It is late November in the year 1443. A cold winter day prevails in the Ottoman
capital. In his imperial palace, Sultan Murad II gazes out the window from his bedchamber in
distress. The last few months had seen his provincial armies routed and destroyed by
a crusader army in the Balkans. With only a week's march standing between the crusaders
and the imperial capital, all seemed lost for the once unstoppable Ottoman Sultanate.
The battle for the fate of the entire Balkans was just over the snowy horizon.
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Developments from Hungary & War Over Serbia (1437-1441):
As the Byzantines were left politically and religiously divided after the Council of Florence,
significant developments coming out of Hungary would become the catalyst of events to come
for the following two decades. The death of King Sigismund back in 1437 caused a period
of political instability in Buda as the former king had no male heirs to succeed him to the
throne. Eventually, Sigismund’s son-in-law, Duke Albert of Austria, was elected as the
new ‘King of Hungary’ in return for conceding a number of political concessions to the Hungarian
nobility. Being faced with a Transylvanian peasant revolt, Ottoman raids from Wallachia,
and an unruly nobility at home, the new foreign King of Hungary, like his predecessor before him,
spent the first months of his reign placating the local officials of his capital and his realm.
This sudden wave of Hungarian instability was not lost on Edirne.
Seeing significant signs of political weakness from his main European rival, the opportunistic
Murad II invaded his vassal of Serbia in order to solidify Ottoman military control over the Western
Balkans. By August of 1439, the newly founded Serbian capital of Smederevo had fallen after a
three-month siege, and soon after, all of Serbia officially became an Ottoman province under the
direct rule of Edrine. While Serbian Despot Durad Brankovic fled to Buda in horror, the political
situation for Hungary got even worse, as in the fall of the same year, the newly crowned King
Albert died of dysentery while mustering an army to repulse the Ottoman offensive. As a result of
Albert’s sudden death and the dissolution of his army, Murad began his siege on the
Hungarian fortress city of Belgrade in 1440, as its conquest would open up the rest of Hungary
for future Ottoman military campaigns. Even though the five-month siege failed to penetrate
the walls of Belgrade, it sent shockwaves across the whole region as a sizeable Muslim
army was now at the gates of Central Europe. Back in Buda, the political scene had become
even more chaotic as King Albert’s sudden death had caused a power vacuum in the kingdom. Even
though the late king’s widow had given birth to a posthumous son, Ladislaus V, much of the
Hungarian nobility rejected the infant’s claim to the Hungarian throne, as many preferred a monarch
capable of dealing with the current Ottoman crisis on the southern border. As a result,
the fifteen-year-old King Wladyslaw III of Poland was offered the crown by the estates of the realm,
thus sparking the flames of a Hungarian civil war. Between 1440 and 1441, the supporters of
Ladislaus V and Wladyslaw III clashed all across the country, culminating in the latter's decisive
win against the former at the Battle of Bátaszék. As the infant King of Hungary fled to the safety
of Austria, Wladyslaw entered Buda and began consolidating his hold over his newly acquired
kingdom by appointing loyal men to offices of power. One such man was a talented Hungarian
military magnate named John Hunyadi, whose martial skills had won Wladyslaw the throne at Bátaszék.
Being appointed the Voivode of Transylvania and the military governor of many of the kingdom's
southern border counties, Hunyadi became one of the most influential and active members of the
new Hungarian court overnight. Renewed War Between Hungary
and the Ottomans (1441-1443): First repairing the damaged walls of Belgrade
from the recent Ottoman siege, Hunyadi began his tenure as a major political figure by launching
a major raid into Ottoman-held Serbia during the late summer of 1441. In a surprise turn of events,
the Hungarian magnate was able to score a shocking victory over the local Muslim governor
of Smederovo in a field battle before raiding the local countryside. As a response to this defeat,
Murad II ordered a raiding army to strike deep into Transylvania through Wallachia
the following year. However, this army was also defeated and routed by Hunyadi at the Battle of
Hermannstadt. In the wake of the battle, the Hungarian magnate was celebrated as a war hero
in Buda as he was one of the few Europeans who had proven capable of beating the Ottomans in
open battle. It was from these early victories against the Muslims that Hunyadi was hailed as the
‘White Knight of Transylvania” by not only his own countrymen but also throughout Christian Europe.
Meanwhile, as a result of the defeat at Hermannstadt, an ever-so-enraged Murad blamed
the misfortunes of his armies on his Wallachian vassal, Vlad II. The Wallachian voivode was called
forth to Edirne and was put under house arrest while his eldest son, Mircea II,
took control of Wallachia. This move by the Ottoman sultan proved to be a great mistake.
Seeing an opportunity to subdue the unstable buffer country into Hungarian vassalage once more,
Hunyadi invaded Wallachia during the fall of 1442 and defeated an Ottoman force near the river
Ialomița in yet another surprising showcase of military prowess. In this particular engagement,
over sixteen Ottoman marcher lords were killed alongside thousands of Ottoman raiders and
Janissaries. After the battle, the cousin of the former Wallachian ruler, the pro-Hungarian Basarab
II, was installed as voivode while Mircea II fled into hiding with his loyal followers in the
countryside. During his journey back to Hungaryian territory, Hunyadi also sacked and razed the
Ottoman town of Vidin as a showcase of strength against Edirne. Hunyadi’s military campaign into
Wallachia had been a major physiological success for Buda, which now saw itself as capable of
standing against Ottoman aggression after many years of military defeats. Moreover, for the first
time in decades, the war had been shifted into Ottoman territory, thus finally giving a period
of respite for the new subjects of Wladyslaw III. In spite of these military disasters, Murad II was
determined to respond to what he saw as Hungarian aggression. Hence, he released Vlad II from his
captivity and sent him to retake Wallachia at the head of an army. By the spring of 1443, Bararab’s
support in the country had withered away as he lacked the political support of his nobility,
and so Vlad quickly seized the Wallachian capital. With Ottoman influence restored in the country,
a new agreement between Edirne and Targoviște was signed by the restored Wallachian ruler. He was to
pay an increased yearly tribute to the Ottoman capital, supply 500 children for the sultan’s
Janissary corps, and lastly, give hostages to his second and third eldest sons, Vlad and Radu,
to the royal court of Murad. A Call For a New Crusade &
The “Long Campaign” (1443-1444) As events in Wallachia settled down,
troubling developments elsewhere began tricking down to the Ottoman capital. With the Council of
Florence concluding with the triumph of Catholicism over Orthodoxy in Byzantine
affairs and enthusiasm in the air after Hunyadi's successful military campaigns against Murad II,
the momentum around Europe to call forth a crusade against the Ottomans grew stronger
than ever. With Wladyslaw III getting political assurances from King Frederick III of Germany
that he would not attack his domains from the west, the field was set for another Hungarian
military offensive into Ottoman territory. By the start of 1443, Pope Eugene IV published a
crusading bull against the Ottomans, and by Palm Sunday of the same year, Buda declared
war on Edirne. Wladyslaw, together with John Hunyadi and a still exiled Durad Brankovic,
spent most of the summer mustering a great crusading army. Many in the
crusader camp were optimistic about the upcoming campaigning as the majority of the main Ottoman
army under Murad had been redeployed to Anatolia to deal with the Karamanids.
Upon the instigation of Byzantine and Vencian diplomats, Ibrahim II Bey of the Karamanids
launched an invasion of Ottoman Anatolia during the summer of 1443 as he believed that Murad would
be too preoccupied against the crusaders in the Balkans by then. However, a coordinated attack
against Edirne was botched as the Crusader army was nowhere to be seen, thus leaving the Karamanid
bey at the mercy of the Ottoman sultan. Murad and his eldest son, Sehzade Alaeddin, would spend the
majority of the summer raiding and plundering the lands of the recently declared infidel ruler of
the Karamanids. In spite of a quick military victory, the sultan of the Ottomans signed a
quick peace treaty with Ibrahim as he did not want to invoke a war with the Mamluks, who had friendly
ties to Konya. The sudden death of Alaeddin caused by a horse accident during the campaign might have
also contributed to a quick peace settlement. Whatever the cause, by the early fall of 1443,
Murad had secured his eastern borders. Meanwhile, over in Europe, a readied crusader
army of around 25,000 strong had invaded Ottoman Serbia while the sultan was busy wrapping up the
Karamanid war. The Polish-Hungarian king led the army, but in reality, John Hunyadi held the
most military influence in the crusader camp. The army consisted of 6,500 Hungarian infantry, 5,000
Transylvanian mixed cavalry and infantry, 1,500 Czech mercenary cavalry, 9,000 Serbians led by
the still exiled Durad Brankovic, 1,000 infantry from Bulgaria, Albania, and Bosnia, and lastly,
a small Western European contingent of 2,000 led by Cardinal Julian Cesarini. The Hungarian magnate
led the vanguard alongside his best-mounted knights while the king and the supply wagons
followed a single day's march behind him. Like the Crusade of Nicopolis conducted by King Sigismund
back in 1396, the main goal of the new crusade was also to reestablish a number of Christian
buffer states in the Balkans while at the same time coming for the aid of Constantinople.
The military campaign started strong for the Crusaders as they were able to rout three
provincial Ottoman armies near the outskirts of the towns of Niş in a series of three battles.
Hunyadi had prevented these Ottoman armies from uniting into a larger force with the help of
his newly formed light calvary corps called the Hussars, a direct response to the highly mobile
Akinci light horsemen of the Ottoman army. It was to be after these defeats that a certain
Ottoman governor named Iskender Bey, a son of a former Albanian feudal lord, deserted his post and
instigated a major rebellion back in his homeland. In the meantime, Murad II had crossed into Europe
with his Anatolian army and began mustering more troops in Sofia in order to deal with the
sizeable crusader host. Perhaps in desperation, he declared jihad on the invaders as a way to quickly
fill up his ranks, as much of the Ottoman Balkan army had been disbanded for the winter. However,
with the Crusader army now marching down south toward the Ottoman capital, the decision to
implement a scorched earth strategy was taken by the Ottoman sultan, which saw the evacuation and
burning down of Sofia and many other villages in the local area. By early December, the Crusaders,
who themselves were low on supplies, entered a depleted and burnt-down Sofia,
and to make conditions worse for Hunyadi, heavy snow began pouring down on the soldiers of Christ.
Meanwhile, Murad, knowing that his quickly assembled army was no match against the more
experienced and armoured crusaders, had begun fortifying all mountain passes heading down south
to Edirne. The sultan thought that through this strategy, his smaller army could use the narrow
and steep terrain to bog down Hunyadi’s larger host. Seeing that the bulk of the Ottoman army was
stationed at Trajan’s Gate, the Hungarian magnate decided to take a detour and head northeast to
attempt a crossing of the less-defended Zlatitsa pass. Unbeknownst to him, Ottoman scouts in the
region were alerted by this sudden move, and Murad reacted accordingly by assembling his main army at
Zlatitsa. The following battle between the sides was to be a bloody one as both sides fought for
control over an elevated snowy mountain pass during the middle of winter. While Ottoman
cannons from the mountains bombarded the Crusader army in the pass below, Hunyadi was knocked off
his horse by a stray lead bullet before retreating to safety with the help of his bodyguard. At the
end of the day, the disadvantageous terrain and fierce Ottoman resistance forced the Crusaders to
begin their retreat back to friendly territory. After achieving a vital pyrrhic victory at the
Battle of Zlatitsa, Murad ordered his marcher lords to pursue and scatter the retreating
crusader army before they could reach the Hungarian border. But even in defeat, Hunyadi had
one final ace down his sleeve. In the weeks after Zlatitsa, the Hungarian magnate had managed to
lure his pursuing enemy into a trap near the town of Kunovica in Serbia. In a sudden counterattack
under the cover of nightfall, the overconfident Ottoman host was outflanked and destroyed by
the Crusaders. More importantly, the sultan's own son-in-law, Mahmud Çelebi, was captured
during the engagement. With Hunyadi getting the last laugh, the exhausted Crusader army entered
Belgrade by the end of January 1444, ending their three-month incursion into Ottoman lands.
The Peace of Szeged (1444) Although Hunyadi and Wladyslaw were celebrated
as national heroes back in the Hungarian capital, in reality, the “Long Campaign” had been a bloody
stalemate for both sides. The crusade failed to seize the Ottoman capital and defeat the
main Ottoman army at Zlatitsa, in addition to not getting any aid through to Constantinople. On the
flip side, the Ottomans had been dealt multiple defeats during the campaign and were unable to
scatter an already exhausted crusader army during their retreat. The Ottoman military class had also
been demoralized during the campaign as, for the first time, the capital city was severely exposed
to an invading army. Morale in the Balkan provinces was also at an all-time low as the
scorched earth campaign conducted by Murad and the sacking of many towns by the Crusaders had
devested the entire region. All of these factors resulted in a general sense of doom and gloom by
Ottoman officials in the capital, and to make matters worse, disastrous news in the form of
an Albanian revolt and a new Karamanid invasion of Anatolia had arrived by the spring of 1444.
With multiple military hotspots ravaging his realm, Murad initiated peace talks with Buda. The
delighted Hunyadi wished to take advantage of the following negotiations to make major demands from
the desperate Ottoman sultan. However, many at the Hungarian court thought differently. In spite
of the Hungarian magnate's wishes, many in Buda felt that the Ottomans were on the verge of total
defeat and that war had to be continued. Cardinal Julian Cesarini led the pro-war party as he
believed that freeing the Orthodox peoples of the Balkans would bring the two churches of Rome and
Constantinople closer together after the Council of Florence. Venice had also shown an interest in
joining the crusade due to the military successes of 1443. With the Doges navy, the blockade of the
straits could commence, thus depriving Murad of his Anatolian army in the military campaign
to come. Everything seemed poised for a great crusader victory, and so during April of 1444,
King Wladyslaw took a solemn oath to lead another crusade against the Ottomans by year’s end. In the
meantime, the duplicitous Peace of Szeged was signed between Buda and Edirne in the summer of
the same year. In return for a ten-year truce, the Despotate of Serbia, along with its former ruler,
Durad Brankovic, were reinstated, and Edirne paid 100,000 gold florins in war tribute. In the next
episode of our series on the early history of the Ottomans, we will look at the culminating
engagement between the Ottomans and the Crusaders at the Battle of Varna. To ensure you don’t miss
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