The Surrender at Ozora, was an important event of the early stage of the Hungarian War of independence of 1848-1849. The 9,000 strong Croatian corps which invaded the Transdanubia region of Hungary, trying to join the Croatian main army led by Lieutenant General Josip Jelačić, which was sent by the Habsburg Empire to chase away the revolutionary government of Hungary, and reimpose the total imperial sovereignty over the country, was forced to surrender by Hungarian regular and insurrectionist forces led by Major Artúr Görgei and Colonel Mór Perczel. Thanks to this the Croatian invasion and the Habsburg plans against Hungary suffered a total defeat.
Background
On 11 September 1848, the Croatian troops sent by the Habsburg Empire to depose the Hungarian revolutionary government led by Lajos Batthyány, crossed the Dráva river. Ten days after the Croatian main army led by Lieutenant General Josip Jelačić crossed at Légrád, another large force led by Karl Roth crossed the river to march eastwards across the Danube towards Pest-Buda. Jelačić initially planned the campaign to join his army with Roth's corps somewhere in the region of Székesfehérvár before reaching the capital, but the favorable start of the campaign, such as: the retreat of the hugely outnumbered Hungarians and the mass desertion of the officers, as well as the changing sides of many military units from the Hungarian to the Croatian side, gave him enough confidence to overconfidently engage in battle with the Hungarian troops led by Lieutenant-General János Móga before the corps of Roth arrived, which ended in the Croatian defeat in the Battle of Pákozd on 29 September. Jelačić, after this defeat, simply abandoned the approaching to his aid reinforcements, and retreated towards Vienna, while Major-General Karl Roth and Nicolaus Philippovich von Philippsberg pushed on northwards, unsuspecting what had happened. The Hungarian general staff, expecting the arrival of the new army corps, even tried to reduce the generals' suspicion, by blocking the routes to the south, and thus also blocking information about the battle of Pákozd to reach them.
After the defeat of Jelačić, the National Defence Commission (the temporary de facto Hungarian government led by Lajos Kossuth), which took office on 2 October and replaced the Batthyány government, saw an opportunity to try forcing the Croatian column to surrender.
Prelude
As seen above, on 21 September, Major General Karl Roth's Slavonian division of about 9,000 men, made up of border guards and poorly equipped Seressaners, entered Hungary at Drávasztára, with the purpose to march through the counties of Baranya and Tolna to join Jelačić's army. However, the march of the Croatian troops was not met with a happy, submissive, or cooperative population, but with active resistance, which caused increasing losses for the Croats. Already after the Croatian invasion, Prime Minister Lajos Batthyány wrote a letter to the főispáns and government commissioners of the Transdanubian counties asking them to hinder the enemy at all costs, to obstruct him, to prevent him from getting food, to encourage the population so that the enemy could not advance finding no help in the Hungarian homeland, in order to make his advance impossible.
The call did not fell on deaf ears. The popular uprising against the Croatian invaders, which followed had a decisive influence on the course of events.
The Hungarian main force's southern flank was covered by a small detachment. The commander of this detachment was the Honvéd Major Artúr Görgei. Görgei was in command of Csepel Island from 24 September. His task was to prevent Jelačić's possible crossing to the right bank of the Danube, and also to prevent the Roth reserve column from joining up with Jelačić's main force. Görgei gathered his entire army at Adony on the right bank of the Danube and from there he led it to the Sárvíz Canal, towards Soponya, where he set up two outpost lines, one facing north towards Székesfehérvár, the other facing south towards the direction of Roth's advance. Its force of about 3,000 infantry volunteers, two companies of hussars, and 12 guns was insufficient to disrupt the operations of any enemy column, but by isolating them from each other it could do the Hungarian main force a great service. But Görgei was not only the commander of this force. On 25 September, Batthyány placed under his command the National Guard of the Danube Region, and on 26 September also the forces of the popular uprising.
On 29 September, at one of the northern outposts sat by Görgei, Jelačić's emissary, Count Ödön Zichy, the former administrator of Fejér County, who had already disgraced himself in this quality by his dubious conduct and cruelties, was captured and detained. Görgei brought Zichy before the court, which sentenced the Count to death by hanging, on the basis of the documents found in his possession, which were from Jelačić, addressed to General Roth, and other suspicious contents, as an accomplice of the enemies of Hungary and as a spreader of illegal manifests against the Hungarian nation and its freedom. Zichy was hanged the next day on 30 September in Lórév. This uncompromising, ruthless act of Görgei caused a great stir throughout the country, and from this time onwards the reputation and popularity of the heavy-handed Honvéd major of the army rose day by day, and Kossuth also took notice of him.
Meanwhile, Görgei received reinforcements. On 3 October, Lieutenant-General Móga sent the Zrínyi Militia to his support, whose leader, Colonel Mór Perczel, was named main commander of the operations against Roth. The roads and bridges leading into Tolna County were blocked from the south by the national guards of Major Vilmos Csapó. On 4 October, Perczel, in order to cut off the advance of Roth, who was approaching Székesfehérvár, marched from Adony to Seregélyes with the Zrínyi, Hunyadi and Szabolcs rookie battalions, the Kecskemét and Kunság National Guards and some Hussars, a total of about 3000 infantry, 200 cavalry and 8 cannons. Another mass of the insurgents with 2 companies of the Hunyadi irregulars was directed to Aba via Sárosd as a left column.
In the meantime, Roth's division occupied unopposed Pécs on 23 September and left it on 25 September. But after that, the raids and actions in Baranya county constantly disrupted and delayed its movements. On 28 September, the National Guards of Baranya led by Major Gyula Perczel intercepted and captured his ammunition convoy at Oroszló. On the same day, Roth's troops entered Tolna County and moved north along the Dombóvár - Döbrököz - Pincehely line. On 30 September the vanguard was already stationed in Dég, and the next day the main column reached Ozora's vicinity. On the same day national guardsmen and popular insurrectionists from the area disarmed the guardians of Roth's arriving baggage wagons and took the wagons away. Soon the other half of the baggage and the convoy with the wounded soldiers arrived. The locals then attacked and captured this transport as well, beating the guards and wounded soldiers to death. On hearing this, Roth turned back to seek revenge. He demanded twenty-four oxen, six thousand sheep, three hundred gallons of wine and two thousand forints indemnity from the inhabitants of Pincehely. Then he commanded the bridge over the Kapos river to be dismantled, then ordered the cannonade and the burning of the village. According to the descriptions, he was terribly cruel. Because of this, he reached Székesfehérvár - the town whose inhabitants had disarmed the Croatian garrison the previous day - only in the morning of 4 October.
When Jelačić marched from Székesfehérvár to Győr, he left about 1500 regular border guards in the aforementioned city to guard those soldiers who were wounded in the battle of Pákozd, and a large number of food supplies of his army until Roth arrived. Early in the morning of October 3, the citizens of the town, who were previously disarmed by the Croatians, armed with household and economic tools, surprisingly attacked the detachment guarding the warehouses, then, led by Captain Peterdi, stormed the 750-strong troop camped outside the town, and finally the Croatian detachment that was plundering the area, the latter being disarmed and sent to the capital. The people of Székesfehérvár thus recovered not only their hunting weapons but also a lot of spoils of war, including 1,500 bayonet rifles, a whole pile of pistols and scimitars, 2,500 hundredweight of flour, 600 measures of oats and nearly 60,000 cartridges.
Roth reached Ozora on 2 October and Káloz on 3 October. One of his battalions occupied Tác, and two Soponya. If Roth had not spent his time at Pincehely with petty revenge, he could have arrived in Székesfehérvár on 3 October. In that case, the inhabitants of the town would hardly have rebelled, and the Croatian division, united with the garrison, would have been able to follow the retreating Jelačić unhindered. As a result of the fact that, as mentioned above, the Hungarian commanders, with the help of the popular uprising, national guards and hussars, by intercepting the messengers and transports, cut off all communication between Roth's army and the outside world, the Croatian forces only realised on 4 October that Josip Jelačić's main army had been defeated and had retreated westwards, leaving them to their fate. Roth and Philippovich, having been informed of Jelačić's failure, did not think for a moment of taking the battle against the Hungarians, and decided to retreat on the same day. Jelačić, defeated at Pákozd on 29 September, chose the route to Vienna because the Hungarian uprising in his rear made it very hard for him to return to Croatia. This was also the case for Roth and Philippovich, but they had no alternative to escape; they could not go west because the Hungarian main army was in their way, so the two major generals had to lead their army home by the same route they had taken to Székesfehérvár.
Opposing forces
The Hungarians:
Roth's Croatian corps:
Roth's corps consisted of two brigades. The first was the Philippovich brigade led by Major General Nicolaus Philippovich von Philippsberg. It consisted of the 3. and 4. battalions of the 8. (Gradiška) border guard regiment, the 5. battalion of the 7. (Brod) border guard regiment, 28 horses, and a battery of 6 guns having 4,500 soldiers. The second brigade was the Roth brigade led by Major General Karl Roth. It consisted of the 3. and 4. battalions of the 7. (Brod) border guard regiment, the 5. battalion of the 8. (Gradiška) border guard regiment, 28 horses, and a battery of 6 guns having 4,500 soldiers. Thus Roth had in total 9,000 soldiers, 56 horses for the traction of supply and ammunition wagons, and cannons, and 12 cannons.
The road (back) to Ozora
The fact that on 4 October, Görgei's hussars ambushed his former vanguard, the most valuable part of the division, at Tác, forcing the Croats to flee, played a major role in Roth's and Philippovich's decision. The next morning, however, Görgei did not follow the fleeing Croats, because he returned to the main troop, believing that there was a stronger enemy in Székesfehérvár, which could easily cut him off from Perczel.
At this time he learned of the events from Székesfehérvár, which prompted Görgei to attack again the Croatian detachment of about 1,000 men, mostly belonging to the Brod battalion, which had advanced to Báránd (5 km northwest of Seregélyes) and formed Roth's vanguard. Its commander, after Perczel had soon appeared on the horizon with his army from the direction of Seregélyes, entered into negotiations with Görgei, the result of which was that Roth's vanguard surrendered unconditionally. While this was happening, Roth stood with his main troops at Soponya and made no attempt to rush to the aid of his advance guard. Roth was in increasing trouble. In addition to the impossibility to reach Jelačić's army, the loss of contact with the hinterland, thus the complete lack of supplies, and the increasingly effective actions of the popular insurgents from Tolna, who took up arms against his troops, were just as big a problem.