Suleiman I's campaign of 1529
In this article, we will delve into the topic of Suleiman I's campaign of 1529, which has aroused great interest and debate in different areas. Suleiman I's campaign of 1529 is a topic that has become the focus of attention of experts, academics and specialists in the field, due to its relevance and impact in different sectors. Over the last decades, Suleiman I's campaign of 1529 has been acquiring greater importance and relevance, generating endless questions and concerns about its influence on today's society. In this article, we will analyze in detail and exhaustively the different facets of Suleiman I's campaign of 1529, with the aim of providing a complete and well-founded overview of this topic.
| Hungarian campaign of Suleiman | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Ottoman-Habsburg wars | |||||||||
 "The Great Gun", a 1518 allegorical representation by Albrecht Dürer of the Turkish menace for the German lands. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Habsburg Austria Holy Roman Empire Kingdom of Bohemia Kingdom of Croatia Ferdinand's Hungarian kingdom |
 Ottoman Empire Moldavia_(1526-1540).svg){kind=small} John Szapolyai's Hungarian kingdom | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Ferdinand I |
Suleiman the Magnificent Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha John Szapolyai Peter IV Rareș | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
120,000 soldiers (including 12,000 Janissaries) 20,000 camels 300 guns 6,000 Hungarian horsemen | |||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
20,000 dead (soldiers and civilians) | 40,000 dead | ||||||||
Suleiman I's campaign of 1529 was launched by the Ottoman Empire to take the Austrian capital Vienna and thereby strike a decisive blow, allowing the Ottomans to consolidate their hold on Hungary. This was in response to Ferdinand I's daring assault on Ottoman Hungary.
March
Suleiman's march to Vienna was also an attempt to assist his vassal, John Szapolyai who claimed the throne of Hungary. Suleiman sent his army of 120,000 strong north on the 10 May 1529. His campaign was marked by speedy success, on September 8 Buda surrendered to the Ottomans and John Szapolyai was installed as King of Hungary. Suleiman then went further taking Esztergom, Tata, Komárom and Győr so that much of Ferdinand I's gains the previous two years were lost. On 27 September, Suleiman reached Vienna.
Aftermath
The arrival of the Sultan's massive host in Central Europe caused much panic across Europe - Martin Luther, who had believed that the Ottomans were God's punishment against the sins of Christians modified his views and wrote the book the War with the Turks in 1529 urging that "the scourge of God" should be fought with great vigour. However, when Suleiman began besieging Vienna it would prove to be his first and most decisive blunder.
Bibliography
- Clodfelter, M. (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492-2015 (4th ed.). McFarland. ISBN 978-0786474707.
- Madden, Thomas F. Crusades the Illustrated History. 1st ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan P, 2005
- Turnbull, Stephen. The Ottoman Empire 1326 - 1699. New York: Osprey, 2003.