From the Battle of Mohacs to the first revision of the Trianon Treaty

Mohacs is an eternal symbol, a reference point and a grievance for all Hungarians with national sentiments, who are interested in their past.

During the Fifteen Years War in 1602, it was also on this date that Grand Vizier Hassan retook Szekesfehervar from the emperor’s troops. For the sixth time, however, 29 August was unlucky for the Turks, because in 1686, relying on the power of the symbolic date, the troops of Grand Vizier Suleiman Sari tried in vain to enter the castle of Buda, which had been besieged by the Christian allied armies since mid-June. They were repulsed and the Turkish defenders tried in vain to escape. Thus 

four days later, Buda was freed from 145 years of Ottoman rule, and this great victory was compared throughout Europe with the triumph of Janos Hunyadi at Nandorfehervar on 22 July, 1456.

Less well known is the fact that 29 August is also linked to the national day of mourning on 6 October. It was on this day in 1849 that Emperor Franz Joseph Hapsburg (then the illegitimate king of Hungary), who had just turned 19, decided that the political and military leaders of the Hungarian Revolution should be subjected to widespread and severe reprisals. On 29 August as supreme commander, he authorized General Haynau, who had been appointed to high command Hungary and given full powers, to take merciless reprisals, abolished the obligation to submit death sentences in advance, and the vengeful General was only obliged to report to the Emperor afterwards on the persons on whom the death penalty had been carried out. Thus,  

although Haynau became the executor of the reprisals, it was Franz Joseph who actually ordered and approved them.

According to Sandor Ozsvath, it could not have been a coincidence that after the Treaty of Trianon came into force in July 1921, the Hungarian authorities had to hand over to the Austrians the old Hungarian territory they had called Burgenland, including Sopron and its surroundings, on 29 August. However, this was prevented by the uprising in western Hungary started by the 'Rongyos garda' (Scrubby Guard) led by Pal Pronay and Ivan Hejjas. Thanks mainly to this 

the inhabitants of Sopron and the surrounding eight villages were able to decide their fate in a referendum, and the result of the vote on 14-16 December 1921 – the first revision of the Treaty of Trianon! – an area of about 300 square kilometers with 50,000 inhabitants was returned to Hungary.

So there is much for us to think about and commemorate on 29 August from the "stormy centuries of the Hungarian people".

Cover photo: The body of King Louis II is found after the Battle of Mohacs (painting by Bertalan Szekely) (Source: Wikimedia Commons)