Editing Battle of Mohács (section)

===Jagiellonian-Habsburg attempt to organize defence against the Ottomans===
King Louis II of Hungary married [[Mary of Habsburg]] in 1522. The Ottomans saw this Jagiellonian–Habsburg marital alliance as a threat to their power in the [[Balkans]] and worked to break it. After [[Suleiman the Magnificent|Suleiman I]] came to power in Constantinople in 1520, the [[High Porte]] made the Hungarians at least one and possibly two offers of peace. For unclear reasons, Louis refused. It is possible that Louis was well aware of Hungary's situation (especially after the Ottomans defeated Persia in the [[Battle of Chaldiran]] (1514) and the Polish-Ottoman peace from 1525) and believed that war was a better option than peace. Even in peacetime, the Ottomans raided Hungarian lands and conquered small territories (with border castles), but a final battle still offered Louis a glimmer of hope. Accordingly, another [[Ottoman-Hungarian wars|Ottoman–Hungarian war]] ensued, and in June 1526 an Ottoman expedition advanced up the [[Danube]].<ref>Tamás Pálosfalvi, ''From Nicopolis to Mohács: A History of Ottoman–Hungarian Warfare, 1389–1526'' (Brill, 2018)</ref>

In the early 1500s, Vladislav II (ruled 1490–1516), Louis II and Croatian nobles repeatedly asked Holy Roman Emperor [[Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor|Maximilian I]] for help, but during Maximilian's reign, assistance for Hungary remained a plan. After the first chain of fortresses fell however, assessing the threat to his own provinces, Archduke Ferdinand (later Holy Roman Emperor [[Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor|Ferdinand I]]) made a significant effort to help his brother-in-law. When Nándorfehérvár was being besieged, he summoned his estates and proposed sending troops to Hungary. In the end, 2,000 German infantry troops were sent. From 1522 to the 1526 defeat at Mohács, field troops from Austria frequently arrived but were not placed into fortresses at the border as regular garrisons yet. Even though this military aid purportedly strengthened this area of the border, it had the undesired effect of dissolving the unified leadership that the ''ban'' had held until that time.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fodor |first1=Pál |last2=David |first2=Geza |title=Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest |year= 2021 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-49229-5 |page=15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DYxFEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 |access-date=17 December 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

[[:de:Alfred Kohler (Historiker)|Alfred Kohler]] opines that the coordination effort attempted by Ferdinand, Mary and Louis failed because the young Hungarian king showed a lack of vigour, which was also recognized by Hungarian nobles. Mary, on the other hand, was much more decisive and vigorous, but the non-Hungarian advisors she relied on created distrust.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hamann |first1=Brigitte |title=Die Habsburger: ein biographisches Lexikon |date=1988 |publisher=Piper |isbn=978-3-492-03163-9 |page=284 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jKdnAAAAMAAJ |access-date=15 December 2021 |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kohler |first1=Alfred |title=Ferdinand I., 1503–1564: Fürst, König und Kaiser |date=2003 |publisher=C.H. Beck |isbn=978-3-406-50278-1 |page=110 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1cVR2wbob0AC&pg=PA110 |access-date=15 December 2021 |language=de}}</ref>