The Battle on the Marchfeld — Habsburg Austria Begins
Rudolf of Habsburg killed Ottokar II of Bohemia at the Marchfeld on 26 August 1278, and the battle made the Habsburgs an Austrian dynasty. Ottokar had built the largest realm in central Europe during the Great Interregnum, when the empire had no effective king: Bohemia and Moravia by inheritance, and Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola acquired by marriage, election and force, running from the Sudeten mountains to the Adriatic. He was a candidate for the imperial throne himself and was passed over twice, most consequentially in 1273, when the electors chose Rudolf of Habsburg — a middle-ranking Swabian count they expected to be manageable, which is the standard error of that century. Rudolf's first act was to demand the return of the imperial fiefs Ottokar had acquired without proper grant. Ottokar refused, was placed under the imperial ban, and lost Austria and the Alpine duchies in a short campaign in 1276 without a battle. He came back two years later with Polish and Silesian help. The armies met on the plain north-east of Vienna, some 30,000 men, in one of the largest cavalry engagements of the Middle Ages. Rudolf had Hungarian light horse under Ladislaus IV and a concealed reserve of fifty knights that he committed at the moment Ottokar's charge had spent itself. Ottokar was unhorsed and killed by men with private grievances. Rudolf granted Austria and Styria to his sons in 1282. The Habsburgs held them until 1918. Bohemia kept its independence and its crown, and the two dynasties contested central Europe for the next four centuries.
- Year: 1278 CE
- Category: Military
