First Battle of Komárom (1849)

The main purpose of the Hungarian Spring Campaign led by Artúr Görgei was to push the Habsburg main armies out of Hungary towards Vienna. The first phase of the Spring Campaign was successful, and the victory at Isaszeg,[5] forced the imperial forces to retreat from the territory east of the Hungarian capitals Pest and Buda. For the second phase of the campaign on 7 April 1849 the Hungarian commanders elaborated another plan. According to this the Hungarian army was to split: General Lajos Aulich remained in front of Pest with his Hungarian II Corps, and Colonel Lajos Asbóth’s division, demonstrating to make the imperials believe that the whole Hungarian army was there; thus diverting their attention from the north, where the real Hungarian attack was to start with I, III and VII Corps moving west along the northern bank of the Danube to Komárom, to relieve it from the imperial siege.[6] Kmety's division of VII Corps was to cover the three corps’s march, and after I and III Corps had occupied Vác, that division was to secure the town, while the rest of the troops together with the two remaining divisions of VII Corps were to advance to Garam river, then heading south to relieve the northern section of the Austrian siege of the fortress of Komárom.[7] After this, they had to cross the Danube and relieve the southern section of the siege. In the event that all this was completed successfully, the imperials would have only two choices: to retreat from Middle Hungary towards Vienna, or to face encirclement in the Hungarian capitals.[8] This plan was very risky (as was the first plan of the Spring Campaign too) because if Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz had discovered that only one Hungarian corps remained in front of Pest, he could have attacked and destroyed Aulich's force, and thereby could easily cut the lines of communication of the main Hungarian army, and even occupy Debrecen, the seat of the Hungarian Revolutionary Parliament and the National Defense Committee (interim government of Hungary); or he could encircle the three corps advancing to relieve Komárom.[9] To secure the success of the Hungarian army, the National Defense Committee sent 100 wagons of munitions from Debrecen.[10] In the Battle of Vác on 10 April the Hungarian III Corps, led by János Damjanich defeated Ramberg’s division led by Major General Christian Götz, who was mortally wounded.[11]

Balthasar von Simunich 1857

Even after this battle, the imperial high command led by Field Marshal Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz was unsure whether the main Hungarian army was still in front of Pest or had already moved north to relieve Komárom. They still thought it possible that it was only a subsidiary formation that had attacked Vác and was moving towards the besieged Hungarian fortress.[12] When Windisch-Grätz finally seemed to grasp what was really happening, he wanted to make a powerful attack against the Hungarians at Pest on 14 April, then to cross the Danube at Esztergom, and cut across the path of the army which was marching towards Komárom, but his corps commanders, General Franz Schlik and Lieutenant Field Marshal Josip Jelačić refused to obey his commands, so his plan, which could have caused serious problems for the Hungarian armies, was not realized.[13]

Görgey Artúr litográfia Barabás

Because of his series of defeats at the hands of the Hungarians from the start of the Spring Campaign, on 12 April emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, relieved Windisch-Grätz of his command Feldzeugmeister Ludwig von Welden, the former military governor of Vienna, was designated commander-in-chief in his place, but until Welden arrived, Windisch-Grätz had hand over to Lieutenant Field Marshal Josip Jelačić as interim commander of the imperial armies in Hungary.[14] But this change in the leadership of the imperial forces had not brought lucidity and organization to the imperial high command, because the first order Jelačić gave after his interim command began was to call off Windisch-Grätz's plan of concentrating the imperial armies around Esztergom, and to end any chance of carrying out this by no means bad plan.[15]

Franz Schlik

Görgey, who had installed his headquarters in Győr after the battle there, ordered Damjanich’s III Corps to advance towards Léva on 11 April, and Klapka's I Corps on the 12th. Their place in Vác was taken by VII Corps under András Gáspár, then after that too departed on the same way, Vác was occupied by György Kmety’s division.[16] On 15–17 April the Hungarian army consisting of Klapka’s I Corps, Damjanich’s III Corps, and two divisions of VII Corps reached the Garam river, under the overall leadership of General Artúr Görgei.[17] Here, on 19 April, at Nagysalló, they met with the troops of Lieutenant General Ludwig von Wohlgemuth and his new imperial troops mustered from the following Habsburg Hereditary Lands: Styria, Bohemia, Moravia and the capital Vienna, and reinforced with Jablonowski’s division (which had fought in the Battle of Vác 10 days earlier). The imperials were defeated and retreated towards Érsekújvár.[18] The Hungarian victory of Nagysalló brought about serious results. It opened the way towards Komárom, bringing its relief to within just a couple of days’ march.[19] At the same time it put the imperials in the situation of being incapable of stretching their troops across the very large front which this Hungarian victory created, so instead of uniting their troops around Pest and Buda, as they had planned, Feldzeugmeister Welden had to order the retreat from Pest which was in danger of being caught in the Hungarian pincers.[20] When he learned about the defeat on the morning of 20 April, he wrote to Lieutenant General Balthasar Simunich, the commander of the forces besieging Komárom, and to Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg, the Minister-President of the Austrian Empire, telling them that in order to secure Vienna and Pozsony, from a Hungarian attack he was forced to withdraw the imperial forces from Pest and even from Komárom.[21] He also wrote that the morale of the imperial troops was very low, and because of this they could not fight another battle for a while without suffering another defeat.[22] So the next day he ordered the evacuation of Pest, leaving a substantial garrison in the fortress of Buda to defend it against Hungarian attack. He ordered Jelačić to remain for a while in Pest, and then to retreat towards Eszék in Bácska where the Serbian insurgents, allied with the Austrians, were in a grave situation after the victories of the Hungarian armies led by Mór Perczel and Józef Bem.[23]

On 20 April the Hungarian VII Corps reached Nagybénye, then Kéménd, where it encountered a brigade of the Imperial II Corps led by Major General Franz Wyss coming from Párkány. The Austrians were forced to cross the Danube and retreat to Esztergom, but General András Gáspár did not send his cavalry to pursue the enemy,

The sortie of the Hungarian hussars from Komárom, and breaking of the Austrian imperial siege around the fortress at 22.04.1849

even though he had the chance to cause them heavy losses .[24]

Szeremley Miklósː Hungarian camp at Komárom after 20 April 1849. In the middle on a white horse is György Klapka, at left on a black horse is János Damjanich

On 20 April, the Hungarian I and III Corps started their march towards Komárom.[25] On 22 April, the two Hungarian corps reached Komárom, breaking the northern section of the imperial blockade around the fortress.[26] On the same day, the garrison of Komárom broke out from the Nádor defense line against Sossay’s brigade on the Csallóköz, forcing the imperials to retreat to Csallóközaranyos, then to Nyárasd.[27] The imperials lost 50 men and 30 horses.[28] Hearing that Lieutenant General Wohlgemuth, who had retreated west of the river Vág, after his defeat at Nagysalló, was now advancing east again towards Érsekújvár, Görgei ordered the newly-arrived VII Corps to deploy at Perbete, to secure the rear of the Hungarian army against possible attack.[29] Then he and General György Klapka worked out their plan for the next day.

Five brigades were to cross the Danube during the night of 25/26 April: Kiss’s and Kökényessy’s brigades were to cross on the raft bridge constructed in haste to replace the pontoon bridge destroyed by the Imperials, and to deploy in the bridgehead to the right of the so-called cross rampart; then they were to be followed by Sulcz’s and Zákó’s brigades of I Corps deploying on their right, occupying the redoubts on the right wing of the fortress; and Dipold’s brigade was to cross before midnight on boats and prepare to attack towards Újszőny. The attack was to be started by Colonel Pál Kiss’s brigade against the Monostor fortress, also known as the Sandberg, with Kökényessy’s brigade in support.[30] Lieutenant-Colonel Bódog Bátori Sulcz’s brigade was to attack and take Újszőny. Then all these brigades were to attack the open ground beyond the Monostor, while a strong detachment sent across the river from the Danube island by Major General Richard Guyon was to attack the Imperials in the rear.[31] With this plan Görgei hoped to occupy all the Austrian siege fortifications and the surrounding heights, and after the arrival of the remaining infantry units, cavalry and artillery of I and III Corps, then to start a general attack supported by VII Corps, and to push the Imperials towards Győr, while VII Corps was to remain in reserve.[31]

The location of the First Battle of Komárom (26 April 1849) on the Second Military Survey of Austro-Hungary (1806–1869)

In the meantime on 21 April Lieutenant General Balthasar von Simunich wrote to Lieutenant General Anton Csorich, that Görgei had entered Komárom that day, and that an attack on the Imperial besieging forces on the southern bank of the Danube was imminent. He therefore asked his colleague to send him cavalry and artillery reinforcements.[32] On the 24th he informed Csorich that the Hungarians had reconstructed the bridge across the Danube, and had started to cross the river on it and on rafts. He asked Csorich to bring his troops to Herkálypuszta by the morning of 25 April at the latest, to help him against the Hungarian attack.[33]

Komárom 1849

In accordance with Feldzeugmeister Ludwig von Welden’s orders as outlined above, the Imperial troops completed their evacuation of Pest on 23 April, whereupon General Lajos Aulich and his Hungarian II Corps entered the city on 25 April. Welden ordered Major General Franz Wyss to move his brigade to Tata, Major General Franz de Paula Gundaccar II von Colloredo-Mannsfeld to have his brigade retreat from Esztergom to Dorog, and Schwarzenberg’s division to move from Buda to Esztergom, thus withdrawing all Austrian troops from the region of the Danube Bend (except the garrison of Buda under Major General Heinrich Hentzi) and concentrating them around and near Komárom, to be available in the event of a battle at Komárom.[34] Welden had finally understood that the Hungarian forces east of Pest (Aulich’s II Corps) were not so overwhelming as to be a real threat to the imperials if they retreated from their secure positions in Pest and the Danube Bend towards Komárom.[35] This is why they could concentrate around Komárom, to resist the main Hungarian force preparing to attack them there. But Görgei hoped that his deception plan was still working, which is why he ordered the crossing of the Danube to attack the Austrians concentrated there, hoping to use his supposed numerical superiority to destroy them, and thereby to encircle those forces which he thought were still in the Danube Bend.[36] He was warned by his chief of general staff Colonel József Bayer, among others, that crossing south of the Danube was a very risky plan, but Görgei would not change his mind.[37]

During the night of 25/26 April, at 2 o'clock[38] in the morning, the Hungarian I, III and VIII corps (this latter being the garrison of the fortress) crossed the Danube on the raft bridge they had constructed, and launched a dawn attack against the enemy entrenchments around the fortress on the south bank of the river, occupying them after heavy fighting.[39] Kiss’s brigade occupied the Sandberg, capturing the enemy siege artillery, destroying the Hohenlohe battalion which was defending it, and capturing 4 officers and 350 men. Sulcz’s brigade occupied Újszőny, and when Guyon’s troops followed on behind them as planned, Lederer’s Imperial brigade conducted a fighting withdrawal to behind the Concó creek. Dipold’s brigade also did its duty, pushing back the imperials towards Mocsa.[40] During these actions two Austrian rearguard companies were also taken prisoner by the Hungarian Coburg Hussar.[41] The three brigades of Simunich’s corps were forced to retreat on every front.[42]

Hungarian Hunyadi Hussars fighting the Austrian army with bullwhips, in the battle of Komárom, in the manner of the Betyárs

At 6 o'clock, thecommander-in-chief Hungarian army, General Artúr Görgei arrived on the battlefield, and ordered his troops to continue the advance. He himself commanded the right wing advancing in the Ács, forest, while the left wing led by General György Klapka advanced between Mocsa and Ószőny.[43] After the Klapka’s troops had advanced to Ószőny, pushing back Liebler’s brigade, the latter, reinforced by Lieutenant General Franz Schlik’s cavalry, launched a counterattack. This made the Hungarians retreat, but when it came within range of the Hungarian guns in the fortress of Komárom, the cannonade from these caused heavy losses to the Imperial brigade, forcing it to fall back to its initial position.[44] The center commanded by General János Damjanich had to advance across the open fields around Herkály and Csém, but could not start its assault until 9 o'clock, because before doing so it had to cross an area criss-crossed by the imperials’ trenches, which slowed its advance.[45]

At this point Simunich was on the verge of suffering a heavy defeat, but he was saved by the intervention of the Imperial II and III Corps. These had retreated from Buda and Pest,[46] as ordered by Welden five days before, after the battle of Nagysalló. Schlik, the commander of III Corps, took overall command of the Imperial army, and at noon he ordered a general attack.[47] Until that moment the Hungarian and the imperial forces had been roughly equal (around 14,000 troops of the Hungarian I and III Corps against similar numbers from Simunich's besieging army),[48] but the addition of Schlik’s III Corps created a 2:1 superiority for the Austrians.[49]

Infantry battle during the Battle of Komárom 26 April 1849

Damjanich reported the arrival of Schlik's troops to Görgei, who therefore stopped his troops’ advance and retreated fighting to the Monostor height. Görgei ordered Damjanich to retreat slowly into the Austrian siege trenches around Komárom that had been taken by the Hungarian dawn attack, and to resist there at all cost.[50]

Cavalry skirmish during the Battle of Komárom

On the Hungarian left wing, the Hungarian advance covered by the fortress artillery was stopped by the enemy cavalry, and pushed back to the so-called Star Fort of Komárom. Liebler’s brigade’s retreat was pursued towards Nagyigmándby two regiments of Hungarian hussars led by Major General József Nagysándor, supported by the 47th battalion and a 12-pounder battery. These were attacked from two sides by 4 enemy heavy cavalry regiments, and the Hungarian cavalry were in danger of being obliterated, but the infantry battalion quickly formed square and stopped the imperial cavalry.[51] The infantry of the Hungarian left wing retreated in square formation while firing towards the center.[52] The 26th Hungarian battalion carried out a bayonet charge which forced the imperial heavy cavalry to retreat, saving the 47th battalion from a difficult situation, and holding out until Damjanich sent the Ferdinánd Hussars to help them.[53] With this the Hungarians managed to halt the powerful imperial advance on their left wing, so the battle here continued as an artillery duel until they ran out of cannonballs.[54] One of the adjutants of the Hungarian headquarters, Kálmán Rochlitz, wrote in his memoirs: Our field artillery ran out of ammunition so that when I went to one of the batteries of I corps, I saw with my own eyes how our artillerymen picked up from the ground the cannon balls fired at us [by the enemy], wadded them with rags made of clothes ripped from the dead bodies of the fallen [soldiers], and in this way they loaded them into the gun barrels on top of the loose gunpowder they had put in first [in the cannon tubes].[55]

On the right wing, Görgei's six battalions in the Ács forest were subjected to ever-increasing pressure from the imperials, who appeared in this place in greater and greater numbers because Schlik had already given the order to retreat to the west after the battle, preventing the Hungarian commander from achieving a success here.[56]

Friedrich L'Allemand Battle of Komárom 26 April 1849

In the center Damjanich's center was also in a grave situation, because it was attacked from two sides by the numerically superior imperial II and III Corps.[57]

Feeling this pressure, and the fact that the Hungarian artillery had run out of ammunition, Görgei decided to retreat behind the imperial siege trenches around Komárom, and to wait for reinforcements.[58] Luckily the imperial troops had also run out of ammunition at the same time.[59]

An Austrian cuirassier officer heavily wounded in the Battle of Komárom

So the battle effectively ended at 1 o'clock in the afternoon.[60] At sunrise Görgei had sent an order which was reiterated at 9 o'clock by his chief of staff Colonel József Bayer to Lieutenant-Colonel Ernő Poeltenberg, (the new commander of VII corps, in place of General András Gáspár, who had gone on leave not long before) to come quickly to Komárom from where VII Corps was stationed at Perbete Perbete.[61] Poeltenberg came as fast as he could, but his troops’ movements were slowed by the fact that the roads were flooded because of the spring rains, and when they reached the north bank of the Danube, the raft bridge improvised by Görgei's sappers had almost collapsed, and had to be strengthened before they could finish crossing to the south bank.[62] So Poeltenberg's two Hussar regiments and cavalry batteries only reached the battlefield at 3 o'clock, when the battle was already over,[63] while the infantry divisions did not arrive until evening. They set off that night towards Győr, to pursue the enemy and to occupy that very important city.[64]

After the arrival of Schlik's III Corps, Görgei, who before the battle had thought that his army would only face Simunich’s siege corps, now expected the whole imperial main army to attack him. He therefore decided to face the foe from within the siege trenches with the fortress behind him, the latter still having enough ammunition (while his field artillery and the captured siege artillery had run out, as mentioned above), with which he hoped to withstand such a powerful attack.[65] He did not know that Welden had sent Jelačić’s corps to southern Hungary[66] to help the Serbian insurgents, Austrian allies who were in a grave situation after the victories of the Hungarian armies led by Mór Perczel and Józef Bem,[67] and had sent II Corps to Sopron through Veszprém and Pápa.[68]

The imperial army used its final attack only to pin the Hungarians in order to cover their withdrawal towards Pozsony and Vienna and avoid heavy losses during their retreat. The Hungarian hussars still pursued, but on their tired horses were unable to achieve any significant result.[69] Schlik ordered the imperial troops to move towards Győr from Ács along the road which they had secured during the battle, in order to arrive near the border safely.[70] Besides their casualties in dead, wounded and prisoners, they lost 7 siege cannon and mortars, a huge amount of food and ammunition, and all of their tentage.[71]

In the 21st volume of József Bánlaky’s monumental Military History of the Hungarian Nation (A magyar nemzet hadtörténete), although he does not make an explicit judgement about the result of the battle, by quoting Görgei's report to the Hungarian government in which the Hungarian commander calls a victory, albeit without comment, Bánlaky’s tacitly accepts Görgei's opinion.[72] In his book about Görgei's military career, László Pusztaszeri speaks about the "failure to achieve a decisive victory",[73] showing that he tends to regards this battle as a victory but not a decisive one. In an article in the Hungarian historical magazine Rubicon, Tamás Tarján also considers this battle a Hungarian victory.[74] Róbert Hermann's opinion is that, although the Hungarian army accomplishing its immediate tactical purpose of relieving the very important fortress, the Battle of Komárom on 26 April 1849 can be viewed rather as an indecisive battle, because the imperial plan beforehand was to abandon the siege anyway and to retreat towards Pozsony and Vienna; thus the Hungarians did not impose their will on the enemy, but just forced them to retreat a few days earlier than planned.[75] The Hungarian plan to surround and destroy the imperial force failed because of the arrival and attack of Schlik’s III Corps. But the loss of much of the siege artillery, and of a whole grenadier division,[76] a huge amount of food, ammunition, 7 heavy siege cannons and mortars, and the whole military tent camp, all captured by the Hungarians, was a hard blow for the imperial commanders.[77]

The first Battle of Komárom practically ended the Spring Campaign, achieving its main purposes: the relief of Komárom and the expulsion from Hungary of the main imperial armies.[78] The major success of the royal-imperial Austrian army was that it was able to retreat to the Rába river, close to the western border of Hungary, without being surrounded by Görgei's army, and without taking heavy losses.[79]

The Hungarian National Defense Committee was the interim government of Hungary, created after the free Hungarian government led by Lajos Batthyány, resigned on 2 October 1848. The emperor and King of Hungary, Ferdinand I of Austria) had refused to recognize the new government. As a response to the Olmütz of 4 March 1849, which abolished the Hungarian Constitution, and to the April laws, which deposed Hungary from all of its liberties and degraded it to a simple Austrian province, and seeing the great victories of the Hungarian National Army as an opportunity to respond to the Austrian constitution, on 14 April 1849 Hungary declared its total independence from the Habsburg Empire,[80] As a result of this declaration of independence, on 2 May the new Hungarian Government was established under the leadership of Bertalan Szemere, in which Görgei became Minister of War, and his election was of course a consequence of his victories on the battlefield.[81]

After the relief of Komárom from the imperial siege, and the retreat of the Habsburg forces to the Hungarian border, the Hungarian army had two choices as to where to continue its advance.[82] One was to march on Pozsony and Vienna, in order to finally force the enemy to fight on his own ground; the other was to return eastwards and take Buda Castle which was held by a strong imperial garrison of 5,000 men commanded by Heinrich Hentzi. Although the first choice seemed very attractive, it would have been nearly impossible for it to succeed. While the Hungarian army gathered before Komárom had fewer than 27,000 soldiers, the imperial army waiting for them around Pozsony and Vienna was more than 50,000 strong, so it was twice the size of Görgei's force. Furthermore, the Hungarian army was short of ammunition.[83] On the other hand, capturing Buda castle seemed more achievable at that moment, and besides it was also very important in many respects. It could be achieved with the available Hungarian forces; a strong imperial garrison in the middle of the country represented a serious threat if the main Hungarian army wanted to move towards Vienna, because attacks from the castle could have cut the Hungarian supply lines, so it needed to be besieged by a significant force in order to prevent such sorties; furthermore, the presence of Jelačić's corps in southern Hungary made the Hungarian commanders think that the Croatian ban could advance towards Buda at any moment to relieve it, cutting Hungary in two.[84] So the Hungarian staff understood that without taking the Buda Castle, the main army could not conduct a campaign towards Vienna without putting the country in grave danger. Beside the military arguments in favor of the siege of Buda, there were political ones as well. After the declaration of the independence of Hungary, the Hungarian parliament wanted to convince foreign states to acknowledge Hungary's independence, and knew there was more chance of achieving this after total liberation of their capital city, Buda-Pest; and the capital city also included Buda castle.[85] So the council of war held on 29 April 1849 decided to besiege Buda Castle, and only after the arrival of Hungarian reinforcements from southern Hungary would they start an offensive against Vienna to force the empire to sue for peace and to recognize the independence of Hungary.[86]

From an imperial officer captured in the battle, Görgei learned that the intervention of the Russian army against the Hungarian revolution was imminent.[87] The Austrian government, seeing that they could not crush the Hungarian revolution by themselves with only their allies from among the nationalities within Hungary, decided to start discussions with the tsar about a Russian intervention at the end of March. The official Austrian request for intervention was then sent on 21 April.[88] The Austrian government asked only for a few tens of thousands of Russian troops under imperial leadership, but Tzar Nicholas I of Russia decided to send 200,000 soldiers, and to hold another 80,000 in readiness to enter Hungary if needed. This meant that he was prepared to send one quarter of Russia's military power to Hungary.[89] This huge army, together with the 170,000 soldiers of the Habsburgs, and the several tens of thousands of Serbian, Romanian and Croatian nationality troops fighting against only 170,000 Hungarian soldiers, represented an invincible force[90] So amidst the joy at the liberation of much of Hungary, and after the victories of the Spring Campaign, the Hungarians began to feel concerned about the imminent Russian attack.

• Second Battle of Komárom (1849)
• Third Battle of Komárom (1849)

• Hermann, Róbert (editor) (1996). Az 1848–1849 évi forradalom és szabadságharc története ("The history of the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848–1849) (in Hungarian). Budapest: Videopont Kiadó. p. 464. ISBN 963-8218-20-7.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
• Bánlaky, József (2001). A magyar nemzet hadtörténelme ("The Military History of the Hungarian Nation) (in Hungarian). Budapest: Arcanum Adatbázis.
• Bóna, Gábor (1987). Tábornokok és törzstisztek a szabadságharcban 1848–49 ("Generals and Staff Officers in the War of Independence 1848–1849") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Zrínyi Katonai Kiadó. p. 430. ISBN 963-326-343-3.
• Hermann, Róbert (2001). Az 1848–1849-es szabadságharc hadtörténete ("Military History of the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848–1849") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Korona Kiadó. p. 424. ISBN 963-9376-21-3.
• Hermann, Róbert (2004). Az 1848–1849-es szabadságharc nagy csatái ("Great battles of the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848–1849") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Zrínyi. p. 408. ISBN 963-327-367-6.
• Hermann, Róbert (2013). Nagy csaták. 16. A magyar függetlenségi háború ("Great Battles. 16. The Hungarian Freedom War") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Duna Könyvklub. p. 88. ISBN 978-615-5129-00-1.
• Pusztaszeri, László (1984). Görgey Artúr a szabadságharcban ("Artúr Görgey in the War of Independence") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Magvető Könyvkiadó. p. 784. ISBN 963-14-0194-4.
• Tarján, Tamás, "1849. április 26. A komáromi csata", Rubicon