Battle of Pelekanon
Battle of Pelekanon | |||||||
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Part of the Byzantine–Ottoman Wars | |||||||
Map of Ottoman expansion under Orhan | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Byzantine Empire | Ottoman Beylik | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Andronikos III John Cantacuzene |
Orhan I | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
~4,000[4] or fewer: ~2,000 soldiers from Constantinople, and something less than this number from Thrace.[5] | ~8,000[5] |
The Battle of Pelekanon, also known by its Latinised form Battle of Pelecanum, occurred on June 10–11, 1329 between an expeditionary force by the Byzantines led by
Background
By the accession of Andronicus in 1328, the Imperial territories in Anatolia had dramatically shrunk from almost all of the west of modern Turkey forty years earlier to a few scattered outposts along the Aegean Sea and a small core province around Nicomedia within about 150 km of the capital city Constantinople. Recently the Turks, under their energetic leader Osman I, had captured the important city of Prusa (Bursa) in Bithynia. Andronicus decided to relieve the important besieged cities of Nicomedia and Nicaea, and hoped to restore the frontier to a stable position.[4]
Clash and outcome
Together with the
Consequences
The Battle of Pelekanon was the first engagement in which a
Notes
- ^ Pitcher, Donald Edgar. An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire from Earliest Times to the End of the Sixteenth Century, Brill Archive, 1972, p. 38.
- ^ Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol 1, Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. 15.
- ^ Heath, Ian and Angus McBride, Byzantine Armies 1118–1461 AD. Osprey Publishing, 1995, 8.
- ^ a b c d e f Treadgold, p. 761.
- ^ a b Bartusis, The Late Byzantine Army, p. 91 "In June 1329 he [Andronicus III] and Kantakouzenos led a major expedition into Asia with 2,000 soldiers from Constantinople, and something less than this number from Thrace. At Pelekanos their army encountered the forces of Orhan, Osman's son and successor, encamped with about 8,000 men."
- ^ ISBN 9780521522014.
- ISBN 9789004206663.
- ^ a b Finlay, George (1854). History of the Byzantine Empire. Blackwood, Harvard University. p. 530.
- ^ ISBN 9780521439916.
References
- Bartusis, Marc C. The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 1204–1453, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
- Treadgold, W. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford University Press, 1997.