In 1456, the Sultan’s army attacked Hungary. It crossed the Serbian border in May, and besieged Nándorfehérvár (today Belgrade, Serbia), “the gateway to Hungary”, on 2 July. János Hunyadi, the father of King Matthias I (1458–1490), together with Italian theologian and inquisitor John of Capistrano, hurried to relieve the fortress and won an outstanding victory against the ten times superior 90-thousand strong Turkish army, led by Sultan Mehmed II.

Legend has it that a defender called Titus Dugović, yanked off an enemy who was about to plant the Turkish flag on top of the fortress.

Both fell in the depth and died immediately. All Europe was rejoiced over the victory at Nándorfehérvár. Pope Callixtus III declared 6 August a memorial day. The triumph was significant as the defenders of Nándorfehérvár stopped the Ottoman Empire’s expansion in Europe for 70 years.

In 1479 Europe witnessed Hungary’s greatest victory over the Turks, the battle of Kenyérmező. The Ottomans sided with the Wallachians against the Hungarian army, which was led by István Báthory and Pál Kinizsi, Comes of Temes. The records are too limited to tell the exact ratio of the opponents, but estimates put the figures at 15-20 thousand on the Hungarian side, and at 60 thousand on the Turkish side.

Allegedly, Kinizsi picked up two swords to fight the enemy. His invincibility was a key to Hungary’s glorious victory against the conquerors, who suffered a loss of over 30 thousand lives.

After his failure in 1529, the Sultan tried to fulfil his long-cherished dream once again, and launched another attack on Vienna. This time, the army of Suleiman was stopped by a small fortress in Kőszeg, Vas County. Defended by Captain Nikola Jurišić of Croatian origin and his small garrison, the little fortress held its ground for three weeks.

The Captain refused the Turks’ repeated ultimatums to surrender and kept his word to fight till the end. In the end, 80 thousand Turks were contained by a garrison of a few hundred defenders. The Turks planted their flag on the fortress symbolically, but agreed to leave the fortress in the hands of its defenders. One year after the battle, the king made Jurišić baron for his merits.

In 1552, the united armies of Grand Vizier Ahmet and Ali pasha of Buda took on Eger, one of the most important strongholds of Upper Hungary. Once again, the Hungarian garrison arrested the Porte’s dreadful army, especially because Captain István Dobó had consistently been fortifying the castle since 1548. Dobó’s army successfully withstood the assaults of 35-40 thousand Turks, during a 38-day-long siege.

Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos, immortalised the heroism of Dobó and his garrison in two verse-chronicles, and author Géza Gárdonyi wrote Stars of Eger, a novel in memory of the heroes. After the battle, Hungarian monarch Ferdinand I, appointed the Captain Voivode of Transylvania in acknowledgement of his merits.

After the Ottoman occupation and the division of Hungary into three parts, the main goal was to re-conquer Buda, but it was not to be achieved soon. Finally, the goal was achieved by a union of international forces. The retake of Buda in 1686, was preceded by a three-month campaign.

On 18 June, an army of 80 thousand soldiers, including 15-20 thousand Hungarians and a few Croatian army corps, assaulted the fortress with the leadership of Charles V, Duke of Lorraine, and Maximilian Emanuel II, Elector of Bavaria.

The fortress was defended by Abdurrahman pasha and his 12 thousand soldiers. After breaking up the Turkish relief force, the last assault crushed the Turkish garrison’s resistance once and for all. Europe could heave a sigh of relief, as Buda was freed after 145 years of Turk domination.

The second siege of Buda took place during the war of independence of 1848-49. Buda’s successful retake was the zenith of the glorious spring campaign. Artúr Görgey and György Kmety faced the Austrian garrison, led by Heinrich Hentzi. The battle, which ended in a victory of comparable magnitude, to the one in Ozora, claimed the life of 370 Hungarian soldiers, and 670 were injured.

However, on 21 May, the day of the decisive assault, Nicolas I of Russia and Francis Joseph I reached a final agreement on the Russian army’s intervention against the Hungarian revolution."

Source: eu2011.hu