Spring – July 1413
Çamurlu, 1413
In the spring of 1413 Musa campaigns in the Morava valley of Serbia. He captures and executes Hamza Bey, lord of Svrljig and Soko, and takes Kruševac, Stalać, whose commander falls in its defence, and other towns.
The Don Zon tower of the fortress of KruševacWikimedia Commons, Sunrise, Public domain (Don Zon kula.jpg)
Mehmed, after putting down a revolt of Cüneyd of Aydın, gathers his army at Ankara with troops sent by his father-in-law, the Dulkadir bey. He gathers more men in western Anatolia on the way to Bursa, crosses at Constantinople on ships of Manuel II, who adds Byzantine troops, and marches by Edirne toward Serbia. Stefan Lazarević’s army, with troops of Sigismund and of Sandalj Hranić of Bosnia, joins Mehmed’s commanders near Kruševac, and Evrenos and other lords of Musa come over to them on the march south to Ovče Polje.
The armies meet at Çamurlu near Samokov on 5 July 1413. Musa drives back the Serbs at first, but by the Serbian account a flank attack led by Radič Postupović, a commander of Đurađ Branković, breaks his line. Musa flees wounded and is caught by the Iskar river and strangled. Mehmed now rules all the Ottoman lands alone.
Sources
- Anonymous, Aḥvāl-i Sulṭān Meḥemmed (15th century).
- Konstantin the Philosopher, Life of Despot Stefan Lazarević (1431).
- Doukas, Historia Turco-Byzantina (about 1462).
- Mehmed Neşri, Kitâb-ı Cihan-nümâ (late 15th century).
- Dimitris J. Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid (2007).
- Jovanka Kalić, “Veliki preokret”, in Istorija srpskog naroda, vol. 2 (1982), 64–74.
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