Battle of Rovine
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Battle of Rovine | |||||||
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Part of the Ottoman wars in Europe and Ottoman-Wallachian wars | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Wallachia | Ottoman Empire | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Mircea the Elder | Sultan | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Heavy | Heavy |
The Battle of Rovine took place on 17 May 1395.[5] The Wallachian army led by Voivod Mircea the Elder opposed the Ottoman invasion personally led by Sultan Bayezid I the Thunderbolt. The Turkish force heavily outnumbered the Wallachian troops. The legend says that on the eve of the battle, dressed as a peace emissary, Mircea cel Bătrân talked to Bayezid asking him to leave Wallachia and promising him safe passage back. The Sultan proudly insisted on fighting.
Battle
The battle took place probably near the
During the battle, a key tactical role was played by the Wallachian archers who severely depleted the Ottoman ranks during their initial attack.[7] Bayezid's vassals, the Serbian lords Stefan Lazarević and Marko Mrnjavčević, two of the greatest knights of the time, participated and fought bravely; Stefan showed great courage, Marko was killed in action.
An alternative historical view is that the dramatic confrontation lasted not just a single day, but an entire week, being in the first stage a war of positions. The fierce battle ended with heavy casualties for both sides, eventually each army withdrawing from the battlefield. Although Wallachians pushed back the enemy, the Ottomans were able to defend their resulting position relying on the personal guard of the Sultan composed of
An epic description of the confrontation is presented in the poem "Scrisoarea a III-a" (The Third Letter) written by the Romanian national poet,
See also
References
- ^ a b Fine 1994, p. 424
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4191-4050-1.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-22126-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-405-02747-5.
- ISBN 0-8135-1198-4.
- ^ a b Dan Ioan Mureşan. "Avant Nicopolis: observations sur la campagne de 1395 pour le contrôle du Bas-Danube". Archived from the original on 12 February 2009.
- ^ Cronica bulgară la I. Bogdan, Ein Beitrag zur bulgarischen und serbischen Geschichtschreibung, în Archiv für slavische Philologie, p. 530. The historical sources mention that the sun was blocked out by the vast number of arrows.
- ^ Ђурић, Иван (1984). Сумрак Византије: време Јована VIII Палеолога (1392–1448). Народна књига. p. 78.
У Дечанском летопису је, уз вест о боју на Ровинама, забележено како су тамо погинули Марко Краљевић и Константин Драгаш.
- ^ Successors of the Mrnjavčević family and theritories under their power 1371–1459, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, PhD thesis of Aleksić Vladimir (2012), p. 147.
Sources
- Fine, John Van Antwerp (1994), The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest, Ann Arbor: ISBN 978-0-472-08260-5