Battle of the Leitha River 1246
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
About the battle
The Battle of the Leitha River was fought on 15 June 1246 near the banks of the Leitha river between the forces of the King Béla IV of Hungary and Duke Frederick II of Austria. The Hungarian army was routed, but Duke Frederick was killed, ending Austrian claims to the western counties of Hungary. Its exact location is unknown; according to the description delivered by contemporary minnesinger Ulrich von Liechtenstein the battlefield may have been between the towns of Ebenfurth and Neufeld.
Towards the end of the tenth century, in the reign of Géza, the River Leitha came to be seen as the boundary between Hungary and the German lands. The territories west of the Leitha were incorporated as the March of Styria into the Holy Roman Empire. In 1180 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa raised the Styrian lands to a duchy, which in 1192 was acquired by the Austrian dukes from the House of Babenberg.
Since 1241 the Hungarian kingdom suffered heavy losses in the course of the Mongol invasion of Europe, culminating in the disastrous Battle of Mohi. The Babenberg duke Frederick II, haughty and overambitious, made use of this weakness, attacked Hungary and claimed the western comitati of Moson, Sopron and Vas.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of the Leitha River (revision 1370600669), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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