How a kingdom was catapulted to greatness through war, the papacy and one monarch’s dream of peace and stability
Words ALEKSANDAR PAVLOVIC
Matthias Corvinus
b.1443-d.1490
Reigned 1458-90
Matthias I of Hungary aimed to reconstruct and strengthen the state after decades of feudal anarchy and the external threat of invasion. He is most remembered for his extensive library and his concern for justice.
When Matthias Corvinus finally put an end to years-long internal struggles in 1464 and firmly established his rule, it looked like the moment to confront the Turks had finally come. The time seemed pressing – the last remnants of the once mighty Serbian state fell to the Ottomans in 1459, Wallachia went down by 1462, causing the expulsion of Vlad the Impaler (who Bram Stoker later turned into Dracula), and Bosnia succumbed to the Turks in 1463 with the execution of its last king, Stefan Tomaševic. The system of buffer states created by Hungarian king Sigismund collapsed and the Turks now held a firm grip over their border with Hungary, which stretched from the Adriatic coast to the Lower Danube.
Pope Pius II was a vigorous promoter of an anti-Ottoman crusade and had high hopes of the young Matthias, son of the great John Hunyadi who had held back and once even defeated the ‘invincible’ Sultan Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople. By all accounts, it must have seemed to Matthias that it was just a matter of waiting for the day when Mehmed would return with a vengeance. So, when Pius II called the crusade in 1464, Matthias joined the ranks and attacked Mehmed’s newly conquered Bosnia. The Hungarian crusaders were initially successful – they took over the then Bosnian capital of Jajce and continued to progress east, taking Srebrenica as well.
Having failed to capture Zvornik on the furthest eastern border on the Drina River, Matthias returned home the following year with significant losses. Yet his campaign was a relative success, and he later even named Nicholas of Illok as the titular king of Bosnia. Overall, however, the crusade proved to be a total disaster and, apart from a few Venetian galleys, no one seemed eager to fight the Ottomans.
The pope did what he could – despite his illness, he left for Ancona where his army melted away while waiting in vain for transport. But by the time the Venetian ships arrived he had died and the whole affair was abandoned. Even the Albanian military commander Skanderbeg, probably the greatest fighter against the Turks after John Hunyadi’s death, withdrew upon seeing that the crusade was nothing but a failure.
Matthias realised that he would be alone if he continued his anti-Ottoman policy, but he also understood that Mehmed had absolutely no intention of waging a conquering war against Hungary. He did plan to capture Belgrade – the only remaining Hungarian fortress on the right side of the Danube – but, as it appears, this w
