First Battle of Szolnok
battle during Hungarian Revolution of 1848
The First Battle of Szolnok was a battle in the Hungarian war of Independence of 1848-1849, fought on 22 January 1849 between the revolutionary Hungarian army led by General Mór Perczel against the cavalry brigade of the Austrian Empire led by General Ferenc Ottinger. The isolated troops of Ottinger were attacked by Perczel's superior army and were forced to retreat from Szolnok to Abony, then to Cegléd. This Hungarian victory was a sign that the Austrian troops, which after the occupation of the Hungarian capitals of Pest and Buda, believed that they already won the war, were far away from reaching that goal, and that the Hungarian army could cause them unpleasant surprises. After the Battle Perczel's troops continued the pursuit of Ottinger's troops to Cegléd.
Background
On 30 December 1848, General Mór Perczel suffered a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Mór, mainly due to his own lack of caution and poor choice of battlefield. His corps was virtually entirely crushed by a smaller Imperial force, which included Major General Ferenc Ottinger's cavalry brigade. After the defeat, Perczel retreated towards Pest, where the main army led by General Artúr Görgei, retreating from Győr, also arrived. Here, on 2 January, a general military council decided on a new strategy. According to the battle plan, Görgei handed over some troops to Perczel, then marched through Vác - where he issued his famous Declaration of Vác - to secure the mining towns in Northern Hungary and relieve Lipótvár.
Mór Perczel's corps, the Central Mobile Army, was given the task by the decision of the War Council of 2 January 1849 to defend the capital during its evacuation, and then to slowly retreat to Szolnok, and repel the eventual Austrian attacks, transporting all war material to a safe place.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “First Battle of Szolnok” as battle during Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as battle during Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q122334847. Authority coordinates are 47.169, 20.164. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1848 and 1849.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “First Battle of Szolnok”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow First Battle of Szolnok primary sources, First Battle of Szolnok archive and First research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “First Battle of Szolnok”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “First Battle of Szolnok” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.