Siege of Szigetvár (1566): Zrínyi's Last Stand and Suleiman

The Siege of Szigetvár was the last campaign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. From August to September 1566 a huge Ottoman army besieged the small fortress of Szigetvár in southern Hungary, held by the Croatian-Hungarian noble Nikola Zrinski (Miklós Zrínyi) and a garrison of about 2,300 men. The fortress fell after Zrinski led a final, fatal sortie, but Suleiman had died in his tent a day or two earlier, and the death of the great sultan made the siege one of the most famous episodes of the Ottoman wars in Europe.

Background: Hungary divided

After the Ottoman victory at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the medieval Kingdom of Hungary split into three parts. The Ottomans ruled the centre from Buda, the Habsburgs held a strip in the west and north as Royal Hungary, and the eastern lands became the principality of Transylvania under Ottoman overlordship.

A line of border fortresses separated Ottoman and Habsburg territory. Szigetvár, built on islands in a marshy area of the Almás stream, was one of the most important, guarding the routes towards Croatia and Austria. An earlier Ottoman siege in 1556 had failed.

In 1564 Maximilian II became Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary. Fighting resumed, and the Transylvanian prince John Sigismund Zápolya asked the Ottomans for help. Suleiman the Magnificent, now about 71 and in poor health, decided to lead his army in person one last time.

Why Szigetvár?

Suleiman set out from Istanbul on 1 May 1566, travelling much of the way in a carriage because of his gout. His initial aim was probably the Habsburg fortress of Eger or a wider campaign in Royal Hungary.

In early July Zrinski, who had become captain of Szigetvár in 1561, attacked an Ottoman force camped at Siklós and killed its commander, the sanjak-bey Mehmed Bey, a favourite of the sultan. According to the traditional account, this raid persuaded Suleiman to turn against Szigetvár. At the same time another Ottoman army besieged the fortress of Gyula further east.

The siege

The Ottoman army arrived before Szigetvár in early August 1566. Its size is uncertain; contemporary claims of 100,000 or more are probably exaggerated, but modern estimates still suggest tens of thousands of soldiers, with heavy artillery. Zrinski’s garrison numbered about 2,300 Hungarian and Croatian soldiers.

Szigetvár consisted of a fortified town divided into a new town and an old town, and an inner castle. Ottoman engineers drained parts of the surrounding marsh and filled ditches with brushwood and earth. The new town fell after several days of assaults, and the old town was abandoned soon afterwards as the defenders withdrew into the castle.

Through late August the Ottomans mounted repeated assaults on the castle, losing many men, while their mines and artillery gradually destroyed its walls. Emperor Maximilian II had assembled a large army near Győr, but it did not march to relieve Szigetvár.

Death of a sultan

On the night of 6 to 7 September 1566 Suleiman died in his tent, probably from natural causes linked to age and illness. The grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha kept the death secret. Orders continued to be issued in the sultan’s name, and messengers rode to Kütahya in Anatolia to summon his son Selim.

According to tradition, Suleiman’s internal organs were buried near the camp, and a memorial tomb (türbe) was later built there. In 2015–16 Hungarian archaeologists identified the probable site of this tomb and of an Ottoman settlement around it, near Szigetvár.

Zrinski’s last sortie

By 7 September the inner castle was in flames and its walls could no longer be held. On 8 September Zrinski, dressed in fine clothes and carrying the keys of the fortress, according to later accounts, led his remaining few hundred men out of the gate in a final charge. Almost all were killed, Zrinski among them. His head was cut off and later sent to the Habsburg commander at Győr, who returned it to his family.

The traditional story says that Zrinski had left a lit fuse in the powder magazine, which exploded as the Ottomans entered and killed many of them. Some kind of explosion is recorded, but the numbers killed, sometimes given in the thousands, are uncertain.

Key people

• Nikola Zrinski (c. 1508–1566): Ban of Croatia and captain of Szigetvár, a veteran of the Habsburg-Ottoman wars, including the defence of Vienna in 1529.
• Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566): the Ottoman sultan who died during the siege after more than 45 years on the throne.
• Sokollu Mehmed Pasha: the grand vizier who directed the final stage of the siege and hid the sultan’s death.
• Maximilian II: Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, whose army stayed at Győr.

Consequences

The Ottomans had taken Szigetvár and, a few days earlier, Gyula, but at heavy cost. With the sultan dead and the season ending, the army turned for home. Selim II was proclaimed in Istanbul and met the army at Belgrade, after which the death was announced publicly.

Szigetvár itself remained in Ottoman hands for more than a century. It became the seat of an Ottoman sanjak (district), and the Ottomans built a mosque inside the castle that still stands. Habsburg forces only recaptured the town in 1689, during the great war that followed the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683.

Neither side was eager to continue fighting. In 1568 the Treaty of Adrianople (Edirne) brought peace between Maximilian II and Selim II, confirming the Ottoman conquests and the payment of an annual tribute by the Habsburgs. The border in Hungary then remained broadly stable until the Long Turkish War of 1593–1606.

Legacy

Zrinski became a national hero in both Croatia and Hungary. His great-grandson, the poet and general Miklós Zrínyi, wrote the epic poem Szigeti veszedelem (The Peril of Sziget), published in 1651, one of the classics of Hungarian literature. The Croatian composer Ivan Zajc’s opera Nikola Šubić Zrinjski (1876) is one of the most popular works of Croatian opera.

Szigetvár today has a memorial park shared by Hungary and Turkey, reflecting how both nations remember the siege: one as a heroic sacrifice, the other as the place where its greatest sultan died.

Myths and facts

Myth: Szigetvár saved Vienna. The siege certainly consumed the campaigning season, and the sultan’s death ended the campaign. But there is no firm evidence that the Ottomans meant to besiege Vienna in 1566, and the Habsburg army at Győr remained intact.

Fact: the defenders came from many backgrounds. Zrinski’s garrison included Croats and Hungarians, and the siege is claimed by both nations. Zrinski himself belonged to a Croatian noble family with extensive estates in both kingdoms.

Timeline

• 1526, 29 August: The Ottomans defeat the Hungarians at Mohács.
• 1556: An earlier Ottoman siege of Szigetvár fails.
• 1566, 1 May: Suleiman leaves Istanbul on his final campaign.
• 1566, early July: Zrinski’s raid at Siklós kills the sanjak-bey Mehmed Bey.
• 1566, 6 August: The siege of Szigetvár begins in earnest.
• 1566, 6–7 September: Suleiman dies in his camp outside the fortress.
• 1566, 8 September: Zrinski’s final sortie; the fortress falls.
• 1568, February: The Treaty of Adrianople ends the war.

Why it matters

Szigetvár marked the end of the reign of the most powerful Ottoman sultan and the last great Ottoman campaign led by a sultan in person for decades. Zrinski’s stand became a lasting symbol of resistance in Central Europe, while the siege itself showed how even small fortresses could absorb an entire campaigning season.