How did Hungary, one of the most powerful kingdoms of the Middle Ages, become such a small and weak country? Why is Hungary the only European country that has lost more than half of its original territory?

How did Hungary, one of the most powerful kingdoms of the Middle Ages, become such a small and weak country? Why is Hungary the only European country that has lost more than half of its original territory?

The decline of the Kingdom of Hungary

King Fradeslaus II abolished the taxation that supported the mercenaries of Matthias Corvinus. As a result, just as the Turks threatened Hungary, the Hungarian Black Army dispersed. In 1492, the Hungarian Parliament restricted the freedom of movement of the serfs and expanded their obligations. In 1514, when armed peasants, led by the border guard György Dózsa, prepared for a crusade against the Turks, discontent erupted in the countryside and attacked estates across Hungary. Under common threats, the magnates and petty nobles eventually crushed the rebels.

When Vladislaus II died in 1516, his ten-year-old son Louis II ascended the throne, but a royal council appointed by parliament ruled the country. Under the rule of the magnates, Hungary was in a state of near-anarchy. The country's defensive capacity declined as border troops were not paid, the fort fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to strengthen the defense were stifled. In 1521, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent recognized Hungary's weakness and captured Belgrade, the strongest fortress on the southern border, in preparation for an attack on Hungary.

After the fall of Belgrade, Louis II and his wife Mary of the Habsburgs tried unsuccessfully to manage an anti-magnate coup. In August 1526, suleiman's Ottoman Empire appeared in southern Hungary, and he led an army of nearly 100,000 into the Hungarian hinterland. About 26,000 Hungarian troops met with the Turks in Mohacs. The Hungarian army, while well-equipped and well-trained, lacked good military leaders, and reinforcements from Croatia and Transylvania did not arrive in time. They were completely defeated, killing as many as 20,000 people on the battlefield, and Louis himself died when he fell from his horse into the river.

After Louis's death, the rival factions of the Hungarian nobility elected two kings simultaneously, the province of John Zaporia of Transylvania and archduke Ferdinand of Austria. In 1529, the territory of Saporia (including eastern Hungary) became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, when he swore allegiance to Suleiman. In 1538, Saboria's adviser, George Martinuzzi, arranged an agreement between rivals known as the Treaty of Nagyvárad, in which Ferdinand would become the sole monarch after the death of Childless Sapolia. Just before his death in 1540, Zaporia married and bore a son, John Sigismund Zaporia, which failed. Violence erupted and the Turks seized the opportunity to seize the throne of Buda, dividing the kingdom into three in 1541.