György (Móric) Klapka (; 7 April 182017 May 1892) was a Hungarian general. He was one of the most important Hungarian generals of the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848–1849, politician, member of the Hungarian Parliament, and deputy War Minister.
Early life
Klapka was born at Temesvár, Kingdom of Hungary on 7 April 1820 in a German-speaking Roman-Catholic family of Moravian origin. His ancestors migrated there from Moravia during the reign of Joseph II (1780–1790) his grandfather founding military pharmacies during the Austro-Turkish War of 1787–1791. In the following decades the families prestige grew, and György Klapka's father, József Klapka, became the mayor of Temesvár for nearly 15 years, being elected for two times deputy in the Hungarian Diet, being later ennobled by the king.
He had five brothers and sisters. He lost his mother at an early age. He made his early education at the Roman Catholic secondary schools from Kecskemét and Szeged. He was transferred from Vienna to Pancsova, to the 12th Border Guard Infantry Regiment of the German-Banat border guards. Klapka took over these beaten troops in January 1849, reorganized them, and beat Schlik in three consecutive battles at Tarcal (20 January), Bodrogkeresztúr (23 January), and Tokaj (31 January). Understanding the importance of this chance, Klapka tried to convince Dembiński to attack Schlik's corps from the south, but the latter refused, ordering Klapka to retreat. forced the III corps led by János Damjanich to intervene, and to turn the tide of the battle – which could have become a serious defeat for the Hungarians – into a victory, made the Austrian Field-Marshal suspicious, that the main Hungarian attack could come from other directions, and not from where he expected that. thumb|upright=1.4|[[Mór Than: Cavalry fight in the battle of Tápióbicske]] However Jelačić's vain report to Windisch-Grätz that his troops won the battle of Tápióbicske, deceived him, to think that the Croatian general was attacked only by minor Hungarian forces, so he still was not sure from where to expect the enemy's attack. Furthermore, Windisch-Grätz was informed about the attack of a Hungarian detachment, on 24 March against Losonc, which took prisoner half of the 500-600 strong Austrian detachment, making him to think that important Hungarian troops will attack also from the northeast. But Klapka's attack made Windisch-Grätz aware of a danger coming from the south, which may be considered his error.
In the Battle of Isaszeg from 6 April, the first decisive battle of the Spring Campaign, after initial successes, Klapka's I Corps were pushed back by Jelačić's superior forces, which made Klapka waver, and to think seriously to retreat from the battlefield, letting Damjanich's III Corps alone, but the arrival of Görgei, and his order to resist at all costs, then the arrival of the II Corps led by Lajos Aulich, convinced him to remain and fight. At the end of the battle Klapka's I corps charge chased the enemy from Isaszeg and brought the victory for the Hungarians. The fluctuating behavior of Klapka during the battle showed that despite being a good strategist, creating good operation plans, which, in the Spring Campaign, enabled him to defeat the superior imperial troops (55,000 Austrians against 47,500 Hungarians), he could be hesitating in their execution. During the battle of Isaszeg Damjanich criticized Klapka of being too timorous and sensible to the complaints of his soldiers, instead of being resolute and determined.
The second phase of the campaign was elaborated not by Klapka but by the chief of the general staff, József Bayer. The second phase of the Spring Campaign started not very well Klapka, whose soldiers were sent to encircle the enemy in the First Battle of Vác, got lost in the rainy-foggy weather in the morning of 10 April, and did not arrive on the battlefield, but luckily Damjanich again was able to resolve the problem, and defeat the enemy alone. Hearing about this Klapka and other Hungarian generals, who were on Vécsey's side, accused Petőfi of being undisciplined, dressing not accordingly to a soldier, besmirching the Hungarian army to the public, thus weakening the will of the nation to fight against the enemy.
thumb|260px|Sándor Petőfi as a Major in 1849
Klapka was angered on Petőfi also because of the poet's former conflicts with other Hungarian officers and war ministers like Lieutenant General Antal Vetter and Lieutenant General Lázár Mészáros (against whom he wrote also a satirical poem), so he reprimanded the poet, who came to the war office seeking permission to go to the freshly liberated Pest, to bury his father. At the end of the quarrel, seeing that Klapka would not allow him to go, Petőfi promptly resigned his military title and quit the army. After this, thinking himself free from military discipline, Petőfi wrote a letter to Klapka, declaring that he cannot bear offenses from Klapka, which offended his dignity, and wrote a poem entitled Egy goromba tábornokra (About a Rude General), in which he named Klapka an unworthy man and a weak general. Klapka prosecuted Petőfi for this, and when he met him on 14 May at Pest, he arrested the poet. The enemy had a huge numerical advantage against the Hungarian army: the attacking Russian and Austrian armies had 358 000 soldiers (plus another 75 000 soldiers in Galicia and Walachia in reserve) and 770 cannons against 150 000 Hungarian soldiers with 440 cannons.
In the second part of May, Klapka was designated to elaborate the united operation plan of all the armies from Hungary. According to this operation plan the main army under Görgei had to defend the western border, while the army of Transylvania under Józef Bem had to defend mountain passes in the Eastern Carpathians, but in the same time he had to crush also the Romanian revolt from the Western Carpathians, to take the fortresses of Gyulafehérvár and Déva, then to attack towards the west, taking the Titel Plateau, liberating Pétervárad, then advancing to the Adriatic Sea, or to the western front. Bem declared that he would not carry out the military actions entailed on him by the operation's plan, and would remain in Transylvania to defend it from the imminent Russian attack, while Görgei said that the only correct thing to do was to immediately attack with all forces on the western front towards Vienna, to crush the Austrian army before the Russians could intervene. Among the causes of the defeat was that Klapka did not tolerate that the head of the Central Operations Bureau, Colonel József Bayer, should have the authority over him. Their disagreements and contradictory orders affected the Hungarian troops' already weak chances of success during the Battles of Zsigárd, Ihász and Győr. When Görgei took over the main command, in the Battle of Pered from 20 to 21 June 1849, Klapka had the mission to attack with the VIII corps the Austrians in the Csallóköz, but his troops were forced to retreat in the first day of the Battle of Alsónyárasd. Nevertheless, at the end of the battle Klapka's troops secured the retreat of the Hungarian army, by securing the bridge from Aszódpuszta.
During the Second Battle of Komárom of 2 July, Klapka commanded the left wing of the Hungarian army, retreating initially from Ószőny, but at the end of the battle, after fierce fighting, recaptured the important locality from the Austrian IV corps led by General Ludwig von Benedek. At the end of this battle Görgei was heavily wounded, and once again, Klapka took over the command from him, until he was again able to lead the army. On 7 July, on the order from Kossuth, Klapka sent the I. corps led by General Nagysándor towards Szeged, but when Görgei took notice of this, he resigned from the leadership of the Army of the Upper Danube, to protest this decision taken without his knowledge. Hearing about this Klapka ordered the I. corps to return to Komárom, as a result of which Görgei retracted his decision, remaining the commander of the army.
On 11 July, because Görgei was still unable to lead the army, Klapka commanded the Hungarian forces in the Third Battle of Komárom. He had to carry out Kossuth's plan, supported also by Görgei, to break the Austrian blockade on Komárom, then retreat with three corps towards southern Hungary, where Kossuth intended to concentrate the Hungarian troops. The Hungarians tried to break the Austrian blockade from the west against Komárom, but, because of the inactivity of two of the corps commanders, the battle was lost. Klapka led this battle without much determination because he did not understand the reason for attacking the Austrian army, when after the battle, no matter what its outcome would be, the bulk of the Hungarian army had to retreat towards Szeged. In this battle, Klapka's main goal was to avoid the loss of too many Hungarian soldiers.
Klapka's heroic "last man standing" as the defender of Komárom
On 12–13 July, when, under Görgei's command, the Army of the Upper Danube retreated from Komárom to the east, Klapka remained with the II and VIII corps (around 18,300 soldiers) in Komárom, having the duty to defend with at all costs the fortress and to "bind" as many enemy troops around it, preventing them to participate in the campaign against the Hungarian armies. thumb|left|upright=1.4|The map of the fortress of Komárom in 1849
As the captain of the encircled fortress, cut off from the other Hungarian armies, Klapka decided to make a heroic stand against the superior enemy, to resist until nothing more could be done, and if he would be forced to leave Komárom, he would do it only with honour. He wrote this in July:
I say it already from now: no matter what will be the situation, we can leave this place only with honor, or we will be buried together under the crumbling ruins of this [fortress]. Long live the Fatherland, and its heroic army!
Until 23 July this task was fulfilled with success, forcing 28,000 imperial soldiers to secure the fortress, but then half of these troops were sent to Pest. On 25 July a Hungarian raiding unit captured a stagecoach in which they found documents containing the list of the imperial troops around Komárom, from which Klapka understood that his troops in the fortress were more numerous than the besiegers, and as the imperial troops were divided, being on both banks of the Danube, which prevented them from helping each other when attacked, he had the opportunity to defeat the enemy in detail. This was the last important battle won by the Hungarians in the Hungarian War of Independence. After the battle Klapka's troops advanced to the west and occupied the city of Győr, liberating a huge territory from north Transdanubia, cutting the connection and supply lines between Vienna and the troops led by Haynau in central Hungary. Klapka started recruitment from the liberated territories, which added 5,000-6,000 new recruits to his troops, and planned to attack the Austrian province of Styria.
However on 11 August he received news of the disastrous situation on the other fronts, and halted his operations.
Klapka, together with his 25,000 soldiers, retreated on 15 August to Komárom. On 19 August the Austrian and Russian troops arrived to the fortress and began to encircle it; on 14 September the number of Austrians reached 44,000 soldiers and 154 cannons, Only the fortress of Komárom refused to surrender. On 5, 7, 10, 25 and 27 September the Hungarian defenders fought with success against the enemy troops, furthermore the Hungarian Hussars executed successful sorties against the besieging army. For example, on 5 September 300 hussars, led personally by Klapka, routed a Russian Cossack unit in the Battle of Hetény.
Seeing that they had no success in their attempts to take the fortress by force, the Austrians tried distraction, attempting to diminish the morale, fighting spirit and the unity of the defenders. They sent in the fortress different leaflets, fake reports, orders, which tried to persuade the defenders to treachery, to revolt, to refuse to fulfil orders, or to desert, promising them amnesty in exchange. This was the last military engagement of the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848–1849.
Before the fortress was handed over on 2–4 October, Klapka bid farewell to his soldiers which ended with these lines: