By this battle the Hungarian revolutionary army relieved the fortress of Komárom from a very long imperial siege, and forced the enemy to retreat to the westernmost margin of the Kingdom of Hungary.

[7] Even after this battle, the imperial high command led by Field Marshal Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz was unsure whether the main Hungarian army was still in front of Pest or had already moved north to relieve Komárom.

[8] When Windisch-Grätz finally seemed to grasp what was really happening, he wanted to make a powerful attack against the Hungarians at Pest on 14 April, then to cross the Danube at Esztergom, and cut across the path of the army which was marching towards Komárom, but his corps commanders, General Franz Schlik and Lieutenant Field Marshal Josip Jelačić refused to obey his commands, so his plan, which could have caused serious problems for the Hungarian armies, was not realized.

[9] Because of his series of defeats at the hands of the Hungarians from the start of the Spring Campaign, on 12 April emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria relieved Windisch-Grätz of his command.

He ordered Jelačić to remain for a while in Pest, and then to retreat towards Eszék in Bácska, where the Serbian insurgents, allied with the Austrians, were in a grave situation after the victories of the Hungarian armies led by Mór Perczel and Józef Bem.

The Austrians were forced to cross the Danube and retreat to Esztergom, but General András Gáspár did not send his cavalry to pursue the enemy, even though he had the chance to cause them heavy losses.

[19] On the same day, the garrison of Komárom broke out from the Nádor defense line against Sossay's brigade on the Csallóköz, forcing the imperials to retreat to Csallóközaranyos, then to Nyárasd.

[20] Hearing that Lieutenant General Wohlgemuth, who had retreated west of the river Vág, after his defeat at Nagysalló, was now advancing east again towards Érsekújvár, Görgei ordered the newly arrived VII Corps to deploy at Perbete, to secure the rear of the Hungarian army against possible attack.

[20] The Hungarian chief of staff Colonel József Bayer was designed to elaborate the battle plan for the liberation of Komárom, but, because he was against this maneuver, called in sick, so General György Klapka assumed this responsibility.

[25] He was warned by his chief of general staff Colonel József Bayer, among others, that crossing south of the Danube was a very risky plan, but Görgei would not change his mind.

[30] However, after this, the Austrian 2. jäger battalion attacked the Kiss brigade, recapturing the trenches, but the Honvéd battalions, coming from the Hadi-Island (today Erzsébet sziget/Alžbetin Ostrov/Elisabeth island on the Southern part of the city, today part of Slovakia), led by General Richard Guyon,[b] attacked them from the flank, and returned the Monostor trenches to the Hungarians.

[29] Lederer's Imperial brigade conducted a fighting withdrawal to allow the heavy siege artillery and ammunition stock to retreat behind the Concó creek.

[34] Sensing that the Honvéd battalions under the command of General Knezić, which were fighting for the trenches southwest from Komárom, were the most exposed to the enemy's attacks, and knowing that because of the Austrian siege fortifications for which they fought, made impossible the use of artillery and cavalry, Görgei went, with half of a battery and half of a Hussar company, diverted from the troops which were still crossing the bridges and marching towards the battlefield, towards Monostor.

corps (probably the 70. and 71 battalions) arrived, and thanks to this Görgei saw the chance to advance, with their help, to the main road leading to Ács, and to threaten the Austrian's retreat route.

[35] Now with the four Honvéd battalions, the hussar regiment, and the two half batteries at his disposal, Görgei led the attack against the Ács woods: the northern section was stormed by the 17.

[34] Liebler's brigade's retreat was pursued towards Nagyigmánd by two regiments of Hungarian hussars led by Major General József Nagysándor, supported by the 47th Honvéd battalion and a 12-pounder battery.

[20] Schlik sent against them the concentrated cavalry of Lieutenant General Franz Liechtenstein, the Nicholas dragoons, and the Civalart uhlans, supported by a Congreve rocket battery.

Honvéd battalion led by Major Beöthy came to their rescue, first firing several times, then carrying out a bayonet charge against the enemy cavalry, saving the 47.

[20] With this the Hungarians managed to halt the powerful imperial advance on their left wing, so the battle here continued as an artillery duel until they ran out of cannonballs.

[39] One of the adjutants of the Hungarian headquarters, Kálmán Rochlitz, wrote in his memoirs: "Our field artillery ran out of ammunition so that when I went to one of the batteries of I corps, I saw with my own eyes how our artillerymen picked up from the ground the cannon balls fired at us [by the enemy], wadded them with rags made of clothes ripped from the dead bodies of the fallen [soldiers], and in this way, they loaded them into the gun barrels on top of the loose gunpowder they had put in first [in the cannon tubes].

[20] But when the Hungarians finished their deployment, they managed to stabilize the situation,[20] although the center under Damjanich's command was attacked from two sides by the numerically superior imperial II and III Corps.

[20] On the right wing, during another attack of the troops of Görgei, when they approached the Ács forest at 600-750 paces, he received a report from Damjanich, who commanded the center, that Simunich's corps received considerable reinforcements, the cavalry under Nagysándor was pushed back, and Klapka retreats on the left flank, so he understood that he has no other choice, but to start the retreat gradually towards the Monostor trenches, and to hold them at all cost.

[41] Schlik, after achieving his purpose to secure the retreat of the Simunich siege corps and a part of its artillery and ammunition (as mentioned earlier, the Hungarians captured 7 siege mortars), ordered to his infantry and cavalry to pull back, and continued an artillery duel with the Hungarians until 3:00 p.m., when the ammunition ended on both sides, then started the march towards the western border of Hungary.

[20] So the battle effectively ended at 1 p.m.[41] At sunrise Görgei had sent an order which was reiterated at 9 o'clock by his chief of staff Colonel József Bayer to Lieutenant-Colonel Ernő Poeltenberg, (the new commander of VII corps, in place of General András Gáspár, who had gone on leave not long before) to come quickly to Komárom from where VII Corps was stationed at Perbete Perbete.

[38] The imperial army used its final attack only to pin the Hungarians to cover their withdrawal towards Pozsony and Vienna and avoid heavy losses during their retreat.

[44] Róbert Hermann's opinion is that, although the Hungarian army accomplishing its immediate tactical purpose of relieving the very important fortress, the Battle of Komárom on 26 April 1849 can be viewed rather as an indecisive battle, because the imperial plan beforehand was to abandon the siege anyway and to retreat towards Pozsony and Vienna; thus the Hungarians did not impose their will on the enemy, but just forced them to retreat a few days earlier than planned.

[47] One was to march on Pozsony and Vienna, in order to finally force the enemy to fight on his own ground; the other was to return eastwards and take Buda Castle which was held by a strong imperial garrison of 5,000 men commanded by Heinrich Hentzi.

[47] So the Hungarian staff understood that without taking the Buda Castle, the main army could not conduct a campaign towards Vienna without putting the country in grave danger.

[48] The Austrian government, seeing that they could not crush the Hungarian revolution by themselves with only their allies from among the nationalities within Hungary, decided to start discussions with the tsar about a Russian intervention at the end of March.

[49] The Austrian government asked only for a few tens of thousands of Russian troops under imperial leadership, but Tzar Nicholas I of Russia decided to send 200,000 soldiers, and to hold another 80,000 in readiness to enter Hungary if needed.