The Battle of Gvozd Mountain took place in 1097 and was fought between the army of

Petar Snačić Petar Snačić (commonly misspelt Petar Svačić) was a feudal lord, notable for being one of the claimants of the Croatian throne between c. 1093 and 1097. It is assumed that he began as a ban (title), ban serving under king Demetrius Zvonimir of ...

and King Coloman I of Hungary. It was a decisive Hungarian victory, which ended the War of the Croatian Succession and served as a turning point in

Croatian history At the time of the Roman Empire, the area of modern Croatia comprised two Roman provinces, Pannonia and Dalmatia. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the area was subjugated by the Ostrogoths for 50 years, bef ...

Location

The traditional Croatian historiography identified Gvozd Mountain, the location of the battle according to ''

Gesta Hungarorum ''Gesta Hungarorum'', or ''The Deeds of the Hungarians'', is the earliest book about Hungarian history which has survived for posterity. Its genre is not chronicle, but ''gesta'', meaning "deeds" or "acts", which is a medieval entertaining li ...

'', as today's Petrova Gora. In the second half of the 20th century, an alternative interpretation emerged, by which the battle took place in the Kapela mountain pass of central Croatia. The changes in name of these two locations created confusion; the first was known as Slatska Gora until 1445, and only from 1536 as Petrova Gora, while the second until 1522 was known as Iron Mountain (''Alpes ferreae''), Gvozd (''Gozdia'') and Petrov Gvozd (''Peturgoz'') when due to the chapel of St. Nikola (previously St. Mikula), the population started to call it as Kapela.

Battle

In an attempt to win the crown of the

Kingdom of Croatia Kingdom of Croatia may refer to: * Kingdom of Croatia (925–1102), an independent medieval kingdom * Croatia in personal union with Hungary (1102–1526), a kingdom in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary * Kingdom of Croatia (Habsburg) (152 ...

, the Hungarian army crossed the River

Drava The Drava or Drave''Utrata Fachwörterbuch ...

and invaded Croatian territory, trying to reach the

Adriatic The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to the ...

coast. A local lord,

, then moved from his residency at

Knin Knin (, sr, link=no, Книн, it, link=no, Tenin) is a city in the Šibenik-Knin County of Croatia, located in the Dalmatian hinterland near the source of the river Krka, an important traffic junction on the rail and road routes between Zagr ...

castle in an attempt to defend the kingdom from the Hungarians. Petar and his army moved north to meet the advancing Hungarians.

Aftermath

The outcome of the battle was disastrous for Petar's army and country because it marked the official end of a native dynasty ruling in Croatia. Coloman created a personal union between the kingdoms of

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

and Croatia (allegedly signing the ''

Pacta conventa ''Pacta conventa'' (Latin for "articles of agreement") was a contractual agreement, from 1573 to 1764 entered into between the "Polish nation" (i.e., the szlachta (nobility) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) and a newly elected king upon ...

''). He was then crowned as king of Croatia in the Croatian capital Biograd on the Adriatic coast in 1102. Until the end of the

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

in 1918, the two crowns were united in personal union.

References

External links

{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 1097 in Europe 11th-century military history of Croatia Gvozd Mountain 1097 Gvozd Mountain 1097 Gvozd Mountain Gvozd Mountain Gvozd Mountain