26. The Black Army Holds Back the Ottoman Empire
Military matters were high on the list of state affairs that attracted Matthias’ attention, as he ascended the throne only 5 years after the Ottoman Turks had conquered Constantinople and extinguished the Byzantine Empire. The Turks, brimming with confidence, turned their attention to Hungary. Against all precedent, Matthias taxed Hungary’s nobles. Ignoring their howls of protest, he used the revenue to recruit 30,000 mercenaries, mainly from Germany, Poland, Bohemia, and Serbia, and after 1480, from Hungary.
The mercenaries were organized into a combined-arms mix of light infantry operating around a base of heavily armored infantry, supplemented by even more heavily armored knights. In a pioneering innovation that took advantage of recent firearms developments, every fourth soldier was armed with an arquebus. Matthias’ mercenaries, who came to be known as the “Black Army“, became a formidable force that dominated Central Europe and the Balkans, and held back the Ottoman Turks for decades.
