Autumn 1411 – 1412
İnceğiz and Serbia, 1411–1412
Mehmed meets Manuel at Scutari, and they swear that Mehmed will keep friendly relations with Byzantium if he wins and may take refuge in Constantinople if he loses. Byzantine ships carry his army across, and he meets Musa at İnceğiz near Çatalca in the autumn of 1411, or in the spring of 1412 by other reckonings. His vanguard of Tatars and Turkmen from Rum, with the army of Ankara and a few Byzantine troops, has the better of the start, but Musa’s 7,000 kapıkulu push through to Mehmed and wound his horse. Mehmed falls back to Constantinople and returns to Bursa.
At the end of 1411 Stefan Lazarević and Ottoman lords of Macedonia attack Musa’s lands from the west, but winter and the flooded Maritsa keep them from joining Mehmed’s troops. Mehmed returns to Anatolia to put down a revolt there.
Early in 1412 Musa marches from Sofia to Vranje and loots it, and Uglješa Vlatković, who holds it for Stefan, barely escapes. Musa goes on to Novo Brdo but withdraws toward Thessaly when Stefan comes up. Stefan joins Mehmed in an alliance against Musa.
The fortress of Novo Brdo after its restorationWikimedia Commons, Arben Llapashtica, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Medieval Novo Brdo Fortress after reconstruction.jpg)
Sources
- Anonymous, Aḥvāl-i Sulṭān Meḥemmed (15th century).
- Doukas, Historia Turco-Byzantina (about 1462).
- Konstantin the Philosopher, Life of Despot Stefan Lazarević (1431).
- Dimitris J. Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid (2007).
- Jovanka Kalić, “Veliki preokret”, in Istorija srpskog naroda, vol. 2 (1982), 64–74.
- Halil İnalcık, “Meḥemmed I”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 6 (1991), 973–978.
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