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Battle of Saint Gotthard

The Battle of Saint Gotthard was a battle between between an Habsburg army led by Raimondo Montecuccoli, Wolfgang Julius von Hohenlohe, Prince Leopold of Baden, Georg Friedrich of Waldeck and an Ottoman army under the command of Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed on August 1, 1664 as part of the Austro-Turkish War (1663-1664).

The battle took place near Szentgotthárd and Mogersdorf in Western Hungary. The Turks were militarily defeated but were able to negotiate the Peace of Vasvár, which was highly favourable to them.

In June 1664 Banus Nicholas Zrinský, the commander of the Imperial Army of the South (also called "Mur-army"), was forced to cancel, siege of the Ottoman fortress Kanizsa because Vizier Koprulu with approximately 50,000 strong army relieved the fortress. Afterwards Köprülü turned westward and conquered the fortress built by Banus himself, New Zrin, the army of the South was not able to defend it, because it only consisted of 17,000 men. As the imperial commander Montecuccoli has not been able to send reinforcements Zrinský, he angrily left on 29 June the imperial army.

After the destruction of the fortress New Zrin, the Ottoman main force moved towards Vienna and met on 30 July at the Raab between Mogersdorf and St. Gotthard with the main imperial army, which had taken the left bank of the river as position. This multinational force under command Montecuccolis , which in February 1664 had consisted of 28,500 men, shrank greatly due to poor sanitary conditions and lack of food for several days to only 25,000 men. On the other side, the right bank stood a man twice as strong Ottoman army, consisting of 50,000 men.

In the early hours of 1 August 1664 3000 janissaries and 3000 sipahis crossed with intense firesupport from the Ottoman Topcular the Raab, overran the first outposts of the camp and then the main camp of the imperial troops, that their commander, Count of Waldeck, had opposing to Montecuccolis command only secured insufficiently. The surprised troops in the centre became disordered and the Sipahis were able to rout them, while the Janissaries were able to take the town Mogersdorf. Thus the centre of the Allies was practically in disarray, "the wellbeing of their country hung by a thread", was later reported to the Imperial Diet...

In this critical situation Montecuccoli personally led the counterattack with three regiments of infantry and two Cuirassier. This was supported by Margrave Frederick VI of Baden-Durlach with some newly formed Saxon troops. Meanwhile attacked the commander of the Rhine Confederation Corps, Count of Hohenlohe, with two battalions and four squadrons Mogersdorf ,which was invaded by Janissaries from the East and expelled them. After this success the imperial commander Montecuccoli decided to seek the decision and to attack with all available forces the enemy bridgehead. The remaining Ottoman forces, entrenched only provisionally, were not able to oppose this massive attack, since the bulk of their forces remained on the other side of the river. Until late afternoon the allied army finally succeeded, the Ottoman forces at the left bank of Raab retreated, what soon became a flight. just nine days after the battle, on the 10th August 1664 the Treaty of Vas was signed for a period of 20 years.

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