1409 – February 1411
Musa in Rumelia, 1409–1411
In 1409 Mehmed and Musa meet near Kırşehir and agree that Musa will open a war against Süleyman in Europe. Musa sails from Sinop with İsfendiyar’s help to Wallachia, where Mircea receives him, and raises an army of Wallachians and of Turkmen settled along the Danube and in Dobruja. Stefan Lazarević, whose brother Vuk had forced him that year with Süleyman’s troops to give up the lands south of the West Morava, allies with Musa.
The castle of Sinop by the harbourWikimedia Commons, Ertly, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Sinop-Castle.jpg)
Early in 1410 Musa crosses the Danube and beats Süleyman’s beylerbey at Yambol. Süleyman hurries back from Anatolia and crosses at Constantinople with the help of Manuel II, while Mehmed takes Bursa behind him. On 15 June 1410 the brothers fight at Kosmidion, outside the land walls of Constantinople. Musa’s army has the upper hand until Süleyman attacks his camp with a few hundred men, and Vuk Lazarević and other lords who had joined Musa go over to Süleyman.
Mircea the Elder and his son Mihail at the monastery of Cozia, a 16th-century copy of a painting of Mircea’s timeWikimedia Commons, unknown painter, Public domain (007 - Mircea cel Batran si Mihail I.jpg)
Musa withdraws to Yambol, his men capture Vuk at Philippopolis, and Musa has him executed. Süleyman beats Musa again near Edirne on 11 July, but loses supporters over the winter. On 17 February 1411 Musa takes Edirne by surprise, and Süleyman, fleeing toward Constantinople, is caught and killed.
Sources
- Anonymous, Aḥvāl-i Sulṭān Meḥemmed (15th century).
- Konstantin the Philosopher, Life of Despot Stefan Lazarević (1431).
- Doukas, Historia Turco-Byzantina (about 1462).
- Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Histories (c. 1464).
- 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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