Hungarian Commanders in the Battle of Mohács

 I am preparing for our Mohács wargaming scenario as part of the 500th anniversary commemorations. I have started creating representations of iconic commanders and historical figures from both sides.

Archbishop Pál Tomori was the commander of the Hungarian army during the Battle of Mohács. He was born in 1475 into a family of the lesser nobility and initially pursued a career as a secular official. In his forties (possibly due to a personal crisis), he joined the Franciscan Order; consequently, later sources often referred to him simply as "the Friar."

Archbishop Pál Tomori with his page

Because of the growing Ottoman threat to Hungary, he was appointed Archbishop of Kalocsa in 1523, the second-highest ecclesiastical office in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Also he was also appointed Captain-General of Hungary's Southern Border Fortress System. The purpose of these two appointments was to ensure that the substantial revenues of the archbishopric could help finance the kingdom's defenses. He was regarded as an excellent organizer rather than a brilliant battlefield commander.

Shortly before the Battle of Mohács, the king and the nobles appointed him commander-in-chief of the Hungarian army. This appointment was against his wishes. By his own admission, he had never before seen an army as large as this one (approximately 27,000 men) and had no experience commanding such a force.

At the beginning of the battle, he realized that only part of the Ottoman army—the Rumelian Army—had reached the battlefield. At that moment, he abandoned the original defensive plan and ordered an assault, hoping to defeat the Ottoman forces piecemeal before the rest of the army arrived. His intuition proved correct, but unfortunately the Ottoman main army arrived just in time to overwhelm and defeat the Hungarians.

To represent him, I choose a mounted command figure from Wargames Foundry's early 16th century range. The purple colour of his attire and the horsecloth symbolizes his ecclesiastical dignity.

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The other character is Péter Perényi, Keeper of the Holy Crown of Hungary. He was a member of one of the kingdom's most prominent noble families. During the battle, he commanded the Hungarian left flank, which remained largely inactive until the arrival of the Army of Anatolia, the last major Ottoman force to reach the battlefield. His cavalry initially achieved some success against the Anatolian troops, but after the collapse of the Hungarian right flank and centre, his forces withdrew from the battlefield. Perényi was one of the few high-ranking officials to survive the Battle of Mohács.

Péter Perényi, Keeper of the Holy Crown of Hungary