Battle of Varna

The Battle of Varna took place on 10 November 1444 near Varna in eastern Bulgaria. The Ottoman army under Sultan Murad II (who did not actually rule the sultanate at the time) defeated the Crusaders commanded by King Władysław III of Poland and Hungary, John Hunyadi (acting as commander of the combined Christian forces) and Mircea II of Wallachia. It was the final battle of the unsuccessful Crusade of Varna, a last-ditch effort to prevent further Ottoman expansion into the Balkans. The Hungarian Kingdom fell into crisis after the death of King Sigismund in 1437. His son-in-law and successor, King Albert, ruled for only two years and died in 1439, leaving his widow Elizabeth with an unborn child, Ladislaus the Posthumous. The Hungarian noblemen then called the young King Władysław III of Poland to the throne of Hungary, expecting his aid in defense against the Ottomans. After his Hungarian coronation, he never went back to his homeland again, assuming rule of the Hungarian Kingdom next to the influential nobleman John Hunyadi. After failed expeditions in 1440–1442 against Belgrade and Transylvania and the defeats of the Turks during Hunyadi's "long campaign" in 1442–1443, the Ottoman sultan Murad II signed a ten-year truce with Hungary. After he had made peace with the Karaman Emirate in Anatolia in August 1444, he resigned the throne to his twelve-year-old son Mehmed II. Cesarini insisted that the Hungarian King Władysław III should break the treaty, arguing that it was not valid due to the fact that it had been made with infidels. Hungary co-operated with Venice and Pope Eugene IV to organize a new crusader army led by Hunyadi and Władysław III. On receipt of this news, Çandarlı Halil Pasha recalled Murad II against the Christian Coalition, even though Mehmed II did not accept this and wanted to fight himself. As a result, Murad II commanded the Ottoman army. The mixed Papal army was composed mainly of Hungarian, Polish, Bohemian (whose combined armies numbered 16,000) and Wallachian (4,000) forces, with smaller detachments of papal troops, Teutonic Knights, Czechs, Bosnians, Croats, Bulgarians, Lithuanians, and Ruthenians.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (18)

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen I at Esztergom around the year 1000; his family (the Árpád dynasty) led the monarchy for 300 years. By the 12th century, the kingdom became a European middle power within the Western world.

Janissary

A Janissary (yeŋiçeri, jeniˈtʃeɾi, new soldier) was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman Sultan's household troops and the first modern standing army in Europe. The corps was most likely established under sultan Orhan (1324–1362), during the Viziership of Alaeddin. Janissaries began as elite corps made up through the devşirme system of child levy enslavement, by which Christian Albanians, Bulgarians, Croats, Greeks, Romanians and Serbs were taken, levied, subjected to forced circumcision and conversion to Islam, and incorporated into the Ottoman army.

Late Middle Ages

The Late Middle Ages, late medieval period, or Lower Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from AD 1350 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renaissance). Around 1350, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it had been before the calamities.