Siege of Szigetvár

[9] The battle was fought between the defending forces of the Habsburg monarchy under the leadership of Nikola IV Zrinski, the former Ban of Croatia, and the invading Ottoman army under the nominal command of Sultan Suleiman.[11] The battle is still famous in Croatia and Hungary and inspired both the Hungarian epic poem The Siege of Sziget and the Croatian opera Nikola Šubić Zrinski.Also, in a remark to the diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq in the year 1562, Suleiman had said: "'What', said he, 'might make us conclude peace, if those who are in charge of Sigeth will disturb it and continue the war?'"[20]Suleiman had written to John Sigismund on 7 October 1565 that "he would go to war the following spring, if Maximilian did not send an ambassador with suitable assurances of peace".[21] After the siege of Nagybanya by Schwendi, Suleiman wrote to John Sigismund that he would personally arrive in Hungary with his army by the following spring.[21] Szigetvár was considered important primarily since forces dispatched from there could cut the enemy lines around the Danube river and thus threaten Buda and Ottoman Hungary.Even if a besieger was to break the canals, the dried waterbed around the fort would be muddy and covered with vegetation, thus preventing infantry charges and the deployment of artillery guns near the walls.[b][30] The Ottoman government of the Sublime Porte fed wrong information to Habsburg envoys in order to mislead them about the targets and status of the campaign.[36] Şeyh Nureddinzade Muslihiddin, a Sufi of the Khalwati order, along with Sokollu Mehmed Pasha had persuaded Sultan Suleiman to participate in the campaign to discharge his obligation of a last jihad.[37] Many beys and mirzas from the Crimean Khanate, including the Kalga (deputy khan) Mehmed II Giray, participated in the campaign.[38] To enhance the defenses of the fort of Szigetvár, Zrinski had started colleting taxes from multiple areas in the vicinity after he was made the captain general.[42] These troops consisted of his personal forces, and those of his friends and allies, namely Count Gašpar Alapić [hr] and the lieutenants Miklouš Kobak, Petar Patačić and Vuk Papratović.[47] The fort's defender, Count Nikola IV Zrinski, was one of the largest landholders in the Kingdom of Croatia, a veteran of border warfare, and a Ban (Croatian royal representative) from 1542 to 1556.[31] The Sultan stayed in his camp where he received verbal battle progress reports from Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, his Grand Vizier and the real operational commander of the Ottoman forces.The bulwarks on the southwest and southeast parts of the fort had been under bombardment continuously for ten days, but had not broken, primarily due to the long distance from and constrained angle of fire of the batteries.[25] Zrinski, advised by his experienced commanders, ordered 200 of his cavalry to prevent the Ottomans form draining the swamp surrounding the fort complex.The Emperor, till the end of the siege, was tricked by the Sultan and Grand Vizier into believing that the Ottomans' actual target was Vienna.On 2 September, taking advantage of the nighttime darkness, the Ottomans fully breached the walls facing the Hegy Bastion, which had the best cannons in the fort.[65][66] The historian Stanko Guldescu [hr] argues that cross border raids in Croatia had continued after the siege, and these had led to the Croatian–Slovene Peasant Revolt.[70] An agreement ending the war between the Austrian and Ottoman empires was reached on 17 February 1568, after five months of negotiations with Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.[70] Sultan Selim II agreed to an eight-year truce,[71] and the agreement brought 25 years of (relative) peace between the Empires[62] until the Long War began between them.[74] Another such work was written by the Croatian Renaissance poet and writer Brne Karnarutić, who wrote The Conquest of the City of Sziget (Vazetje Sigeta grada) sometime before 1573.[74] The long poem Pjesma o Sigetu (Song on Siget) from the Cerkvena pesmarica (Church songbook), written in the Kajkavian dialect of Croatian, is dated to the late 16th or early 17th century.[75] The battle was also chronicled in the Hungarian epic poem Szigeti Veszedelem ("Peril of Sziget", 1651), written in fifteen parts by Zrinski's great-grandson Nicholas VII of Zrin.