The Battle of Pered, fought on 20–21 June 1849, was one of the battles which took place in the Summer Campaign of the Hungarian War of Independence from 1848 to 1849, fought between the Hungarian Revolutionary Army and the Habsburg Empire helped by Russian troops. The Hungarian army was led by General Artúr Görgei, while the imperial army was led by Lieutenant field marshal Julius Jacob von Haynau. After several preliminary minor battles of the Hungarian and Austrian troops along the Vág river, in which the attacking Hungarians could not achieve success, Görgei took the command of his troops, and after receiving reinforcements, on 20 June, put his troops to attack again towards West. Although the II. Hungarian army corps occupied in heavy fights the village of Pered, the other two corps (the III. and the VIII.) were unsuccessful, and could not advance. The angered Görgei removed the commander of the III. corps, General Károly Knezić because of his inactivity, and Colonel Lajos Asbóth, the commander of the II corps who, in contrast to Knezić, was the only commander who accomplished his duties. While Knezić's place was taken by Colonel Károly Leiningen-Westerburg, who was a great choice, Asbóth's place was taken by Colonel József Kászonyi, who was an explicitly bad choice. Haynau, who on the first day of the battle was moving the bulk of his troops to cross the Danube to start an attack on its southern bank, sent three of his corps, which were still on the northern bank, to repel the Hungarian forces. The two Austrian (II, IV) and one Russian (Fedor Panyutin's) corps started their attack on 21 June and forced the Hungarians to retreat from Pered and Zsigárd, which forced Görgei to order his troops to retreat from the battlefield.
Background
Thanks to the victories of the Spring Campaign, the Hungarian Revolutionary Army liberated much of Hungary from the occupation of the numerically and technologically superior Habsburg armies and their Serbian, Romanian, and Croatian allies. The Hungarian army of Transylvania, led by Lieutenant General Józef Bem even managed to chase out from the province the first Russian intervention troops (7000 soldiers), which entered there in the winter of 1849. From the end of March the Austrian politicians and military leaders understood that the Habsburg Empire is incapable of crushing their revolution by relying on their strength. So, based on the Münchengrätz Agreements from 1833, according to which the Habsburg and Russian Empires and Prussia agreed to help each other if their sovereignty is threatened by a revolt or revolution, Austria decided to ask for Russian help against the Hungarian Revolution, although initially, they were reluctant to do that, because they were conscious that this will cause them a big loss of prestige. But the Hungarian victories of the Spring Campaign made the Habsburg government make this unwanted step, and on 21 April, they made the official help request from Russia, followed by the letter of the emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. In result the Tsar decided to send 200,000 Russian soldiers to Hungary, putting another 80,000 in reserve, to enter Hungary if their presence would be needed. Although the Hungarian Government led by Bertalan Szemere and Governor President Lajos Kossuth believed that the European nations would not allow Russia to intervene in Hungary, the European states and England agreed with Russian intervention to crush the Hungarian revolution, thus
Lord Palmerston replied to the question of the Russian ambassador about the reaction of England to Russian intervention in Hungary, saying: Finish them quickly!, demanding that after they fulfilled their task to return in Russia immediately. Although England worried about Russian intervention in Hungary, its first concern was that the Russian Empire to not advance in the Balkans, and an important condition for this was a strong Habsburg Empire. So, an independent Hungary could have impeded England's world domination policy.
Meanwhile, after the capture of Buda General György Klapka, as the deputy minister of war, elaborated the plan for the Hungarian military actions for summer, called later the Summer Campaign. His plan was based on the inactivity of the main Hungarian army corps, stationed around the fortress of Komárom, in the case of a retreat, appointed as the concentration point of the Hungarian troops in the Hungarian capitals (Buda and Pest) and Miskolc, which were facing the main imperial forces under the command of Lieutenant Field Marshal Julius Jacob von Haynau, while the Hungarian troops from Transylvania and Southern Hungary had to accomplish so heavy tasks that could be achieved only after relentless military actions in two months. In the plan made by Klapka, the Russian military intervention was only faintly mentioned without taking any measure against it. This plan was rejected by many of the Hungarian commanders (Józef Bem, Lieutenant General Henryk Dembiński), who said that they would not obey it. The Hungarian commander-in-chief and War Minister General Artúr Görgei also protested against this plan, underlining that as the concentration point of the Hungarian troops instead of Miskolc, Komárom should be appointed, and because of the imminent threat of the Russian intervention, he saw that the only way still open to the Hungarian army was to deal a decisive blow to the main imperial army before the slowly moving Russian forces arrived. This would have forced Austria to enter talks, and offer some kind of settlement with the Hungarians.
Görgei planned to attack towards Pozsony and Vienna quickly before the main Russian army started its attack on the Eastern and Northern fronts against Hungary. To this end, he and his chief of the general staff, Lieutenant-Colonel József Bayer, created at end of May the Central Operational Bureau (Központi Hadműveleti Iroda), to coordinate the movements of the different units of the Hungarian main army corps gathered in the Western Front. Besides the troops which the Central Operational Bureau disposed of (I., II., III. and parts of the VIII. corps), on the Western Front was another army grouping to which the VII. corps from the Rába line, led by Ernő Poeltenberg (from 6 May Colonel and from 7 June General), and the garrison of Komárom (the VIII. corps) belonged, and this was led by Major General György Klapka, commander of the garrison of Komárom. Klapka refused to submit to the orders of the chief of the general staff József Bayer, acting independently.
Görgei planned to attack as quickly as possible the Austrian troops on the Western Border of Hungary with the I., II., III., and parts of the VIII. corps, which were under the Central Operational Bureau's command, on the left Bank of the Danube, while the remainder of his troops had to protect the defensive line based on the Rába and Marcal rivers. Before the attack, he hoped that the 12,000 soldiers led by Józef Bem, coming from the southern front and Transylvania, promised by Kossuth to arrive to join his forces (unfortunately, Bem refused to come, saying that this will leave Transylvania defenseless against the imminent Russian invasion). The Hungarian armies at the beginning of the Summer Campaign consisted of 150,000 soldiers, 464 field, and 393 defensive (castle) cannons.
Another problem of the Hungarian army was that many of the talented, experienced Hungarian generals, who helped decisively the success of the Spring Campaign, were no more available (János Damjanich, who broke his leg; Lajos Aulich who became ill; András Gáspár) who resigned from the Hungarian army because of political reasons) and General Görgei was forced to put in their place other officers who were talented soldiers, but were not experienced as army corps leaders, many of them lacking capacity of acting independently when it needed and they had no order to do so, but the military situation required this. So, Görgei put General Károly Knezić in Damjanich's place to lead III. corps, Colonel Lajos Asbóth in Aulich's place to lead II. corps, General Ernő Poeltenberg in Gáspár's place. General György Klapka who formerly was the commander of the I. corps, but who became temporary main commander of the main Hungarian army, called Hungarian Army of the Upper Danube (Feldunai Hadsereg), taking the place of Görgei, who became War Minister, had to give his position at the head of his corps to General József Nagysándor. These new corps commanders lacked the former generals' talent, intuition and experience. Görgei himself, because of now being War Minister, had to fulfill these two heavy tasks (ministry and high commandment of the army), could not focus in the same way on the military actions as he did in the Spring Campaign.
At the start of the Summer Campaign, the Hungarian army had the same problem as the imperial main armies had at the beginning of the Spring Campaign: its commanders did not have much knowledge about the enemy's distribution and where their main forces were stationed. The Hungarian intelligence failed to accomplish this important task. The support from the southern front (around 12 000 men) did not arrive, despite Görgei's hopes, because with the arrival there of Feldzeugmeister Josip Jelačić's troops, in support to the Serbian rebels and Austrian troops stationed there, the military situation changed there in the favor of the imperials, so all the Hungarian troops were needed there.
On the other hand, the Austro-Russian coalition prepared to attack Hungary with 358,000 soldiers and 1354 cannons (165,000 Austrians with 770 cannons and 193,000 Russians with 584 cannons). While Russian and Austrian army groups, led by General Alexander von Lüders and General Eduard Clam-Gallas, prepared their attacks Transylvania from Bucovina, Wallachia and Moldavia, (53,000 soldiers and 133 cannons against 39,000 Hungarians, who were mainly fresh recruits without any war experience, and 107 cannons), the main Russian army under the leadership of Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich had to advance from the North (135,000 Russian soldiers and 448 cannons against 16,500 Hungarians with 49 cannons), the Austro-Croatian-Serbian troops led by Feldzeugmeister Josip Jelačić operated in Southern Hungary (53,000 soldiers with 401 cannons against 34,000 Hungarians and 249 cannons). The numerical disadvantage of the Hungarian armies was augmented also that 13% of the Hungarian troops in Transylvania and Eastern Hungary were used in the sieges of different fortifications in imperial hands (Arad, Temesvár, Gyulafehérvár, Titel) (around 12,000 men), while others (8000 men) were garrisons in different fortifications, so they could not be used as moving forces against the invading Austro-Russian armies.
From the West, the imperial troops which were preparing to attack Hungary were led by Lieutenant Field Marshal Haynau, the commander-in-chief
of all the Habsburg forces outside Italy, were about 83,000 soldiers (71,000 Austrians and a 12,000-strong Russian army corps led by Lieutenant General Feodor Sergeyevich Panyutyin) and 336 cannons, against nearly 51,000 Hungarian soldiers (except a part of the garrison of the fortress of Komárom, the VIII. corps, which could not be moved out from the fortress to fight in open field) with 196 field and 244 defensive cannons used only in the fortifications, led by General Görgei. This assured Haynau a huge superiority.
Görgei's troops were positioned along the river Vág downwards to Komárom, and south of the Danube along the Rába's Eastern bank until Marcaltő. The mining towns (Bakabánya, Besztercebánya, Bélabánya, Körmöcbánya, Libetbánya, Selmecbánya, Újbánya) were protected by a detachment of 2700 soldiers led by Ármin Görgei, to South to this, around Mocsonok, Ürmény and Komjáti were 1300 soldiers at Nyitra, to south the I. corps led by General József Nagysándor consisting of 7400 men, from here until Érsekújvár on the course of the Vág the 9200 soldiers of the III. Corps led by General Károly Knezić were positioned, south of this until Komárom stationed the 8600 men of the II. corps led by Colonel Lajos Asbóth, in Csallóköz stood the 4000 men strong division of the VIII. corps which were defending Komárom under General György Klapka (later another 3400 soldiers left the fortress to support the field army's operations). These 4000 soldiers from Csallóköz assured contact between the troops to North and South from the Danube. South to the Danube, around Győr was the 9000 soldiers of the VII. corps under General Ernő Poeltenberg, and finally the Hungarian line's southernmost unit was the Kmety division consisting of 5100 men. The concentration, in the opportunity of a battle of these troops was impossible, because of the great length of the front, consisting in total 250 kilometers.