigmánd, III Corps toward Csép and Kisbér, the Bechtold cavalry division toward Bábolna, and the Russian Panyutyin decision toward Bana two days later.
Battlefield
Fortifications
Komárom and its surroundings were strategically important. It was a favourable crossing point of the Danube and the Vág, which could be easily defended since Komárom's fort system was a modern, important Habsburg Monarchy stronghold. The most important elements of the Komárom fort system were the Old and the New Castles on the east edges of Csallóköz (on the Danube); temporary defensive elements primarily occupied the future battlefield, with only the Star Trench (Csillagsánc) a stone bridgehead fort.