A thousand years of the Hungarian art of war

HUNGARIAN SOLDIERS - HUNGARIAN STRATEGY

CHAPTER I

THE CONQUEST OF THE CARPATHIAN BASIN

The Treaty of Verdun in 843 A.D. permanently divided the Carolingian empire into three independent Frankish kingdoms. One man still bore the title of emperor, but the authority and power of his office had disappeared. The sons and successors of Charlemagne wasted their wealth and resources on civil wars. They tried to gain new vassals and retain the loyalty of old ones by donating huge land estates to their noble supporters (magnates). The unrestricted land donations resulted in the decline of royal power and authority within all three Frankish kingdoms. The king became only primus inter pares, first among equals. Feudal organization and structure became dominant and political particularism was the new rule./ 1/ The appearance of new invaders - Vikings and Muslims - added a military factor and hastened the evolution of the feudal army and state organizations.

The dominant role of the infantry remained even after the fall of the Roman Empire. The last invaders, the Franks and the Saxons, were themselves foot soldiers in the sixth and seventh centuries./2/ Their confrontations with the Muslims, who were cavalry soldiers, usually ended up in victory for the latter. Thus, realizing the superiority of cavalry soldiers, the Frankish armies began to reorganize. It was not an easy transformation. The price of a good stallion equalled the price of 40 or 50 cows, and heavy armour was no less expensive. Only the very rich could afford such purchases. The high price of armament limited the number of armoured knights a lord could equip and maintain. Also a fear that the oppressed serfs might rebel if they were armed prompted the upper classes to exclude the lower classes from the ranks of the army, and thus drastically reduced its size. The feudal system required military service only from the vassals of a king. They joined the king's army with their own vassals and knights. But not every great lord was the vassal of the king, and even the vassals of a king often violated their loyalty oath and refused to join the king's army. These conditions

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limited the number of soldiers even further. An army which consisted of from two to three hundred knights was considered a huge army, and frequently included all of the available cavalry soldiers of an entire kingdom. "Many of the battles of this period were no more than short skirmishes between small bodies of armoured knights."/ 3/ Since Christian kingdoms now fought against each other, the rules of war were prescribed by the Church to make it more humane. The "Peace of God" prohibited the lords from attacking their foes on Sundays before attending holy mass. The use of armoured knights in a phalanx or square formation, as a closed tactical unit, was prohibited. The wars were simplified into duels where "the object was to unhorse the opponent rather than to slay him."/4/ Servants were not allowed to participate actively in the attacks. Their duty was to help their lord to arm and to mount his horse, and to defend him if he fell from the saddle. The use of "missiles, bows and arrows" was also outlawed by the Church as "unfit for Christians."/5/

These small knight-armies could not match the savage Viking (Normans, Norsemen) armies. The Normans did not obey the rules of chivalry. In combat they sought and often obtained the complete annihilation of their enemies. Their raids against the West Frankish kingdom began before the turn of the ninth century and came to an end only in 911, when Charles the Simple (898-922), king of the West Franks, recognised Rolle, leader of the Normans, as duke of Normandy.

While the Franks were fighting against the Norman invaders, their eastern provinces were occupied, almost unnoticed, by slowly migrating Slavic tribes. By the second half of the ninth century, Slavic tribes living in the territory of Pannonia and in the space between the Drava and Sava Rivers were united into a kingdom by the Moravian prince, Pribina, whereas the territory of Moravia proper, north of the Danube, was controlled by his vassal, Ratislav. In 862, Ratislav rebelled against his lord, hired Magyar troops to help him, and with their aid he won his independence./6/

In 889 the Hungarians - more accurately the Magyars - settled in Etelkoz in a loose political alliance of their tribes./7/ This territory is south of Kiev, bordered by the Donets on the east and the Carpathians on the west. On the south, the Black Sea and the Danube separated the Magyars from the Bulgarian empire. Other Magyar groups were pushed by the Petchenegs toward the east and south, where they most probably were assimilated into the local population.

In Etelkoz the Hungarians lived in cities formed of tents./8/ Their main occupation was animal husbandry, raising horses, longhorns,

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pigs, and chickens. Agricultural products supplemented their diet of meat, eggs, milk, and fruits. They attained a high level of knowledge relative to working with metals such as iron, silver and gold. Besides these peaceful occupations, they also pursued military careers, raiding the northern steppes and selling captured Russian-Slavic inhabitants to Greek slave-merchants in the ports of the Black Sea./9/ They were also ready to lease smaller or larger light cavalry units (their army numbered 20,000 horsemen) to foreign princes and kings for the anticipated reward of booty and spoil, and a regular money payment. If they found an easy target, they repeated their raids on their own initiative. Thus they came to the aid of Ratislav in 862 and revisited the Danube without invitation in 864.

In the second half of the ninth century, the Petcheneg and Bulgar attacks on Etelkoz became more frequent. To increase their defensive capacity against such invasions, the Magyar tribes elected Almos as the first prince of their united military democracy (c. 889-894). Now the raids and campaign, which they executed alone or in alliance with foreign rulers, served a new purpose: the Magyars were searching for a territory where they could defend themselves effectively against their more powerful enemies. In 892, a Hungarian army, at the invitation of the Frankish emperor, Arnulf (king of the Eastern Flanks 887-889, emperor 896-899) crossed the Carpathian Mountains and helped Arnulf to defeat his rebellious vassal, Sviatopluk./10/ The Carpathian Basin impressed the Magyar warriors: the soil was fertile, the Danube provided good water even in drought, and the local population was friendly and peaceful./11/ No wonder that two years later they raided Pannonia again, now on their own account.

In 894, the successor of Almos, Arpad, in keeping with his mutual-help treaty with the Byzantine emperor, Leo Vl (the Wise) sent a Hungarian army under the command of his son, Levente, to the lower Danube. The campaign was directed against their common enemy, Simeon, king of the Bulgars./12/ In three battles, the allied Hungarian-Greek forces defeated the Bulgarians and occupied their capital. The Bulgarians struck back in the same year, invaded Etelkoz, and massacred the defenseless population of the main Hungarian settlements before the Hungarian armies had returned home. At the same time, the Petchenegs, allies of Simeon, also invaded Etelkoz from the East. This disastrous situation forced Arpad to leave Etelkoz for good, along with the survivors of the Bulgarian-Petcheneg attack. Without waiting for the army of Levente, which was still in Bulgaria, and another army which was raiding the Khazars north of the Caucasian Mountains,/13/ seven

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Magyar tribes by 900 A.D. crossed the Carpathians and occupied the entire basin without significant resistance on the part of the local Slavic, Bulgar, and Croat population. "The Magyars thus entered on possession of their new homes, speedily and completely, far more so than, as far as we know, any of their predecessors."/14/ Their total population, which could provide about 60,000 soldiers for the army, probably amounted to not more than 200,000 to 250,000 souls./15/

The long march from Etelkoz with families, wagons, and herds of cattle followed the Dnieper to Kiev, turned west to the Carpathian Mountains,/16/ then crossed passes with an average elevation of 6,500 to 7,000 feet above sea level. The careful reconnaissance of the new territory and the occupation of the entire Carpathian Basin in stages /17/ all testify to Arpad and his chieftains' organizational ability, military expertise and superior generalship.

Following this conquest, the Magyars continued to live in a tribal federation under the leadership of Arpad and his descendants. Neither did their occupations change: agriculture, animal husbandry, commerce, selling slaves and horses in exchange for goods they needed for themselves./18/ They continued their raids on feudal Europe in alliance with other princes or alone.

These raids were fast and devastating. By the time the feudal armies could assemble to confront the Magyars, they were several days marching distance away. Powerful rulers like Henry (the Fowler) "considered it advisable to pay a regular tribute to the Hungarians for nine years", to buy security for his kingdom of Saxony against the Magyar raids./19/ We can well ask: What was the Magyars' secret? The declining military art and the anarchic conditions in feudal Europe provide only part of the answer to this question./20/ The second part of the answer lies in the distinctively Hungarian military strategy and tactics./21/

As we know, the Magyars' main occupation was animal husbandry, especially horse-breeding. Their horses, relatively small but very strong, had great speed and stamina. Each soldier had 3 or 4 horses, riding them in turn so as not to overtire any of them. Thus the army was able to cover 25 to 30 miles daily for weeks,/22/ whereas the western knight-armies rode a maximum of 12 to 15 miles a day for only a few days. Using pack horses instead of baggage wagons, the Magyars could follow bridle paths, mountain roads, and narrow passages inaccessible to their enemies. This unusual marching speed and road accessibility enabled them to surprise their enemies and appear en masse at unexpected times and places. Since they practically grew up in the saddle (guarding their herds, hunting, fighting, and sometimes even eating and sleeping

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on horseback), they were superior horsemen. The use of stirrups - unknown in the western calvaries - made it easy for them to make sudden stops, turns, and starts, individually or in formation. Thus, their horsemanship secured their superiority over the knight-armies.

To maintain the advantage of speed by not overloading their horses, they used only very light protective armor: mail shirt, hard leather helmet, and their hair (braided into two ponytails on each side of their necks to protect the main arteries). Their armorers manufactured their slightly bent sabers, short spears, and hatchets, while each fighter made his own bow and arrows. They could hit a target with deadly accuracy as individual archers, yet they preferred to shower the enemy with arrows in the form of modern salvos./23/ Still, naturally inferior as they were to a heavily-armored knight-army attacking in phalanx formation, especially in hand-to-hand combat,/24/ they kept their distance from the heavily armored cavalrymen until the phalanx broke up under a shower of arrows or because of the terrain. Only then did they try to overpower the individual knights, attacking them at once from every direction.

The Magyar combat formation was a loose line of several brigades, with spaces between the units to allow them the execution of sudden turns, retreats, and simulated attacks. They used their reserves for relentless pursuit until they had completely annihilated the enemy. They did not lay siege to fortresses, which they usually left behind untouched. Under the anarchical conditions prevailing in the feudal state, they did not have to worry that their enemies would unite behind their columns and attack them from the rear.

The discipline of the Magyars was superior to that of the feudal armies. Commanders used severe, sometimes cruel, punishment against those who broke their rules./25/ Thus the brigades and smaller units were perfect instruments in the hands of their generals.

The generalship of the Magyars was excellent. After the year 900, almost every year they led a raid against the West, Italy, or the Balkans. They also participated in ten larger campaigns in which 8,000 to 10,000 cavalrymen were involved. Only twice did they suffer a defeat. The Hungarians were becoming known in the Rhine and Moselle Valleys in Germany, in Belgium, and in the Loire and Rhone Valleys in France. In 937, they crossed the Alps from France to Italy and raided as far as Otranto in the South. Their troops galloped under the walls of Constantinople in 942.

Although the defeat at Lech in 955 stopped the Magyar raidsagainst western Europe, the raids on the Balkan Peninsula con-

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tinued for one more decade.

What caused the disaster at Lech? Henry the Fowler (918-936) was the first Saxon king of the East Frankish kingdom, a rich and energetic man who began to fortify the eastern frontiers of his kingdom against the Slavs and Magyars. His policy of centralization to strengthen royal authority was pursued even more energetically by his son, Otto I (the Great, 936-973), elected as German emperor in 962. The first five years of Otto's reign were spent in a continuous struggle against his rebellious magnates who "may even have appealed to the Magyars for help."/26/ Defeating the rebellion and gaining control not only over Franconia, Burgundy, and Swabia, but also over Bavaria and Bohemia, Otto was on his way to becoming the most powerful ruler since Charlemagne.

THE BATTLE AT AUGSBURG.

In 955, the Magyars, at the invitation of Otto's enemies, sent an unusually strong army, 35,000 to 40,000 light cavalrymen, to their help./27/ Otto's army of 20,000 to 25.000,/28/ which consisted mainly of armored cavalry organized in brigades, arrived south of Augsburg from Bohemia, Swabia, Franconia and Bavaria. The general of the Hungarian army, "Bloody Bulcsu", received his name because of his cruel disciplinary measures. He divided his troops into thirds, of which about one-third occupied Bavaria, while the remaining two-thirds followed the Danube Valley south of the river in a westernly direction. Otto's main forces assembled north of the Danube facing Donauworth. South of the Danube, only one fortress, Augsburg, remained in the hands of Otto's supporters.

Although the Magyar armies usually did not waste time with the siege of fortresses, Bulcsu decided to take Augsburg before confronting Otto's army. Not having the necessary equipment for a siege, the Magyar army hoped for the success of a surprise attack. It was in vain. Bulcsu wasted precious days with renewed attempts to take the fortress, but even his "bloody" generalship could not

bring victorious results. On the contrary, it demoralized his army, which the defenders of Augsburg were quick to notice. Furthermore, the wasted days enabled Otto's army to cross the Danube without opposition from the Magyars. Bulcsu now ordered his army to ride toward Donauworth (where Otto had crossed the Danube) and to prevent Otto from reaching Augsburg. To insure victory, Bulcsu even discontinued the blockade of Augsburg. Thus, the garrison was able to join Otto's army, strengthening it even further.

The two armies clashed North of Augsburg in the Lech River valley, on the west banks of the river. Bulcsu divided his forces

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(Plan 1, map) and planned to attack Otto's forces simultaneously from the front as well as from the rear. However. the timing of the attacks was off. The small Magyar force attacking in the rear surprised the Czech brigades and put them to flight, but their strength was insufficient to penetrate the deep combat formations of the Germans. The frontal attack was late, Bulcsu's group gave battle only after attack against the rear had been repelled. The pouring rain made the bows of the Magyars ineffective. Feigned retreats proved to be useless too. Otto's army did not break the closed phalanx formations. Bulcsu now sought decision by ordering his light cavalry against the phalanxes of heavily armored knights in hand-to-hand combat. The bulk of his army was massacred, while those who succeeded in fleeing were mercilessly pursued by Otto's forces and pushed into the Lech River.

Bulcsu made a whole series of strategic mistakes. He attacked Augsburg without equipment, allowed Otto to cross the Danube without interference, and discontinued the blockade of the fortress. He hesitated to attack the Germans in the front while the rear attack created confusion. His last mistake was the forcing of a decision at any price. The superior generalship of Otto is undeniable.

Although the battle ended in disaster for the Magyars, they could also see it as a stroke of great luck, for Otto, satisfied with his victory, was willing to talk peace. The Magyars learned their lesson and ended their raids. Four decades later, the land of the nomad Magyars became known in Europe as the Hungarian Kingdom of Stephen I. Having converted to Christianity and replaced their nomadic occupations by agriculture, the Magyars were accepted as equal members of the community of Christian peoples of Europe. They thus insured their survival in the Carpathian Basin.

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A thousand years of the Hungarian art of war