Battle of Sırpsındığı

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Battle of Sırp Sındığı
Part of the
Adrianople
Result

Ottoman victory

  • Adrianople
    becomes capital of Ottoman state
Belligerents  Serbian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire Bulgarian Empire
Wallachia Wallachia
Kingdom of Hungary  Ottoman EmpireCommanders and leaders
Ivan Alexander
Louis I of Hungary
Hacı İlbeyStrength 30,000 to 60,000 5,000-10,000[1]Casualties and losses Over thousands killed and drowned, remainder of the army escaped Unknown

Sırpsındığı was according to Ottoman sources, a sudden night raid by an

crusaders, led by king Louis I of Hungary, sent by the Pope. The Ottomans destroyed the Serbian army, which is why the battle was known as "sırp sındığı" (destruction of Serbs
). The battle was the first attempt to throw the Ottomans from the Balkans with an allied army. There is no record of this battle in any Serbian, Hungarian, papal, or other European sources.

Definition of "Sırpsındığı"

In

Ottoman Turkish Sırp means "Serbian" and sındı means "destruction", hence sırpsındığı means "destruction of Serbs"[2] or 'Rout of the Serbs'[3][4]
that symbolises the casualties of Serbian soldiers in this battle.

Prelude

When the Ottomans captured

Ban of Bosnia agreed to send some troops to support that allied force. The Kingdom of Hungary, which was also fighting for leadership in the Balkans, supported that army by sending troops led by Louis I of Hungary
.

Battle

A

Byzantine army at Biga, (Çanakkale). Most of the Ottoman army was in Asia Minor. Lala Sahin Pasha who was the first Beylerbey of Rumelia
, demanded Sultan to send him some reinforcements. Lala Şahin Paşa appointed “Hacı İlbey” to be the commander of an expeditionary force that was supposed to monitor and slow down the allied army.

Despite all efforts, the allied army crossed the Maritsa river very easily without any important resistance, and made a camp in

akinjis attacked the allied camp in the darkness of night, and they each carried two torches for the purpose of deceiving the enemy into thinking that they had double their actual numbers. The trick worked, and this surprise attack threw the allied army into a panic given that they were drunk or asleep because of the feast. They supposed that the Ottoman Sultan Murad I
had arrived there with a large army. Most of the allied troops tried to retreat back to the road where they came from, though many of them were drowned in the Maritsa river while trying to swim to the opposite side. A majority of the soldiers were Serbians.

Aftermath

Despite his victory, Hacı İlbey lived only one year after that battle for in 1365 he was poisoned by Lala Sahin Pasha who was jealous of his victory. Adrianople became a capital of the Ottomans. The Bulgarians agreed to pay tribute to the Ottomans and this battle hastened the fall of Bulgaria because the Ottomans started to occupy upper Bulgaria. The high number of Serbian casualties in this battle was one of the main reasons for the Battle of Maritsa, a battle where the Serbs and their allies would attempt to avenge the loss for this battle.

Confusion and disambiguation

  • According to some sources,[3] this battle and Battle of Maritsa (Battle of Chernomen) was one and the same battle.
  • According to Turkish sources, Sirpsindiği and the Battle of Maritsa were two separate battles,
    Sarayakpınar
    village in Turkey; two different places which are both located at the banks of Maritsa river. Because of this situation some sources use the terms "First Battle (of Maritsa)" for Sırp Sındığı and "Second Battle (of Maritsa)" for the one at Ormenio. The commanders of these two battles were different; the Ottoman forces in the Battle of Maritsa were led by Lala Şahin Paşa, while Sırp Sındığı was led by Hacı Ilbey, who had in fact been killed by Lala Şahin Paşa in 1365.
  • According to some other sources there were two big battles in 1364 and 1371, but that the "Sırp Sındigi" (destruction of Serbs) was the Battle of Maritsa (at Ormenio), while the battle in 1364 might have been called by a different name.[2]

At the instigation of Pope Urban V, a crusading army of Hungarians, Serbians, Bosnians and Wallachians was formed and in 1364 it set forth to recapture Adrianople. It marched undisturbed to the Maritsa, but there it was surprised by a night attack and cut to pieces. ...Nevertheless the Serbs resolved to stop Turks in the valley of the Maritsa and marched as far as "Chernomen" between Philippolis and Adrianople. There at dawn on September 26, 1371, a greatly inferior Turkish force surprised them and slaughtered large numbers...[2]

There is no single record of this battle in Serbian and Hungarian sources. All information about the battle of 1364 is based on Ottoman sources. Some of that information collisions with the medieval history of Hungary, Bosnia,

Congress of Krakow,[8]
where the European monarch discussed possible crusade against Turks.

Sources

  1. ^ Abdürrahim Dede (1975). Rumeli'de birakilanlar: Bati Trakya Türkleri. Otaǧ Matbaasi. ... esnada, Papa V. Urbain'in teşviki ile hareket eden ve çoğunluğu Sırp olan bir Haçlı ordusu 1364 tarihinde Sırp-Sındığı denilen mahalde Hacı il Bey kumandasındaki 10.000 kişilik Türk ordusunun ani bir gece baskını sonunda yok edilmişti.
  2. ^ a b c L.S Stavrianos, The Balkan since 1453, p.43-44.
  3. ^ a b S.J.Shaw (1976) History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey Vol.1 Empire of Gazis Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p.18
  4. ^ D.Nicolle, (1983), Armies of the Ottoman Turks 1300-1774, Osprey Pub. London, p.28.
  5. ^ Oral Onur (1995). Sırpsındığı zaferi: Rumeli'nin ilk şehitleri : Anıt kitabe. O. Onur. p. 27.
  6. ISBN 963-326-905-9
    .
  7. ^ Ćirković, Sima, ed. (1981). Istorija srpskog naroda: knj. Od najstarijih vremena do Maričke bitke (1371) (in Serbian). Srpska književna zadruga. p. 587.
  8. OCLC 634985
    .
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