1417 – 1420
Wallachia and Valona, 1417–1420
Mehmed turns against Mircea of Wallachia, who had backed Musa, Mustafa and Bedreddin. In 1417 he crosses the Danube, takes Turnu and Giurgiu and has the castle of Giurgiu strengthened. Mircea agrees to pay a yearly tribute of 3,000 gold pieces, which one account dates from 1415. In June 1417 Ottoman troops take Valona and Kanina from Ruđina Balšić while Venice is still bargaining with her over their price, and she flees to Corfu.
The gate of the castle of Kanina above VlorëWikimedia Commons, Arberian2444, CC BY 4.0 (Kaninë Castle Entrance.png)
Mircea dies on 31 January 1418 and is buried in the monastery of Cozia. His son Mihail stops paying the tribute and looks for allies against the Ottomans. In 1419 Ottoman troops fight at Severin, and King Sigismund takes the banate of Severin back from them.
In the spring of 1420 an Ottoman army raised in Anatolia and Rumelia invades Wallachia, plunders it and carries off many captives, and Ottoman troops take Isaccea and Enisala in Dobruja. Mihail flees and is killed in battle by his rival Dan II, whom the Ottomans back. Dobruja becomes Ottoman land, in 1420 by one account and in 1419 by another, and an Ottoman attack on the Moldavian fortress of Chilia is beaten off.
The fortress of Enisala in DobrujaWikimedia Commons, Gabriel Tocu, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Cetatea Enisala la apus (2).JPG)
Sources
- Constantin C. Giurescu, Istoria Românilor, vol. 1 (1938).
- John V. A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans (1994).
- Alain Ducellier, La façade maritime de l’Albanie au Moyen Âge (1981).
- Halil İnalcık, “Dobrudja”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 2.
- Halil İnalcık, “Meḥemmed I”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 6 (1991), 973–978.
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