The Great Enemy of the Turks, Janos Hunyadi. The Youth of a Commander
Karol Lotz. John Hunyadi
Today we will talk about the commander Janos Hunyadi. His name is little known in our country, but he was one of the most significant figures in Eastern Europe in the 15th century and became famous in the wars with the Turks. And his son, Matthias Hunyadi Corvin, became the king of Hungary.
Historians still argue about the nationality of the article's hero. He was born in 1407 in Little Wallachia (the Romanian region of Oltenia), but his grandfather was called Serb, and it remains unclear whether this was a name or a nickname. Some say he was of Kun (Cuman) origin. And in Hungary, Cumans are the descendants of the Polovtsians who fled to the territory of this country from the Mongols of Batu Khan.
In addition, there were rumors that Janos was the illegitimate son of King Sigismund I of Luxembourg. However, there is no documentary evidence to support this, and therefore serious scholars are not inclined to believe in his royal origin.
As for the surname Hunyadi, the father of the hero of the article received it from the name of the castle granted to him in 1409. It is located on the territory of Romania, its modern name is Hunedoara.
Hunedoara Castle, Romania
Portrait of Janos Hunyadi on the stained glass window of the Hunedoara castle
In 1430, the hero of the article entered the service of the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary Sigismund. He fought successfully against the Hussites, from whom he borrowed the famous tactics of fighting in the wagenburg. Later, he actively used wagenburgs during battles with the Turks.
Hussite cart in a 15th century miniature
In 1437 he managed to drive the Turks out of Semenderiya (now the city of Smederevo, Serbia).
Meanwhile, after Sigismund's death in December 1437, his successor Albrecht Habsburg managed to unite Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland under his rule. However, he did not rule for long and died in October 1439. As a result, on July 17, 1440, the young Polish king Vladislav III, whose ally was the hero of our article, became the king of Hungary under the name of Ulaszlo I. Hunyadi supported this pretender because of his anti-Turkish position - such a king suited him quite well.
Marcello Bachiarelli. Portrait of Vladislav III, painted between 1768 and 1771.
And on the side of Albrecht's young son Ladislaus Postumus (who was born a few months after his father's death) came the former Hussite commander Jan Iskra.
Jan Iskra in a drawing by Mikoláš Aleš
He was hired by the baby's mother (the widow of the deceased Albrecht), and there would be many more problems with him. Hunyadi, already the regent of Hungary, would have to fight with this condottiere in 1449.
New threat
Meanwhile, in the south, the Ottoman Empire was once again gaining strength. In 1402, after a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Timur's forces at Ankara, it was on the verge of collapse, and Europe seemed to be able to breathe freely. Sultan Bayezid I, the victor over the Crusaders at the Battle of Nicopolis, died in captivity, and his four sons fought fiercely for 11 years.
The winner was Mehmed I Çelebi, the youngest of the brothers. Gradually, he and his son Murad II regained control over the lost territories. The Ottoman state was gaining strength, and this especially worried the Hungarians, who understood that it was their lands that would be attacked in the event of a new war.
Janos Hunyadi fought successfully against the Turks and inflicted several defeats on them in 1441-1442. The year 1442 was especially successful, when two Ottoman armies were defeated at Seben and Zaikany. The victory in the first of these battles was very spectacular, in which the Turkish troops were met by Simon Kemeny, who put on the armor of the hero of the article and sat on his horse. The Turks destroyed this detachment and were already jubilant, feeling like winners, when Janos Hunyadi, “killed” by them, attacked them from behind – in exactly the same armor and on a horse of the same color. The superstitious Turks fled in horror from the “resurrected dead man”.
In 1443, Hunyadi defeated three Ottoman armies. Having liberated Niš, he established contact with the famous Albanian leader George Kastrioti (Skanderbeg). Krusevac and Sofia were also captured. The Ottomans were pushed back beyond the Danube. Meanwhile, in Anatolia, they were attacked by Ibrahim Bey, a member of the Karamanid sultans who were rivals of the Ottomans. In order to focus on the fight against him, Murad II was forced to conclude the Szeged Peace Treaty in early 1444, according to which he renounced power over the Serbian lands bordering Hungary.
The Sultan also agreed to the return of the Serbian despot George Brankovic, who had been expelled in 1439, but obliged him to pay tribute. The traditional duty to send a detachment of 4 men to serve the Turkish army in the event of war was also retained. The border was drawn along the Danube, which both sides agreed not to cross for 10 years.
Confident that he had provided his country with at least 10 years of peaceful existence, in August 1444 Murad II decided to leave the throne, handing over power to his 12-year-old son Mehmed. No one knew yet that in 9 years this teenager would conquer Constantinople and in 30 years from 1451 to 1481 would increase the territory of the Ottoman state from 900 thousand to 2 million 214 thousand square kilometers. history He will enter under the nickname Fatih – the Conqueror.
Mehmed II in a portrait by G. Bellini, 1480.
In the meantime, the boy loved to draw (and some of his drawings have been preserved), and had already learned 5 foreign languages (Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian, and Serbian). But in politics and military affairs, he was still a complete layman.
The adventure of Vladislav III
Having united the two kingdoms under his rule, Vladislav decided that the time had come to deal the Ottomans a decisive blow, driving them out not only from Europe but even from Western Anatolia. He was decisively supported by Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, the papal legate who had previously headed the commission for negotiations with the Hussites.
Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini
He suggested that Vladislav seek permission for a new war from Pope Eugenius IV, and he was not mistaken: the pontiff declared that “the oaths given to Muslims may not be observed.”
Pope Eugene IV
And then he called on Catholics to launch a new Crusade. The Teutonic Knights, Bosnians, Croats, Wallachians, Transylvanians, Bulgarians and Albanians began to gather for the campaign against the Turks.
The Wallachian cavalry was commanded by Mircea, the son of Vlad II Dracula, who is often confused with Vlad III the Impaler, the prototype of the hero of Bram Stoker's acclaimed novel. Vlad III, who became a vampire at the behest of this author, also bore the nickname "Dracula", but it only meant belonging to the Order of the Dragon founded by Emperor Sigismund. One of Mircea's detachments was led by Stephen Bathory, the ancestor of his namesake, the King of Poland Stefan Bathory.
Moreover, the crusader army included quite a lot of Czech mercenaries – former Taborites and “orphans” (warriors of Jan Žižka, “orphaned” after his death in 1424). They were veterans of the decisive battle of Lipany, which they lost to the Utraquists in 1434. The most famous of them was Jan Čapek, who led the “orphans” in 1431–1434 and reached the Baltic Sea with them. He became one of the heroes of A. Sapkowski’s novel “Eternal Light”, which reliably tells about the aforementioned battle of Lipany:
A great cry arose among Tabor and Sirotki that the enemy was running, that they had to catch up with him and finish him off. They opened the wagenburg and rushed in a crowd into the field.
And that was their end. And their death.
– Halt! Halt! – roared Jan Čapek from San. – It’s a trap! Hitch the carts! Don’t leave the hradby!
...the armored cavalry rushed at the infantry, deprived of the protection of the wagons and scattered across the field. The Rozhmberts, feigning flight, returned, wedged themselves between the positioned wagons, burst into the wagenburg, impaling the defense on their spears and sweeping them away at full speed... they threw chains with hooks onto the wagons of the wagenburg, turned the horses, and pulled. The wagons overturned, crushing the archers and crossbowmen. The Calixtinian cavalry burst into the breach, stabbing, chopping, and trampling. The torn wagenburg suddenly turned into a trap with no exit.
- This is the end! - shouted Jan Čapek of San, cutting his sword left and right. - Defeat! We are finished! Save yourself if you can!
And that was their end. And their death.
– Halt! Halt! – roared Jan Čapek from San. – It’s a trap! Hitch the carts! Don’t leave the hradby!
...the armored cavalry rushed at the infantry, deprived of the protection of the wagons and scattered across the field. The Rozhmberts, feigning flight, returned, wedged themselves between the positioned wagons, burst into the wagenburg, impaling the defense on their spears and sweeping them away at full speed... they threw chains with hooks onto the wagons of the wagenburg, turned the horses, and pulled. The wagons overturned, crushing the archers and crossbowmen. The Calixtinian cavalry burst into the breach, stabbing, chopping, and trampling. The torn wagenburg suddenly turned into a trap with no exit.
- This is the end! - shouted Jan Čapek of San, cutting his sword left and right. - Defeat! We are finished! Save yourself if you can!
Mikolas Ales. Jan Capek ze San (1901)
By the way, look at the coat of arms of the city of Pilsen:
Do you see the camel on it, which was given to Jan Čapek by the Polish King Władysław II Jagiello? It was later captured by the inhabitants of Pilsen, and the trophy seemed so valuable to them that its image still adorns the city coat of arms.
Let's return to another king, Vladislav III, who knew about the advanced tactics of the Hussites. He collected more than a thousand battle and cargo wagons, but his army had few warriors who knew how to properly build a wagenburg and fight effectively in it.
Venetian warships attempted to block the exit to the Mediterranean Sea through the Black Sea straits.
The Hungarian corps was commanded by the hero of the article, Janos Hunyadi.
The troops of the Papal States were led by the above-mentioned “servant of God,” Cardinal Cesarini.
But there were few Poles - only volunteers, since the Sejm did not allocate either troops or money to Vladislav.
The Serbian ruler George Brankovic, whose daughter became the wife of Murad II, was horrified by the prospect of a new war, the success of which he did not believe at all. He tried to mediate between the Ottomans and Vladislav III and then forbade the army of the Crusaders to go to Edirne through his lands.
Overall, everything was very serious, and if the overall leadership had been entrusted to the already very authoritative Hunyadi, who had proven himself in battles with the Turks, and the young King Vladislav had limited himself to the role of nominal commander-in-chief, the crusaders might have really had a chance to take revenge on the Ottomans for their defeat at Nicopolis.
The Return of Murad II
Murad II, sultan der osmanen, Austrian National Library
Sultan Murad II, who had retired, returned to power and began preparing to repel the aggression. The situation was so serious that he did not really believe in success, and a number of authors unanimously claim that the Sultan took with him 500 camels loaded with expensive goods and even sacks of gold: he believed that in the event of the defeat of the Ottoman army, the Crusaders would stop to plunder this caravan, and he himself and at least part of the army would be able to retreat to a safe distance.
Murad II's allies were Venice's eternal rivals, the Genoese, who transported his army to the Rumelian (European) coast on their ships. As a result, the Ottomans managed to approach the crusader army from the west and press it to the Black Sea coast. The Ottomans had the numerical advantage: 35 to 40 thousand Turkish soldiers against 20-30 thousand crusaders.
But we will probably talk about the Battle of Varna and what happened to Janos Hunyadi after the defeat in the next article.
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