April – October 1440
Belgrade, 1440
Albert’s widow Elizabeth gives birth to a son, Ladislaus, on 22 February 1440 and has the infant crowned at Székesfehérvár on 15 May. The estates of Hungary offer the crown to Władysław III of Poland, who is crowned there on 17 July 1440, and a civil war begins between the supporters of the two kings.
The Holy Crown of Hungary, with which the infant Ladislaus was crowned at Székesfehérvár in May 1440Wikimedia Commons, Tolfavi, Public domain (A Szent Korona elölről 2.jpg)
Murad uses the division of Hungary to lay siege to Belgrade at the end of April 1440. Its commander Ivan Talovac, prior of Vrana, holds the town with about 500 men from Croatia, Czech and Italian archers and the town’s Serbs, and some of his men use firearms. The Ottomans build a wall around the town and attack it with siege towers, with ships on the rivers and with cannon, some of them cast at Smederevo.
An assault led by Ali Bey Evrenosoğlu fails with heavy losses, 17,000 dead by early Christian accounts, and Murad lifts the siege in the autumn. The accounts give the siege a length of three to seven months. In the summer of 1440 Đurađ travels from Hungary by Zagreb to Dubrovnik, which he reaches at the end of July, and goes on to Zeta, where Bar becomes the seat of what remains of his despotate.
Sources
- Konstantin Mihailović, Memoirs of a Janissary (about 1500).
- Aşıkpaşazade, Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân (late 15th century).
- János Thuróczy, Chronica Hungarorum (1488).
- Jan Długosz, Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae (late 15th century).
- John Jefferson, The Holy Wars of King Wladislas and Sultan Murad: The Ottoman-Christian Conflict from 1438–1444 (2012).
- Pál Engel, The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 (2001).
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