Artillery

Though the first reference to the use of gunpowder artillery in Hungary goes back to the relatively early date of 1354, it was chiefly reserved for the defence of fortresses until the mid-15 th century, possibly because Hungarian thinking in this field was influenced at an early stage by the Ottoman preference for big, unmanoeuvrable guns as described on page 00. Brocquiere actually gives a description of brass cannons that he saw in Belgrade in 1433 that could equally well have applied to Ottoman guns: ‘two of them were formed of two pieces, and one of such a size I never before saw the like. Its mouth was 42 inches in diameter’. The bore of this gun was therefore greater even than that of Urban’s monster used at the siege of Constantinople, while most authorities agree that Urban himself was an Hungarian. Hunyadi and Matthias seem to have been responsible for the introduction of field-artillery, doubtless under the influence of their Bohemian mercenaries since it appears to have generally been used in conjunction with the tactical deployment of wagons on the battlefield. Baduario records in his report of 1475/9 that in addition to having equipped the barges of the Danube fleet with guns, Matthias’ field army had as many as 30 bombards firing 100-200 lb shot, 30 culverines firing 50-100 lb shot and 12 gun-carriages each mounted with 6 guns firing 50 lb shot. Nevertheless, Matthias apparently favoured trebuchets for siege-work. Most of his gunners were Hungarian artisans from the towns.