Summer Campaign

The Summer Campaign (Hungarian: nyári hadjárat) was the military campaign of the armed forces of the Habsburg Empire and Russian Empire against the troops of the Hungarian State with the intent to end its independence and abolish the achievements of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Following the Hungarian army's successful Spring Campaign, Franz Joseph I requested assistance from Tsar Nicholas I of Russia on May 21, 1849. The Tsar dispatched an army of nearly 200,000 Russian soldiers led by Marshal Ivan Paskevich to fight Hungary. The Austrian main army was led by Field Marshal Julius Jacob von Haynau. The enemy armies attacked Hungary from all 4 directions. The much smaller Hungarian army was led by General Artúr Görgei. Despite scoring many surprising successes, the Hungarian army was ultimately defeated by the superior forces of the two empires. On August 13, Görgei's main army surrendered to the Russian army. The remaining Hungarian troops and forts surrendered by October 2. Most of the Hungarian political and military elite fled the country. Those who remained were either executed or imprisoned.