Whiro

Greetings forum users

I am new to this forum and - this being my first post - I hope to make many more in the near future.

I am needing help with scourcing any available books or texts in English with relations to the Ottoman - Hungarian wars and, in particular, any works that deal specifically with Suieman The Magnificent's campaign and subsequent siege of Szigetvar in 1566.

Any help (however small!) would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Kotromanic

A reference is available in paperback which covers up to the 1520's:



Though if the interest on your part is on Ottoman military tactics and weapons this reference will be lacking details, it will cover the Ottoman-Hungarian wars over the whole 15th and early 16 centuries.

CrazyShadowDami

cant give you any books, but i can give you some info i know about it:

it was a battle betwen a 100000 troops large ottoman army, and a hungarian fort, protected by Croat soldiers and baron Nikola Shubich Zrinsky. it was the only thing that stood in between on Vienna and the ottoman empire. the battle was famous as a "termopolis of the medievals", since, although the ottoman troops won the fort, the took massive casualties, about 40000-50000 troops. Suleiman the magnificent died, litteratly out of shock when he heard that his army was decimated. it was a victory, but a phyrric one. the ottomans stoped their campagin and went back. that is the day when Croatia became known as the "Bastion of Christianity"

edesorban

This excerpt from The Spirit of Hungary by Stephen Sisa, provides a lot of information.

http://www.hungarianhistory.com/lib/hunspir/hsp24.htm

ThePharaoh

Hahahah. Yes it was a phryic one due to heavy casualties but really , "sultan dies of shock" ? This is all that poor nationalism can go? Did you check Suleiman's age during the war? However , death of Suleiman saved the Vienna , that is truth. And death toll of Turkish side was between 20k - 30k

Tulun

unfortunetly i'm not familiar with the English language literature on the battle of Szigetvár and the primer sources are mostly in Latin, Hungarian, Croat, Italian, Turkish or German. But there is a good book in English about the battle of Mohács 40 years earlier and the background of it, also available online:

The Fall of The Medieval Kingdom of Hungary: Mohacs 1526 - Buda 1541


And this is just a general overview of the Ottoman rule in Hungary, i guess not detailed enough for your interest

CROSS AND CRESCENT : THE TURKISH AGE IN HUNGARY (1526-1699)

Also you may be interested in the epic poem by Miklós Zrínyi the younger about the siege of Szigetvár (he was the great-grandson of the defender of Szigetvár and himself was also a military leader against the Ottomans), it was not historically accurate of course (for example in the poem Zrínyi kills Suleyman while in reality Suleyman died for natural reasons and it includes other fantasy elements), but maybe you will find some parts of it useful, it also has an English translation


Edit: i just checked the bibliography of the English edition of this book above, and found in it some other good works for you: