Battle of Saint Gotthard (1664): Montecuccoli Halts the Turks

The Battle of Saint Gotthard, fought on 1 August 1664 on the Raab river in western Hungary, was a victory for a multinational Christian army under Raimondo Montecuccoli over the Ottoman forces of Grand Vizier Koprulu Fazil Ahmed Pasha. It blocked an Ottoman advance toward Austria. Yet only ten days later Emperor Leopold I agreed to the Peace of Vasvar, a truce so favourable to the Ottomans that it outraged Hungarian opinion.

Background: the war of 1663-1664

Hungary had been divided between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans since the sixteenth century. Tension grew after the Ottomans intervened in Transylvania in the late 1650s and took the fortress of Varad (Oradea) in 1660.

Under the Koprulu grand viziers, the revived Ottoman army went to war with the Habsburgs in 1663. Fazil Ahmed Pasha captured the major fortress of Ersekujvar (Nove Zamky, in today’s Slovakia) in September 1663.

In early 1664 the Croatian-Hungarian commander Nikola Zrinski (Zrinyi Miklos) led a daring winter raid that burned the long Ottoman bridge at Osijek over the Drava. The Ottomans answered in summer by besieging and destroying his new fortress of Zrinyi-Ujvar. Fazil Ahmed then marched west along the Raab, apparently aiming to cross into Styria and Lower Austria.

The armies

Montecuccoli, an Italian-born general in Habsburg service, commanded a mixed force. Besides the imperial troops, it included soldiers sent by the Holy Roman Empire’s princes and by the League of the Rhine, and about 6,000 French troops under Count Jean de Coligny-Saligny, sent by Louis XIV despite his rivalry with the Habsburgs. In total the allies had roughly 25,000 men.

The Ottoman army was larger, though estimates vary greatly, commonly from about 40,000 to 60,000 or more. Its strength lay in its Janissary infantry and the sipahi cavalry.

The battle

On 1 August Ottoman troops forded the Raab at a bend in the river near Mogersdorf, across from the village of Szentgotthard and its abbey. Their first attack broke into the imperial centre and caused alarm.

Montecuccoli brought up reinforcements from the flanks, including the French and the troops of the Empire, and launched a general counter-attack in the afternoon. The Ottoman troops on the near bank were pushed back toward the river, which had risen with recent rain. Many were killed or drowned while trying to cross back, and the grand vizier, whose main army remained on the far bank, could not send effective help.

Ottoman losses are usually given as several thousand, with some accounts claiming far more; allied losses were lower but significant. The figures remain uncertain.

The Peace of Vasvar

The victory did not lead to a counter-offensive. On 10 August 1664, at Vasvar, Leopold’s envoy agreed a twenty-year truce with the Ottomans. They kept Varad and Ersekujvar, their candidate Michael Apafi was recognised as prince of Transylvania, and the emperor agreed to send a gift of 200,000 florins.

Leopold had reasons: he feared French ambitions, wanted his hands free for the question of the Spanish inheritance, and doubted his allies’ staying power. To the Ottomans, the outcome confirmed that the battle had been a local setback.

In Hungary the reaction was bitter. Nobles complained that a victory won partly on Hungarian soil had been thrown away, that the emperor had negotiated without consulting the Hungarian estates, and that the Ottomans had been left in possession of key fortresses deep in the kingdom.

Timeline

• 1663, September: Ottomans capture Ersekujvar (Nove Zamky).
• 1664, February: Nikola Zrinski burns the Ottoman bridge at Osijek.
• 1664, June-July: Ottomans besiege and destroy Zrinyi-Ujvar.
• 1664, 1 August: Battle of Saint Gotthard on the Raab.
• 1664, 10 August: Peace of Vasvar is signed.
• 1671, 30 April: Leaders of the Hungarian magnate conspiracy are executed.

Consequences

Many Hungarian and Croatian nobles felt betrayed by Vasvar. Some, including Peter Zrinski (Nikola’s brother), Fran Krsto Frankopan and Ferenc Nadasdy, plotted against Leopold. The conspiracy was discovered, and its leaders were executed in 1671, which deepened resistance to Habsburg rule in Hungary.

The battle also earned Montecuccoli lasting fame. He later wrote influential works on the art of war and remained a leading Habsburg commander. The truce held until 1683, when the Ottomans marched on Vienna and were defeated at the Battle of Vienna.

Key people

• Raimondo Montecuccoli (1609-1680), Italian-born field marshal in Habsburg service and allied commander at the battle. A veteran of the Thirty Years’ War, he later became president of the imperial war council.
• Koprulu Fazil Ahmed Pasha (1635-1676), Ottoman grand vizier, who had captured Ersekujvar the year before and would go on to take Candia in Crete in 1669.
• Leopold I (1640-1705), Holy Roman Emperor and king of Hungary, whose decision to make a rapid peace shaped the battle’s outcome more than the fighting itself.
• Jean de Coligny-Saligny (1617-1686), commander of the French contingent, whose troops played an important part in the counter-attack.
• Nikola Zrinski (1620-1664), Croatian ban and poet, who criticised the Habsburg conduct of the war; he was killed in a hunting accident in November 1664.

Why it matters

Saint Gotthard showed that a well-led European coalition could defeat Ottoman troops in open battle, a lesson that shaped the wars of the 1680s and 1690s. At the same time, the hasty peace revealed how dynastic politics in the West often outweighed the war in the East.