Az északi mozgó hadtest létrejötte (Szervezési problémák és katonai kudarcok 1848–1849 fordulóján)
The organization of the Northern Mobile Corps. Problems of organization and military failures at the turn of 1848-1849

Summary/Abstract: The histories of army corps are still an unresearched part of the documents of the Revolution and War of Independence of 1848-49. The archives of the 1st Hungarian Corps, which have almost completely survived and are still unresearched, are especially significant among the archival materials of the Hungarian corps. The present essay attempts to tell the story of the socalled Northern Mobile Corps, which is a phase of the early history of that corps. On December 6, 1848 Count Franz Schlik, one of the most talented Austrian generals, broke into the territory of the country from Dukly with a column of 8.000, took Sáros County in a few days without meeting any resistance, and, on December 11, crushed with his artillery the untrained and unequipped Hungarian “army” consisting mostly of militiamen hastily gathered to meet him, between Budamér and Kassa. In view of the gravity of the situation, the National Defence Committee (Országos Honvédelmi Bizottmány , OHB) sent one of its members, Bertalan Szemere as government commissioner plenipotentiary to the region, had the commander of the army corps, Colonel Sándor Pulszky replaced by Defence Minister Lázár Mészáros himself as commander of the “northern mobile army”, sending significant reinforcements, more infantry (honvéd ) and hussar units besides the militia, to the camp at Miskolc. Szemere and Mészáros were expected to solve the deficiencies of the mostly recently recruited and still untrained troops along with whatever problems came along within a few days. They had no time for any substantial outfitting and training since the OHB wanted results as soon as possible. The political and military leadership expected the retaking of Kassa, hoping that Schlik would not only be forced to retreat, but the Imperial and Royal Corps could be captured as well. Thus, along with the outfitting of the units, the drawing up of the plan of an operation against Kassa started, too. The commander of the army corps decidet to start that operation after the battle at Szikszó on December 28. However, the Hungarian hopes previously cherished vanished at Kassa, on January 4, 1849. After their defeat, the Hungarian troops retreated to Miskolc, and the reorganization of the failed corps remained the responsibility of Colonel György Klapka, the new commander-in-chief from January 13.

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