Battle of Tápióbicske

After the Hungarian Revolutionary Army’s Spring Campaign started well with a victory at the Battle of Hatvan, the Second Army, consisting of I, II and III Corps, started to advance southwest in the direction of Pest and Buda. They met at Jászberény on 3 April. General Artúr Görgei, the interim commander-in-chief of the Hungarian armies, issued marching orders. György Klapka was to depart with I Corps at 4  the next morning towards Tápióbicske via Nagykáta. János Damjanich with III Corps was to set off at 5 am Nagykáta.Lieutenant-Colonel István Szekulits, with II Corps, was to move off at 6 am towards Farmos. The army headquarters was to be at Nagykáta.[3] The Hungarian plan for the Spring Campaign, as elaborated by Antal Vetter, was that VII Corps, commanded by András Gáspár, had to attract the attention of the Austrian Windisch-Grätz by making a feint attack from the direction of Hatvan. Meanwhile the other three corps (I, II and III) would encircle the Austrian forces from the south-west, and cut them off from Pest and Buda.[4] It was important that these three corps should not be detected by the Austrians as they advanced towards Windisch-Grätz.[5]

Klapka’s troops finally departed two hours late, at 6 o'clock. On the way he received news that Jelačić's troops had spent the night at Tápióbicske but departed, leaving only their baggage and a few soldiers in the village. So, without thinking about the danger of revealing the campaign plan to the enemy, Klapka decided to fall on them by surprise and take this apparently easy booty. But in the meanwhile, without Klapka's knowledge, Colonel Leopold Sternberg had arrived in Tápióbicske with his cavalry brigade, as had an infantry brigade under the command of Major-General Daniel Rastić.[6]

Klapka's force was led by the Dipold brigade in the vanguard, followed by the rest of the army in this order: the Bobich, Sulcz and Zákó brigades (named after the officers who led them), then the cavalry division led by Colonel Arisztid Dessewffy. The vanguard crossed the Tápió river, then entered Tápióbicske in company columns. But here it was caught by surprise by the crossfire of the Croatian border guard units of the Rastić-brigade, hidden among the houses of the village, and suffered heavy losses, retreating in disorder towards the Tápió bridge. The soldiers of the fleeing Dipold-brigade ran into the Bobich-brigade which had just crossed the river and deployed its horse battery. Their infectious panic routed Bobich’s infantry and artillery as well, then also the Sulcz and Zákó brigades.[7]

Portrait of György Klapka

This predisposition to panic was a common problem in the Hungarian revolutionary army because, especially in the first months of the Hungarian War of Independence, they often used irregulars alongside the regular soldiers. The panicking irregulars caused major problems, for example in the Battle of Schwechat.[8]) This was due to the poor quality of their training, or the short period of their instruction, caused by the urgent need for new troops to replace losses and the pressures of defending a country attacked from every direction, and the unpreparedness and lack of training of the officers; all of these down to the fact that the Hungarian army was only a few months old, while its enemy, the Habsburg army was the product of many centuries of uninterrupted institutional tradition.[9][10]

Than Mór: Cavalry fight in the battle of Tápióbicske with the duel of Alajos Sebő and Hermann Riedesel

The Hungarians also lost an entire battery because the gunners confused the attacking enemy infantry with theirs, due to them having the same colour uniforms. Seeing all these misfortunes, Klapka sent the I. (Császár) and VIIIth (Koburg) hussar regiments to attack the Croatian Ban's Hussars, who were pursuing the Hungarian infantry. At the head of the I. Hussar Regiment was Major Alajos Sebő, a very good officer, while at the head of the Croats was Major Hermann Riedesel, a strapping man, one of the best duelists in the imperial army. The two men knew each other. Riedesel challenged Sebő to a duel, and this he accepted, despite fearing that he would certainly be killed, as he said later, to set a courageous example for his regiment, which was known as one of the weakest in the Hungarian army. After they had charged each other twice, neither of them was wounded, but on the third charge, after Riedesel had injured his hand or arm, Sebő made his smaller and quicker horse push the Austrian officer’s horse, causing him to lose his balance, then struck him down with his sword, slashing Riedesel's face, who fell down dead.[11] Twenty years later this duel inspired the great Hungarian novelist, Mór Jókai, in his description of the duel between two of his fictional characters, the Hungarian hussar Richárd Baradlay and the Austrian officer Otto Palvicz in the 23rd chapter of his novel The Baron's Sons (A kőszívű ember fiai), depicting the Battle of Isaszeg.[12]

Károly Földváry as a soldier of the Hungarian Legion fighting in the Italian War for Unification. Foto: 1863

After Sebő's success, the Hungarian hussars drove the Croat cavalry back, but were halted by the imperial artillery and a brave attack by the Croat border guard battalion, which forced them to retreat to the other side of the Tápió river. This again caused chaos among the Hungarian troops, who started a hasty retreat, which was contributed to by the fact that Klapka lost contact with his troops while trying to cross the river far from them. The Rastić and Sternberg brigades crossed the river via the bridge, took 10 Hungarian cannon and 4 ammunition caissons, and captured two Hungarian officers and 123 men.[13] The Croat batteries fired at the retreating Hungarians, who were fortunate that the terrain on this side of the river was quite broken ground, so their cavalry could not do its job of pursuing the retreating forces. At this dramatic moment Görgei arrived on the scene, and tried unsuccessfully to stop the I Corps soldiers’ retreat and to get them into battle order.[14]

Damjanich János

The battle seemed to be lost, until Damjanich's III Corps arrived on the battlefield. Before they deployed, Colonel Arisztid Dessewffy, with the remaining cavalry and artillery of I Corps which had not fled, managed to stop the advancing imperials amidst heavy fighting. Following Görgei's order, Damjanich then took command of Wysocki’s division of his corps, and together with the Leiningen brigade, started to charge.[15] In the meantime, the fleeing troops of I Corps also regrouped. When the Hungarian soldiers of the 3rd and 9th Battalions of the III. Corps, arrived at the bridge after chasing the enemy back to the other side of the river, they started to argue about who would cross it first, losing precious time. The commander of the 3rd Battalion, Major Károly Földváry – a hero of several battles of the Hungarian War of Independence (he also distinguished himself in the Battle of Vác) – wrested the flag of the 9th Battalion from its commander's hand, and led both battalions across the bridge under a hail of bullets from the imperial troops. After chasing them from the outskirts of the village, the whole Wysocki division crossed and joined the pursuit. The retreating imperial troops set the village on fire to slow down the advancing Hungarians.[16] The cavalry of III Corps led by Colonel József Nagysándor tried to pursue the retreating Austrians, but the terrain prevented them from doing this.[17][18]

The Hungarian victory was made bitter-sweet by the fact that they could not recapture four of their guns which had been taken by the Austrians.[19] Additionally, György Klapka, normally a very capable general, had made a considerable tactical error in giving the order to attack Tápióbicske, because in doing so he had revealed the location of his troops. Because of this, Görgei did not dare to give the order for the encirclement of the main imperial forces at Isaszeg and Gödöllő. According to László Pusztaszeri, Klapka thereby prevented a decisive Hungarian victory over Windisch-Grätz.[20] Róbert Hermann believes that although Görgei was uncertain what to do, he finally decided to order his troops to continue their movements according to the initial plan.[21]

On the other hand, after the battle on 4 April, Jelačić falsely reported a Croat victory over the Hungarians. This misled Windisch-Grätz, who did not understand what was happening on the south-eastern front, and contributed to him ordering the Ban of Croatia (Jelačić) to pursue the Hungarians, who in reality were not fleeing but nearing Gödöllő. He was totally unclear about where the Hungarian forces really were, and feared that their main forces would get around him either from the south, cutting his lines of communication with the capital, or from the north, liberating the fortress of Komárom from the imperial siege. So Windisch-Grätz scattered his forces on a 54-kilometer front, which made it impossible for his troops to support each other effectively (some units were more than a day's march apart). In contrast, the Hungarian front line was only 22 kilometers long, and so at all times during the battle Görgei could concentrate up to two thirds of his force at any point of his front line. Windisch-Grätz's error reduced his chance of victory against the Hungarian main forces in the Battle of Isaszeg which followed two days after Tápióbicske.[22]

• Bóna, Gábor (1987). Tábornokok és törzstisztek a szabadságharcban 1848–49 ("Generals and Staff Officers in the War of Independence 1848–1849") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Zrínyi Katonai Kiadó. p. 430. ISBN 963-326-343-3.
• Hermann, Róbert (1996). Az 1848–1849 évi forradalom és szabadságharc története ("The history of the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence of 1848–1849) (in Hungarian). Budapest: Videopont. p. 464. ISBN 963-8218-20-7.
• Hermann, Róbert (2001). Az 1848–1849-es szabadságharc hadtörténete ("Military History of the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848–1849") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Korona Kiadó. p. 424. ISBN 963-9376-21-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Hermann, Róbert (2004). Az 1848–1849-es szabadságharc nagy csatái ("Great battles of the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848–1849") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Zrínyi. p. 408. ISBN 963-327-367-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Jókai, Mór (1869). A kőszívű ember fiai ("The Baron's Sons") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Neumann Kht.
• Pászti, László (2013). A magyar honvédsereg harcászata az 1848–49-es szabadságharcban ("Strategics of the Hungarian Honvéd Army in the 1848/49 Revolution and War of Independence") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Hadtörténeti intézet és Múzeum Könyvtára. p. 270. ISBN 978-963-7097-63-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Pusztaszeri, László (1984). Görgey Artúr a szabadságharcban ("Artúr Görgey in the War of Independence") (in Hungarian). Budapest: Magvető Könyvkiadó. p. 784. ISBN 963-14-0194-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)