“The German was gloriously beaten, but from the battlefield, we fled in disgrace.”
On 22 January 1710, the armies of Johann Damian Sickingen, Lieutenant-General, and Prince Rákóczi II Ferenc fought the Battle of Romhány, in which the Imperial forces, despite heavy losses, finally routed the Kuruc armies. This was the last major battle of the Rákóczi War of Independence, and regardless of the outcome, the war against the Habsburgs entered its final stage.
After the defeat at Trencsén on August 3, 1708, the Kuruc lost the opportunity to take the initiative, as the defeat caused the disintegration of most of Rákóczi’s armies, and some of his talented officers – such as Ocskay László, Bezerédj Imre – defected to the Labanc (pro-Habsburg) forces or were suspected of treason. In the year following the Trencsén fiasco, the Kuruc suffered one misfortune after another: the events of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14) had already sealed the fate of the War of Independence, as Rákóczi’s main ally, King Louis XIV of France (r. 1643-1715), was defeated at Oudenaarde in 1708 and at Malplaquet in 1709, allowing the Habsburgs to regroup a considerable force in Hungary.
In addition to the unfavorable international developments, the Kuruc had to face the fact that the population, deprived by the war, supported Rákóczi with less and less enthusiasm, and the plague that began in 1709 further increased the misery. In the meantime, the prince had lost one of his most talented commanders, Vak Bottyán, and it is not surprising that the Kuruc only launched attacks against the entrenchments of Liptó in that year, while in the Felvidék (northern Hungary) they retreated further east, and after the withdrawal of Esterházy Antal, they gave up the Danube region.
Esterházy retreated with the rest of his troops to Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky), a fortress which the Kuruc defenders successfully defended deep behind the Imperial front. The town on the banks of the Nyitra River was practically Rákóczi’s last chance to postpone his fall, and after the prince had taken refuge in Hungary with hundreds of Swedish and thousands of Polish soldiers from the army of Charles XII (1697-1718), who had lost the battle of Poltava, the chance to launch a new campaign suddenly opened up at the end of 1709.
In January 1710, Rákóczi began his westward campaign with some 9-12,000 troops, aiming to liberate the Mining Towns and relieve the burden of Érsekújvár. The march was far from easy, however, as the raging plague meant that the Kuruc had to avoid the towns and suffer terrible privations to reach Kálló in Nógrád County, where Rákóczi held a war meeting on 21 January.
The prince planned to meet the troops of Lieutenant-General Sickingen stationed in the county at Érsekvadkert, who had already heard about the approach of the Kuruc troops on that day, so the next day he set out on a reconnaissance mission with 1500 soldiers. This is important to note because none of the commanders involved in the battle of Romhány on 22 January had planned to fight on that day – which explains the small number of Labanc (pro-Habsburg) forces – but after they had met north of the above-mentioned settlement, in the marshy part of the Lokus stream, they were determined to fight.
While the Kuruc army was forming its battle formation, Lieutenant-General Baron Sickingen arrived with his army and “not wishing to give the Kuruc army time to develop fully,” he immediately placed his army in battle formation, with the cavalry and dragoons in the first line and the hussars in the second. The left flank, consisting of dragoons, was commanded by General Count St. Croix, and the right flank, consisting of cavalry, by Sickingen himself.
After both sides had thus established their battle order quite calmly and without interference from the enemy, the battle of Romhány began at about 3 p.m., without either side having thought or expected it beforehand.
Following the orders of Rákóczi, the battle began with the attack of the Polish legionnaires. The Poles’ brisk flanking attack achieved a great result at the very first encounter, breaking through the front line of Sickingen’s opposing cuirassier cavalry, then surrounded the hussars of Ocskay László, who had already been executed by then, and in their desperate situation laid down their arms in front of the attackers.
At the same time the Swedes, with the regular Kuruc army joining them, also threw themselves with great impetus on the opposing cuirassier cavalry, and breaking through their line, pushed most of the Hohenzollern and La Tour regiments to the swamps of the Lókus stream. Lieutenant-General Sickingen himself and his horse were up to their necks in the mud, from which they could only escape thanks to the later rampages of the Kuruc troops.
About half of Sickingen’s men, the whole of Uhlefeld’s regiment and part of the Hohenzollern regiment, as well as most of Ocskay’s Labanc Hussar regiment, surrounded by the Poles, laid down their arms in front of them. Some of the Poles were busy disarming and guarding these enemy divisions, while others continued to pillage Sickingen’s supply train.
Rákóczi’s right wing, the Tiszántúli (Trans-Tisza Region) army, and Bagossy’s Hajdú troops, partly because, being pressed by the troops on their left, they were in some disorder and Bagossy’s Hajdú troops had to fight against the danger of being trapped in the marsh, and partly because St. Croix’s dragoons had in the meantime made a strong attack on the Kuruc right flank, which was already glad to have been able to stop the desperate attack of the Imperial dragoons. This was mainly due to the intervention of the Tiszántúli army, while the overly long fire of the Hajdú soldiers and perhaps the artillery did not have the desired result.
The battle of Romhány seemed to be decided in a matter of moments, but Rákóczi’s army was once again under the “ancient curse”, for as soon as the Poles had defeated the cavalry on the left flank, they began to plunder the enemy’s baggage, which gave General Saint-Croix time to gather the shattered troops around him and lead a counterattack.
The Swedes, who were sufficiently experienced soldiers, recognized the danger and launched an attack to stop the Imperials, but the Hungarian foot soldiers stood by and watched the events unfold, thus sealing the fate of the battle. The reorganized Labanc army easily penetrated the gap between the two columns and soon routed Rákóczi’s soldiers; as in many other battles, the Kuruc almost won, but due to inexperienced leadership and/or lack of fighting discipline, they had to leave the battlefield as losers for the repeated time.
The loosely disciplined Kuruc troops then finally broke down, and everyone fled across the bridge of the Lókus and through the fords to the other side of the stream. When the Poles saw that they were alone on the battlefield, they stopped looting and also retreated towards Romhány. With cries of “Ubi est princeps?” they searched everywhere for Rákóczi (probably to receive instructions for their further conduct). When the prince saw the destruction of his army, he hurried down the hill to intercept the retreating troops.
At the bridge, he met Lieutenant-General Károlyi Sándor, who dissuaded him from intervening personally, lest the incident at Trencsén, when the Prince and his horse had fallen and almost been captured in the turmoil of the retreat, should happen again. On the other hand, Károlyi “seeing that the enemy’s right flank and waist (center) had been overthrown, – writes Rákóczi on page 268 of his memoirs – and that the Serbian troops who were with the Germans were fleeing towards Vadkert, cut off the retreat routes and captured their leader.”
Rákóczy still had two intact regiments, Draguly’s and Sennyey’s, but he did not seem to have much confidence in them, and so he ordered the troops to retreat behind the Lókus stream, which, no longer disturbed by the enemy, was accomplished quite smoothly, and only most of the troops affected by the attack of Saint-Croix were dispersed. The regular regiments, together with the remnants of the Swedes and Poles, crossed the bridge and fords of the Lókus stream and halted alongside it, facing north.
The Swedish and Polish officers urged Rákóczi to attack again and pursue the enemy, who were also very much beaten and had lost much, “but the prince, discouraged by the weak conduct of his troops, which could not be justified in any way,” did not accept this advice, but ordered a further retreat. Sickingen did the same, leading his severely depleted army back to Vadkert.
To make the Imperial success in battle complete, an almost comical scene intervened at this moment of the battle. At Bánk, west of Romhány, the Imperial Viard garrison was stationed. At the news of the approach of the Kuruc towards Vadkert, a captain named Migli with 12 men, probably as a raiding patrol, set off from there in the early afternoon towards Romhány and during the battle hid in a small wood west of the battle site. This small group, just as the break-up of the Kuruc front was beginning, suddenly began to trumpet and drum with such a fury that the Kuruc thought that a strong force was coming from there to the aid of the Imperials.
The contradictions of the battle of Romhány are perfectly illustrated by the fact that despite the victory, almost half of Sickingen’s men, about 750 Labanc soldiers, died in the battle, while the Kuruc lost about 350 men. Consequently, although the Imperial forces left the battlefield victorious, they were unable to take advantage of the opportunities created by the battle: despite his defeat, Rákóczi later sent supplies to Érsekújvár, but he was unable to continue the planned campaign after Romhány.
Regardless of whether we highlight the successes or failures of the battle fought on 22 January 1710, the indisputable fact remains that this battle did not change the outcome of the War of Independence: in the following months, the fortresses that had sided with the prince fell into the hands of the Labanc troops, and only the peace of Szatmár saved the Kuruc from military collapse.
Source: Tarján M. Tamás Bánlaky József
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