page_title: Artúr Görgei
section_title: Main Commander, then General of the Summer Campaign and dictator of Hungary
hierarchical_section_title: Artúr Görgei / Görgei's military career / Main Commander, then General of the Summer Campaign and dictator of Hungary
caption_attribution_description: Magyar: Görgei Artúr altábornagy és hadseregének tisztikara. Than Mór vízfestménye
context_page_description: Artúr Görgei de Görgő et Toporc was a Hungarian military leader renowned for being one of the greatest generals of the Hungarian Revolutionary Army.
  In his youth Görgei was a talented chemist, with his work in the field of chemistry being recognized by many renowned Hungarian and European chemists; however, he is more widely known for his role in the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence of 1848–1849, as the most successful general and greatest military genius of the Hungarian army, the leader of the victorious Spring Campaign, which liberated almost all Western Hungary from the Austrian occupation. As a recognition of his military successes, he was decorated by the Hungarian Government, and given him also political positions: he became Minister of War, and in the last few days of the revolution, he was appointed the dictator of Hungary, which meant that he gathered in his hands all military and political powers of Hungary. Seeing that he could not withstand the numerically and technologically 4–5 times superior Austrian and Russian armies, on 13 August 1849 he surrendered his troops to the Russians at Világos, thus ending the Hungarian revolution.
context_section_description: The Russians intervened in the struggle and made common cause with the Austrians, and in mid-June 1849 the allies advanced into Hungary on all sides. Görgei found himself before a greatly superior united enemy army. The reinforcements that Kossuth had promised did not came because on 7 June general Perczel, the commander of the southern Hungarian army, had suffered a heavy defeat in the Battle of Káty from the Austro-Croatian army, reinforced with Serbian rebels, led by Josip Jelačić; Perczel could not send the reinforcements because he needed them there. Another problem was that many of his experienced generals, who had proved their talent in the Spring Campaign, were no longer available: (János Damjanich had broken his leg; Lajos Aulich became ill; and András Gáspár had resigned from the Hungarian army because of political reasons.) Görgei was forced to put in their place other officers who were capable soldiers, but were not experienced as army corps leaders, many of them lacking the capacity to act independently when needed. Another problem was that being at the same time high commander and head of the war ministry, he could not adequately fulfill both duties at the same time, being forced to move frequently between Pest and his general staff office from Tata.
  Nevertheless, Görgei decided to attack Haynau's forces knowing that he had no other opportunity to defeat them before the main Russian troops led by Paskevich arrived from the north – hoping to break them and advance towards Vienna, but despite an initial victory in the Battle of Csorna on 13 June, his troops were not so successful afterwards. In the next battle, fought at Zsigárd on 16 June 1849, while he was in the capital to participate in the meeting of the ministry council, his troops were defeated, although his presence in the battle could had bring a better result. In the next battle at Pered, fought at 20–21 June, he was present, but, despite all his efforts,  the intervention of the Russian division of more than 12 000 soldiers led by Lieutenant General Fyodor Sergeyevich Panyutyin in behalf of Haynau, decided the fate of this engagement. 
  On 26 June he was again in the capital at a ministry council, and tried to convince Kossuth to concentrate all the Hungarian troops, except those from Transylvania and Southern Hungary, around Komárom, to apply a decisive strike on Haynau's troops, before the main Russian forces arrive. This plan was maybe the only rational way to end, if not with full success, but with at least a compromise this war against the overwhelmingly superior enemy forces. The place for the Hungarian concentration, the fortress of Komárom (one of the strongest fortresses of the empire), was also the best choice, if they wanted to face with a chance of success, the enemy armies, instead of retreating to the Ottoman Empire. The ministry council accepted Görgei's plan, but unfortunately because of his presence in the ministry council, Görgei was unable to concentrate his troops to face Haynau's army, freshly deployed from the northern to the southern banks of the Danube, when they attacked Győr on 28 June. Görgei arrived only at the end of the battle, when already it was too late to change the situation for the hugely overwhelmed Hungarian forces (17 000 Hungarians against 70 000 Austro-Russian soldiers), but he managed nevertheless to successfully cover their retreat towards Komárom, by personally leading hussar charges against the advancing enemy forces.
  After learning about the defeat from Győr, and the advancement of the main Russian forces led by Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich from North, the Hungarian government in the lead of Kossuth, in another ministry council, held this time without Görgei, changed its decision to follow the latters plan of concentration of the troops around Komárom, ordering him to lieve the fortress and move with the bulk of his troops to Southern Hungary, to the confluence of the rivers Maros and Tisza. Görgei found this plan completely wrong, that the region which they wanted to concentrate the troops was completel
caption: Mór Than: Görgei and his general staff after he was wounded in the Battle of Komárom at 2 July 1849, wearing, because of that, an Arabic style headscarf
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