The Battle of Nagysalló, fought on 19 April 1849, was one of the battles between the Habsburg Empire and the Hungarian Revolutionary Army during the Spring Campaign in the Hungarian War of Independence from 1848 to 1849, fought between the Habsburg Empire and the Hungarian Revolutionary Army. Until 1918 Nagysalló was part of the Kingdom of Hungary; nowadays it is a village in Slovakia, its Slovakian name being Tekovské Lužany. This was the second battle in the second phase of the campaign, whose aim was to break the imperial siege of the fortress of Komárom and at the same time encircle the Habsburg imperial forces headquartered in the Hungarian capitals of Buda and Pest. The Hungarians routed the imperial corps led by Lieutenant General Ludwig von Wohlgemuth, which had come from the Habsburg Hereditary Lands (Vienna, Styria, Bohemia, Moravia), to help the imperial army sent to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and independence.
Background
After the Battle of Vác the Hungarian army continued its advance in accordance with the plan for the second phase of the Spring Campaign as developed on 7 April. According to this plan the Hungarian army was to split: General Lajos Aulich with the Hungarian II Corps, and Colonel Lajos Asbóth's division remained demonstrating in front of Pest to make the imperials believe the whole Hungarian army was there; this would divert the Imperials' attention from the north, where the real Hungarian attack was to start with I, III and VII Corps moving west along the northern bank of the Danube via Komárom, to relieve it from the imperial siege. Kmety's division of VII Corps was to cover the three corps' march. After I and III corps had occupied Vác, Kmety was then to secure the town while they and the two remaining divisions of VII Corps were to advance to the Garam river, then head south to relieve the northern section of the Austrian siege of the fortress of Komárom. After this, they were to cross the Danube and relieve the southern section of the siege. In the event that all of this was successfully completed, the imperials had only two choices: to retreat from Middle Hungary towards Vienna, or to face encirclement in Pest and Buda by the Hungarians. This plan was very risky (as was the first phase of the Spring Campaign too) because if Windisch-Grätz discovered that there was only one Hungarian corps left in front of Pest, he could attack and destroy Aulich's troops, thus easily cutting the main Hungarian army's lines of communication, and even occupy Debrecen, the seat of the Hungarian Revolutionary Parliament and the National Defense Committee (the interim government of Hungary), or alternatively he could encircle the three corps advancing to relieve Komárom.
Although the president of the National Defense Committee (interim government of Hungary), Lajos Kossuth, who went to the Hungarian headquarters at Gödöllő after the battle of Isaszeg, wanted a direct attack on Pest, he was finally convinced by the Hungarian commander-in-chief, Artúr Görgei that his and the other generals' plan was better. To help to ensure the Hungarian army's success, the National Defense Committee sent 100 wagonloads of munitions from Debrecen. In the Battle of Vác on 10 April the Hungarian III Corps under General János Damjanich defeated Ramberg's division led by Major General Christian Götz, who was mortally wounded. Even after this battle, the imperial high command under Field Marshal Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz was unsure whether the main Hungarian army was in front of Pest or had already moved north to relieve Komárom. They still believed it was possible that only a secondary force had attacked Vác and moved towards the besieged Hungarian fortress. When Windisch-Grätz finally seemed to grasp what was really happening, he wanted to make a powerful attack against the Hungarians outside Pest on 14 April, then to cross the Danube at Esztergom and cut off the force which was marching towards Komárom. However, his corps commanders, General Franz Schlik and lieutenant field marshal Josip Jelačić refused to obey his orders, so his plan which could have caused serious problems for the Hungarian armies was never realized.
Meanwhile, the Austrian high commandment from Vienna understood that the Austrian army was incapable to stop the Hungarians, so they decided to send more troops from the Austrian Hereditary Provinces to Hungary. First, they assembled from the available imperial troops from Vienna, Styria, Bohemia, and Moravia three brigades (the Herzinger, Teuchert, and Theissing brigades), added to them the Perin and the Veigl (formerly Lobkowitz) brigades, detached from the Balthasar von Simunich's siege corps of Komárom, and the Jablonowski (former Ramberg) division which fought in the Battle of Vác from 10 April, and organized them in a new corps, called the Reserve Corps, and put it under the leadership of Lieutenant General Ludwig von Wohlgemuth, who distinguished himself earlier on the Italian front. Wohlhemuth received the order to stop the Hungarian army's westward advance to Komárom. Other Austrian troops too were sent to Hungary. The so-called Galician corps, under the leadership of Lieutenant General Anton Vogel, and consisting of 11 infantry battalions, 8 cavalry companies, and 24 cannons, was sent on 8 April from Galicia in Northern Hungary, in order to stop the Hungarian troops' advance there.
The numerical reinforcement of the Austrian troops was seen by Vienna as not enough to remediate the deteriorating situation in Hungary, so they decided to change also the leader of the army. Windisch-Grätz, because of his series of defeats against the Hungarian troops, lost the trust of the Austrian high commandment, and on 12 April he was relieved of his command by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. He was replaced by Feldzeugmeister Ludwig von Welden, the former military governor of Vienna, but until Welden arrived, Windisch-Grätz had to hand over to Lieutenant Field Marshal Josip Jelačić as interim commander-in-chief of the imperial armies in Hungary. But this change at the head of the imperial forces brought neither lucidity nor organization to the imperial high command, because the first thing Jelačić did at the start of his appointment was to call off Windisch-Grätz's plan of concentrating the imperial armies around Esztergom, without giving this not unpromising plan a chance.
Görgey, who had installed his headquarters at Vác after the battle from 10 April, ordered Damjanich's III Corps to advance towards Léva on 11 April and Klapka's I Corps to do so on the 12th. Their place in Vác was taken by VII Corps under András Gáspár, then after that followed them, Vác was occupied by Kmety's division.
Prelude
Wohlgemuth and his three brigades neared the Vág and Garam rivers, being joined by a brigade from Lieutenant General Balthasar Simunich's division and the Jablonowski division defeated at Vác some days earlier. Welden was sure, that this Austrian army corps, now containing around 20 000 men, would stop the Hungarian advancement. Welden and Wohlgemuth met in Pozsony on 16 April, in which the new high commander ordered the latter to defend the roads leading from Léva to Komárom, instead of taking an offensive stance and attack them when they tried to cross the Garam river. On 17 April Welden ordered Jelačić to march towards Vác and link up with Wohlgemuth, but the Croatian ban was reluctant to obey, only agreeing to move on 20 April (a day after the battle of Nagysalló actually took place).
Meanwhile, on 15–17 April the Hungarian army consisting of I and III Corps and two divisions of VII Corps arrived at the Garam, under Görgei's overall command. He sent a detachment of 2,300 soldiers and 10 guns north under the command of his older brother Ármin Görgei to occupy the so-called Mining Towns (including Selmecbánya, Körmöcbánya, Besztercebánya), and to cover against an attack from the north. Görgei also ordered the three corps to build bridges across the Garam in three separate places. Because I Corps's bridge was finished quickly, while work on the other two was progressing very slowly, on the 18th Görgei ordered that III Corps should also cross on the I Corps bridge at Nagykálna, leaving only VII Corps on the east bank trying to finish its bridge at Zsemlér. Then I and III Corps advanced southwest. The I. corps marched to Garamlök and Alsópél, the III. corps to Derezslény, sending a detachment to Veszele, to cover the VII. corps' bridge-building at Zsemlér. On the same day the Dessewffy's division from the right wing of the Hungarian army, was sent, through Alsópél, to Nagysalló, with the order to wait there for the bulk of the army which had to advance towards Jászfalu; while 2 divisions of the VII. had to reach Zselíz on 19 April, a hussar detachment being sent, through Verebély, to raid towards Nyitra. Görgei installed the headquarters at Léva, and there will he remain during the battle of Nagysalló, without directly intervening in the military actions.
Wolgemuth's Austrians were positioned as follows: Veigl's brigade at Bese, Herzinger's at Cseke, Strastil's and Dreyhann's brigades of Jablonowski's division together with Theissing's brigade at Nagymálas, and Perin's at Köbölkút. In a letter to the high command written at midnight on 16 April he reported the Hungarians' strength as 24,000 men with 48 guns, among them a 12-pounder battery, and that their purpose was to advance towards Komárom. This shows that his reconnaissance had been quite good, giving him fairly accurate knowledge of their strength and intentions. In the same letter he wrote that he hoped they would be slow to cross the river, as he wanted to confront them before they reached Nyitra. Welden replied that he should attack the Hungarians, thinking that this would boost the imperial soldiers' morale and demoralize the Hungarians. Welden had also heard about the possibility of intervention by the Russian Empire on behalf of the Habsburg Empire to crush the Hungarian War of Independence, and that some of the czar's troops had already entered the Habsburg province of Galicia, in case the Austrian situation became hopeless. But Welden did not want the Austrians to suffer the shame that they could only defeat the Hungarians with Russian help: What we can achieve with our own power is more than the brightest result which we can achieve with foreign help. This was also one of the reasons he was urging Wohlgemuth to do battle with the Hungarians.
Despite having good information about the Hungarians number, Wohlgemuth did not know enough about the progress of the bridge-building and their intentions, he knew that the Hungarians haven't finished yet the bridge, and thought that it will require some time until the bulk will finish the crossing of the Garam, and their units from the right bank and around NAgysalló are only minor foraging detachments. In this belief gave Wohlgemuth the order on 19 April at 5:30 a.m to the Strasdil brigade to occupy Nagysalló.
Opposing forces
The Austrian army
Reserve Corps
- Herzinger brigade: 3. battalion of the Baugartner regiment, 1. Landwehr battalion of the Khewenhüller regiment, 4. Ogulin battalion, 2 companies of the Wrbna chevau-léger regiment, the 18. six-pounder battery;
- Teuchert brigade: 1. battalion of the Mazzuchelli regiment, 2. battalion of the Mazzuchelli regiment, 1 battalion of the Hora grenadiers, 2 companies of Emperor Ferdinand cuirassier regiment, the 20. six-pounder battery;
- Theissing brigade: 4. Otočac battalion, 1. Landwehr battalion of the Archduke Stefan regiment, 2. battalion of Archduke Ferdinand d'Este regiment, 2 companies of the Civalart uhlan regiment, the 19. six-pounder battery;
Jablonowski (formerly Ramberg) division:
- Strasdil (formerly Götz) infantry brigade: 3. battalion of the 63. Bianchi infantry regiment, 1. battalion of the 36. Palombini infantry regiment, 12. kaiserjäger battalion, 2 1/2 companies of the 3. Archduke Karl Ludwig uhlan regiment, 1/2 cavalry battery, 1 1/2 Congreve rocket battery, 1 twelve-pounder infantry battery;
- Dreyhann (formerly Jablonowski) infantry brigade: 1. battalion of the 15. Adolf Duke of Nassau infantry regiment, 2 battalion of the 15. Adolf Duke of Nassau infantry regiment, 3. battalion of the 15. Adolf Duke of Nassau infantry regiment, 4. (Landwehr) battalion of the 15. Adolf Duke of Nassau infantry regiment, 2 companies of the 6. Wrbna chevau-léger regiment, 2 companies of the 1. Archduke John dragoon regiment, 1 company of the 7. Kress chevau-léger regiment, 1 sapper company, 1 six-pounder battery, 1 1/2 Congreve rocket battery, 1 twelve-pounder infantry battery.
In total: 115 infantry companies, 15 cavalry companies, 58 cannons and Congreve rockets.
The Hungarian army
I. Corps
1. Dessewffy division: