The Battle of Pressburg (German: Schlacht von Pressburg), or Battle of Pozsony (Hungarian: Pozsonyi csata), or Battle of Bratislava (Slovak: bitka pri Bratislave) was a three-day-long battle fought between 4 and 6 July 907, during which the East Francian army, consisting mainly of Bavarian troops led by Margrave Luitpold, was annihilated by Hungarian forces.
The exact location of the battle is not known. Contemporary sources say it took place at "Brezalauspurc", but where exactly Brezalauspurc was remains unclear. Some specialists place it in the vicinity of Zalavár (Mosapurc); others in a location close to Bratislava (Pressburg), the traditional assumption.
An important result of the Battle of Pressburg was that the Kingdom of East Francia could not regain control over the Carolingian March of Pannonia, including the territory of the later Marchia Orientalis (March of Austria), which was lost in 900.
The most significant result of the Battle of Pressburg is that the Hungarians secured the lands they gained during the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, prevented a German invasion that jeopardized their future, and established the Kingdom of Hungary. This battle is considered one of the most significant battles in the history of Hungary and marks the conclusion of the Hungarian conquest.
Background
In 900, the advisors to the new king of East Francia, Louis the Child, led by his regent, Hatto I, Archbishop of Mainz, refused to renew the East Francian (German)–Hungarian alliance, which ended upon the death of Arnulf of Carinthia, the prior king. Consequently, in 900, the Hungarians took over Pannonia (Transdanubia) from the Duchy of Bavaria, then a part of East Francia. This started a war between the Hungarians and Germans that lasted until 910. Prior to the Battle of Pressburg (Brezalauspurc), most fighting was between the Hungarians and the Bavarians, with the exception of the Hungarian campaign in Saxony in 906.
After losing Pannonia, Luitpold, the Margrave of Bavaria, allied with Bavaria's former enemy, Mojmir II of Moravia. In 902, the Hungarian armies, probably led by Kurszán, defeated Great Moravia and occupied its eastern area, followed by Hungarian suzerainty over the rest of Moravia and Dalamancia (territory in the surroundings of Meissen). This interrupted Bavaria's trade routes to Northern and Eastern Europe. This was an economic blow and was one of the reasons that caused Luitpold to believe a campaign against the Hungarians was necessary. He also could not reconcile the loss of Bavarian control over Pannonia, Moravia, and Bohemia.
Several events strengthened Luitpold's resolve to start a campaign against the Hungarians. During the last Hungarian attacks against Bavaria, Luitpold's forces defeated some of their units in minor battles, including Laibach (901) and Fischa River (903). In 904, the Bavarians assassinated Kurszán after feigning a desire for a peace treaty, which they invited him to negotiate. After these setbacks, for a time, the Hungarians did not attack Bavaria. These events and the belief that the Hungarians were afraid of his forces convinced Luitpold that the time was right to expel the Hungarians from the territories formerly belonging to Bavaria.
Commanders of the armies
The nominal leader of the Bavarian army was Louis the Child, the King of East Francia. Since he was under the age of majority, the actual commander was Luitpold. An experienced military leader, Luitpold successfully fought the Moravians and achieved some military success against raiding Hungarian units, but lost the March of Pannonia to them.
Many historians believe the commander of the Hungarian forces was Árpád, Grand Prince of the Hungarians, but there is no proof of this. It is more likely they were led by the same unknown but brilliant commander who led them during the battles of Brenta, Eisenach, Rednitz, and Augsburg. These battles, part of the Hungarian invasions of Europe, were their greatest triumphs, and they inflicted the heaviest losses on enemy forces, including, in most cases, the enemy commander. This conclusion is supported by an analysis of these battles using existing sources. In these cases, the following principles of warfare were used with great success:
- Psychological warfare, for example, involves terrorizing and demoralizing the enemy with constant attacks, inflating the enemy's confidence and lowering his vigilance with deceptive maneuvers or false negotiations, then striking and destroying him by surprise attack (Battle of Brenta, Battle of Augsburg in 910, Battle of Rednitz);
- Feigned retreat (Battle of Brenta, Battle of Augsburg in 910)
- Effective use of military intelligence, preventing surprise attacks and attacking before the German forces could combine (Battle of Augsburg in 910);
- Rapid deployment and movement of units, surprising enemy troops (Battle of Augsburg in 910)
- Covertly crossing geographical obstacles thought by the enemy to be impassable, then attacking unexpectedly (the Danube in 907, the River Brenta in 899, the Adriatic Sea to reach Venice in 900);
- Using nomadic battlefield tactics such as feigned retreat, swarming, hiding troops on the battlefield, and ambushing the enemy emphasis on surprise attacks; dispersing units and then concentrating them at vital points; fluid, ever-changing battle formations; exploiting the superior mobility of cavalry; the predominance of horse archers;
- Extraordinary patience to wait days or even weeks for the right moment to engage the enemy and win the battle (Battle of Brenta, Battle of Augsburg in 910);
- Maintain superlative discipline among one's own troops in respecting and perfectly executing orders;
- Targeting and killing the enemy commander (Pressburg, Eisenach, Augsburg, Rednitz.) This was a tactic also used by the Mongols, weakening the enemy by "cutting his head off", and was also psychologically effective in causing surviving enemy leaders to be afraid of fighting them again.
While the Hungarians won many battles against European forces after 910 (915: Eresburg; 919: Püchen, somewhere in Lombardy; 921: Brescia; 926: somewhere in Alsace; 934: W.l.n.d.r.; 937: Orléans; 940: Rome; 949), they killed the enemy commander in only one battle, the Battle of Orléans (937), where Ebbon of Châteauroux was wounded and died after the battle. Despite this feat, some historians claim the Hungarians lost this battle. After 933, it became clear that the Hungarians no longer had a great, unnamed commander. They made serious mistakes, which resulted in defeats, such as the Battle of Riade, when the Hungarians did not learn of Henry the Fowler's military reforms, only finding out in the course of the battle, which was too late. Another example that shows how the previous leadership was lacking is the Battle of Lechfeld (955). The Hungarian commanders, Bulcsú and Lél, did not maintain discipline and order. Thinking they had won the battle, soldiers plundered the German army's supply caravan without noticing the counter-attack led by Duke Conrad, showing that Bulcsú and Lél catastrophically misjudged the course of the battle. After the successful counterattack resulted in their defeat, the commanders could not prevent their troops from fleeing and dispersing. The German troops and inhabitants captured the fleeing Hungarian troops and executed them by hanging them in Regensburg. These defeats were caused by the loss of military discipline and the Hungarian commanders' lack of authority and competence. The commanders resorted to draconian measures to motivate the soldiers to fight; for example, during the Siege of Augsburg in 955, the Hungarian warriors were driven to attack the walls with scourges.
Prelude
In 907, Luitpold called for the creation of a large Bavarian-German army (Heerbann) from all over Bavaria, which concentrated around Ennsburg. He hoped to score a decisive victory against the Hungarians, who had formed an important principality in the Pannonian Basin. Based on Aventinus' chronicle, the Bavarian political, military, and clergy gathered on June 15, 907, at Ennsburg to plan the campaign, concluding that "the Hungarians must to be eliminated from Bavaria". At this time, Bavaria included Pannonia, Ostmark, east from the river Enns, and probably the old lands of the Great Moravia (now the western part of Slovakia). According to some historians, Bavaria possibly included the area between the Danube and the Tisza rivers, territories that belonged to or depended on Bavaria prior to the Hungarian conquest in 900, meaning the Western region of the Pannonian Basin. This shows the crucial importance of this campaign for the Hungarians.
Louis the Child and his advisers hoped that the campaign would be a repeat of Charlemagne's success against the Avars in 803, in which the Frankish Empire gained control over the western parts of the Avar Khaganate. The de facto commander, Margrave Luitpold, let him accompany them as far as the St. Florian Monastery, located between the rivers Enns and Traun, on the border between Bavaria and the Principality of Hungary. The king remained at the monastery during the campaign, showing confidence in a victory over the Hungarians.
Contemporary German sources state the Bavarian leaders had great conceit and presumption, probably due to killing Kurszán in 904 and their minor victories. The Hungarians likely used this to their advantage. For example, they might have fueled this overconfidence by deceiving the Bavarians into believing they were in an unfavorable situation and therefore believing the time was right to remove the Hungarians. While there is no hard evidence of this, it is consistent with their known use of this tactic in other battles from the same period, notably in the Battle of Brenta. This is also evidenced by how the German army, in addition to political and military leaders (Prince Sieghard, a number of counts; among them were Meginward, Adalbert, Hatto, Ratold, and Isangrim), brought some of the most influential clergy members from East Francia (Dietmar I, Archbishop of Salzburg, the Chancellor of the Realm; Zacharias, Bishop of Säben-Brixen; and Utto, Bishop of Freising), along with a large number of priests. The Germans must have had such confidence in a complete victory over the Hungarians, followed by their total subjugation, that they thought it would be a simple matter to restore Christianity and the churches, cathedrals, and abbeys the Hungarians destroyed in 900.
That is also proof of the misleading psychological warfare by the Hungarians. Some historians, based on Gesta Hungarorum written by Anonymus, say that the Bavarian attack was caused by the supposed death of Árpád, the Grand Prince of the Hungarians, because the Germans thought that the death of the leader would weaken the Hungarians' capability to fight, but others say that there is no solid evidence that Árpád had died in 907, because all the dates about the period of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, given by Anonymus, are wrong, as historian Gyula Kristó argued. According to historian György Szabados, Árpád might have died in 907 either before or after the battle. However, it is certain that he did not die during the battle because his duties as sacred grand prince, Kende, were only spiritual, preventing him from participating in military or political actions. Anonymus writes that Zoltán, his youngest son, succeeded Árpád as Grand Prince in 907, allowing assumptions that Árpád and his three eldest sons, Tarkacsu, Jelek (or Üllő), and Jutocsa, were killed in the Battle of Pressburg. However, this view is not supported by historiography.