Louis,
who was then King of Hungary, brother of the wife of Ferdinand, was able
to raise an army of but thirty thousand to meet him. With more courage
than discretion, leading this feeble band, he advanced to resist the
foe. They met on the plains of Mohatz. The Turks made short work of it.
In a few hours, with their cimeters they hewed down nearly the whole
Christian army. The remnant escaped as lambs from wolves. The king, in
his heavy armor, spurred his horse into a stream to cross in his flight.
In attempting to ascend the bank, the noble charger, who had borne his
master bravely through the flood, fell back upon his rider, and the dead
body of the king was afterward picked up by the Turks, covered with the
mud of the morass. All Hungary would now have fallen into the hands of
the Turks had not Solyman been recalled by a rebellion in one of his own
provinces.
It was this event which placed the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary on the
brow of Ferdinand, and by annexing those two kingdoms to the Austrian
States, elevated Austria to be one of the first powers in Europe.
Ferdinand, thus strengthened sent ambassadors to Constantinople to
demand the restitution of Belgrade and other important towns which the
Turks still held in Hungary.
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