In the
Battle of Mohács on 29 August 1526, the
Ottoman Empire destroyed the army of
Hungarian-
Czech King
Louis Jagellion, who was killed on the battlefield. As King Louis had no children, Hungary was divided into two parties: one elected
John Zápolya, a respected Hungarian noble, while the other declared for the King of Hungary a Habsburg,
Ferdinand, Louis' brother-in-law. This led to a tri-partite struggle for control of Hungary between Ferdinand, Zapolya, and the Ottomans. A part of this struggle was the leader of Serb mercenaries, Jovan Nenad. Right after Mohács, Jovan Nenad appeared between
Tisza and
Danube as a leader of a Serb regiment. He quickly drove the Ottomans from
Bačka and parts of
Banat and
Syrmia, which he then ruled independently. At first he sided with the
Zapolyai, but after the Hungarian nobility of Bačka estranged him from John Zápolya, who also refused to acknowledge Nenad's territory, he decided to support the Habsburg pretender, Ferdinand, in the beginning of 1527. The conflict with the Hungarian nobility arose when Hungarian refugees were refused to return to their rightful properties in Bačka, which Nenad saw as his. With his forces he continued to pillage Hungarian estates and villages and terrorized the Hungarian population. This turned against him not just the Hungarian nobility but the villagers and peasants as well. He named
Radoslav Čelnik the general commander of his army, while his emissaries to foreign rulers were Fabijan Literat, a
Franciscan from
Ilok, and Ivan Dolić, the
castellan of
Bač from
Irig. His treasurer and
palatine was Subota Vrlić from Jagodina. Besides his main army, he also organized a personal guard numbering 600 soldiers who served at his quasi-court in Subotica. His army grew by drawing Serbs from Ottoman territory, Vlachs from Banat and Transylvania, and also some Roman Catholics; by the beginning of 1527, it numbered around 15,000 men. It is believed that the cooperation of Orthodox and Catholic Slavs was the key of his later success. At that time, there were considerable numbers of Serbs living in the southern Pannonian Plain, most notably in the Danube and Tisa regions (a region commonly known as "
Rascia"). Jovan Nenad considered the struggle around the Hungarian throne just a temporary occupation, his primary task being the fight against the Ottomans for the liberation of the Serb lands. In the first half of 1527, Ferdinand was outside of Hungary, preparing for what would become the
Hungarian campaign of 1527–28 to fight Zápolya. During that time, King Zápolya sent armies after Jovan Nenad, wishing to settle his internal affairs before Ferdinand could return to Hungary. Underestimating Nenad's strength, Zápolya sent 300 knights under
László Csáky, which were defeated by Jovan Nenad in early April; Csáky himself was captured and executed. After this, Jovan Nenad rose to the peak of his power, and he styled himself emperor. Another Hungarian army was dispatched, led by the Voivode of
Transylvania,
Péter Perényi. It was defeated by late April near
Tiszaszőlős (
Battle of Szőlős) on the banks of the Tisza River. Finally, a second army, which encompassed the entire strength of Transylvania and upper Hungary, led by Perényi and
Bishop Czibak decisively defeated Jovan's army in the
Battle of Sződfalva, killing around 8,000 of his men. In an attempt to unite with the forces of Ferdinand, Jovan Nenad was severely wounded in
Szeged. In his retreat towards Senta, he was intercepted and murdered in the village of
Tornjoš. His head was delivered to Zápolya. Soon after his death, the remainder of his army dispersed. Afterward, Radoslav Čelnik led the remains of the army to Ottoman Syrmia, where he ruled until 1530 as an Ottoman vassal, and then as a Habsburg subject. ==Legacy==