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So, I'm writing a historical fantasy novel that has an episode where a local Hungarian claimant to the throne besieges Buda in the 15th century. But Buda is not an average hollywood city: the huge Danube River divides her and Pest, and the riverside of Buda is not protectec by walls, which to me seems to be a severe defensive issue. Anyone could land a force there and push their way through the city while basically ignoring the walls. Pest doesn't seem to be particularly impenetrable either.

This brought something: western medieval capitals were rarely besieged. I could think of London, Paris, Buda and Stockholm. The Stockholm drawings I looked into also show many sections of the city not being protected by walls, but surprisingly all the battles I have read in Sweden generally happened NEAR the capital, not in the city itself; the one that won the battle would basically proceed unchallenged to Stockholm.

Paris has this issue that the walls only cover a specific part of the city while many houses and buildings would stay outside them. But the city was rarely besieged: by Joan D'Arc in 1430s and later by the King of Navarre in the 1600's. I don't know deeply why her Siege was a failure. The King of Navarre basically forced the city to starve, while it seems the Parisians were putting obstacles in the streets in order to make a covering in case they advanced, like in modern warfare.

Besides some relevant campaigns like the Portuguese War of Succession (1385's) where João de Avis rebellion almost faded during the Siege of Lisbon by king Juan of Castile (the fact that ships managed to break the blockade and delivered food to the capital was immensely important), I can't really think of many examples of capitals being actively targeted in campaigns, but generally being the consequence of a nearby campaign. Any reasons for that?

Besides, how would you besiege Buda using 15th or even 16th-century technology? The bigger the city, the better, for who? This may also be intersting for someone trying to Wargame with those scenarios.

I think if you look into it, for this area and in much of Central and Northern Europe, ships and boats were a significant part of their defense.

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In the battles between the Hungarians and the Ottomans (and sometimes between Hungarian nobles, or against the Hapsburgs of Austria) armed river boats played a major role in the defense of the towns and in moving troops around and blocking Ottoman river crossings.

In the bloody aftermath of the siege of Galamboc castle in 1428, an armed war-boat commanded by the Hungarian noblewoman Lady Cecille Rozgonyi rescued King / Emperor Sigismund I after his besieging forces were attacked in a surprise treaty violation by the Ottomans under Murad II. This small fleet then prevented the Ottomans from crossing the river in pursuit.

Before the Ottoman siege of Belgrade was lifted by his forces in 1456, Janos Hunyadi bragged in a letter that he had over 300 armed river boats (other sources say 200) under his command. He used these vessels to move his troops and supplies, to harass Ottoman camps and forts, and to break up attacks on the town such as on the 21st of July, 1456.

During several sieges in the 14th and 15th Centuries Stockholm was defended (and supplied) by first Hanseatic warships and then by armed warships crewed by mercenary / privateer (and ultimately pirate) organizations - the Victual Brothers originally got their name from their supply missions to besieged Stockholm.

During the siege of Nuess from 1474-75 Charles the Bold was unable to effectively attack the town from the river or to prevent reinforcements and supplies sent by armed river boats from the other Rhineland towns reaching Nuess, which was a major reason why the siege failed.

20th Century historian and Hanse expert Philippe Dollinger noted that during the 13 Years War between Poland (with the Prussian Confederation) and the Teutonic Knights, entire fleets of war-boats escorted the grain harvest down the Vistula from Krakow all the way to Gdansk, "skirmishing the whole way".

During the Battle of Kniephof (part of the revolt of Königsburg) in 1455 war-boats were used by both sides, 24 small ships or river boats were sent from Danzig and the Prussian Confederation forces, which helped to recapture a bridge on 15 April, though they were ultimately defeated.

I believe there were quite a few more sieges of major towns throughout Europe other than the few you mentioned, but they were rarely successful due to the primacy of defense in medieval warfare and the large amount of money and effort expended by the towns, especially the Free Cities and City States, into their defense. The towns also typically had at least a slight technological edge over their antagonists from the princely estates (or from Steppe Nomads) - especially in guns, artillery and ships. This is a good article which covers the basics of siege defense by towns in Central Europe in the late medieval period.


For a more general source on sieges, I'd recommend Christine de Pisan's "Book of Deeds of Arms and Chivalry", her version of a Kriegsbüch. The whole book is an intellectual exercise based on everything you would need to besiege a large castle with 300 defenders. Among other things you need about 1,000,000 crossbow bolts and you have to hire a lot of lawyers!

Unique up on them.
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Apologies if you don't know the joke.

I don’t think Buda and Pest were that unique. Most cities were built on a river, and while most medieval cities were built on only one side of the river, at some point, I am not sure when, cities expanded to the other side. It probably had to do with the size of the city. In the case of Prague, a small settlement was formed near the castle on the other side of the river. A castle overlooking or nearby a city, but not in it, was also a common feature of medieval towns. This settlement became a town in 1257 and is called the lesser town. It played a role in the siege of Prague in 1648. The Swedes were able to take the Lesser town by surprise in the night, including the castle. Apparently, they found a spot on the wall that was weakly defended, and climbed over, defeated the guards and opened the gate. From there out, they launched several attempts to take Prague itself, but were repelled by the defenders, made up mostly of militia and students. In 1742 Prague was again taken by surprise, this time by the French who took the whole city and had to defend it in a siege.

In a sense, every city is unique and that affects how it is besieged or attacked. As far as for whom the size of the city gives the advantage, I think that depends. A larger city is harder to encircle, so that it is harder to besiege. It is, however, also harder to defend a large city, when one doesn't have enough troops. In Buda that becomes a problem, because the river divides the city in a way that makes it hard to move troops back and forth. Although, it appears that Buda in the stronger position, in part because of its fortifications, but also because of the hills. So the defender has to decide if he can defend both Buda and Pest, or just Buda. The attacker then has to decide from which direction he attacks. Does he concentrate on Pest first, and then move to Buda? Or ignore Pest and go straight for Buda?

Here is another picture of the siege in 1541, they seem to be fighting in the camp: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Buda_in_1541-by_Erhardt_Sch%C3%B6n_from_1542.jpg

Here is a picture of the siege of Pest, in 1542. I found the defences for the camp interesting, but also the chain across the river. The boats all have their sails furled, I wonder how they move and if they go against the current.

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